Currently available VHS players with linear stereo?

[rotoflex]

I have many VHS cassettes that I would like to transfer to DVD.

They are pre-recorded prorgrams, labeled STEREO, but obviously are not VHS Hi-Fi, so they must be the linear VHS stereo that preceded VHS Hi-Fi.

There are several VHS decks available in stores labeled STEREO but the fine print seems to indicate that they are advertising their VHS Hi-Fi. There is no indication whether or not they have stereo linear heads to play back linear stereo.

Does anyone have any knowledge of currently available VHS decks which have linear stereo in their specs?

I have a JVC HR-S5000U VHS deck here which has linear stereo heads as well as VHS Hi-Fi, but I can't get it to stop eating tapes.

[hech54]

There are several VHS decks available in stores labeled STEREO

I highly doubt you will find a feature that was discontinued 20 years ago in one of the very few VCRs available today.

[jman98]

Can you not just play these tapes on a HiFi VCR? I've got some old VHS tapes from the 1980s that I really do not think were made with HiFi stereo and they play fine on my only working VCR, which is a HiFi unit. I rarely do anything with those tapes, but they produce sound.

Your reference to "pre-recorded" troubles me. Are you talking about commercial tapes you could buy in places like music stores at the time? Note that many commercial tapes have Macrovision on them specifically to prevent you from copying them and note that DVD recorders will absolutely respect the Macrovision and refuse to copy the tape. You will have to invest in a TBC to defeat this. Finally, whatever you do please do NOT buy a VCR/DVD recorder combo unit as those are notorious for refusing to copy VHS tapes and sometimes they refuse to copy tapes you recorded yourself off TV years ago even though those tapes don't have Macrovision.

[NJRoadfan]

Prior to VHS Hi-Fi stereo, Panasonic (and its rebadgers) marketed VCRs with dual linear audio tracks using Dolby SR noise reduction. There were a handful of commercial releases with the stereo tracks. Once VHS Hi-Fi came out, about 2 models supported both systems and then linear stereo pretty much disappeared from both players and tapes. Super VHS came out well after linear stereo vanished off the market so its unlikely that the HR-S5000U supported it.

Here is a nice demo of a linear stereo VCR (starts around 4:20):

If you can't find a consumer deck that can play linear stereo, find a professional (S)VHS editor, they support the dual tracks and the Dolby noise reduction. Note that these pro decks only support SP speed, but that shouldn't be an issue on a commercial release. The 2nd track was rarely used in pro applications, most users opted to write linear timecode to track #2 instead before things like VITC became available. Of course the best option would be to seek the video on either a newer VHS release (with Hi-Fi stereo) or on DVD if either are available.

[turk690]

Can you not just play these tapes on a HiFi VCR? I've got some old VHS tapes from the 1980s that I really do not think were made with HiFi stereo and they play fine on my only working VCR, which is a HiFi unit. I rarely do anything with those tapes, but they produce sound.

rotoflex' VHS tapes can probably be played on a hi-fi VCR, but audio will be mono. I suppose he wants to play back the original linear stereo tracks. Tough, considering the last time I saw such a machine was in 1985.

[rotoflex]

Thanks to all of you for your replies.

Going through the manual for this HR-S5000U, I finally found on one page "Tapes recorded with a conventional stereo video recorder produce monaural sound when played back with the HR-S5000U." So all the specs were murky, the manual does indicate that its linear audio head is mono, not stereo. At least I can stop considering it a contender.

The tapes are commercial tapes from a small company active in the 1980s and 1990s & are not Macrovision encoded.

It looks like I'll be abandoning the retrieval of linear stereo information.

Any suggestions on a current VHS deck from an electronics store (besides not a VHS/DVD combo unit)? There were a few available.
I have a DVDXpress DX2 unit for VHS/DVD transfer.
I would love a TBC, but all the ones I've seen on ebay have been pricey.

Thanks again.

[Cornucopia]

Take those few tapes to a dub/xfer house that has something like the Panasonic SVHS AG-DS555 (stereo+hifi+TBC) and be done with it...

Scott

[rotoflex]

I have 98 of them, & there are 213 more I hope to someday find.
A transfer house would probably wipe me out!