AG-1330 - any value?

[swiego]

In a nutshell, I found someone selling three 1980P decks (a former studio employee who had a home lab) in excellent condition so I jumped on it. She also had a number of AG-1330 decks and it was one of those "if you want those decks, you need to take these ones too because I need them all out of my house now" deals.

I cannot find much information online about the AG-1330p, but I have four of them sitting on my living room carpet now, and I'm sure my fiancee is already upset at the amount of old AV gear I have. So.....

Do they have any value vis-a-vis VHS or SVHS capture?

They look quite simple... there's a "CVC" button up front that I haven't seen before on other AG decks, otherwise it's a mystery to me.

[yoda313]

I checked out ebay and they have about a dozen or so listed in various conditions. They range from about 20-60.00. There is one going for 150.00 or so but I think that is probably a sellers wishful thinking.

Why not post it on ebay and see what you can get for it?

Though I'd test it out first so you can write a decent review of it in the comment section. Use a handful of homemade tapes and a few commercial tapes. Use a good sample size four to six or more so you don't get just the one really good tape and one really bad tape.

Who knows you might get a bidding war for one.

[swiego]

Thanks for the reply

Not looking to make money on this or anything; just trying to figure out if these are of value for VHS/SVHS archival purposes or whether I should take them to the local electronics recycler. That said, I will take your advice and do some captures against some of the current capture decks du jour to see how it performs. I opened up two of them, and they have very, very simple electronics - a single PCB, no backplane that I can see, and a tiny fraction of the weight of, say, the 1980P.

[orsetto]

The AG1330 was a nice VCR for its targeted niche 10 years ago, but today is damn near worthless. It was actually quite sturdy and durable, simple construction notwithstanding. Unlike the AG1980, its power supply, main board and transport mechanics were very reliable and don't go bad with age. It was a popular VCR for sales kiosks and museum displays that didn't require stereo audio. The CVC button is just a gimmick: it boosts apparent sharpness but also makes the output much grainier.

AG1330 is the same basic chassis as the very fine AG2560, but stripped of the hifi stereo audio system and jog/shuttle dial. Video performance is on par with the AG1970 precursor to the AG1980, but the lack of hifi audio just about kills its value as a consumer player and makes it worthless for digitizing VHS hifi tapes. They sit and rot on eBay: don't even waste your time. Drop them off at Goodwill, or offer them for some token amount like $10 on Craigs List just to get them to a good home. They make great kids VCRs or spare VCRs for people with no HiFi tapes.