Dual VHS/VHS-C VCRs to play VHS-C tapes wthout adapter

[Bsmarado]

To digitize old VHS-C tapes i am using and adapter and a Panasonic DMR-EX95V. Althogh the results are good, I noticed that there are VCRs that were specificaly desid ed to play VHS-C without adapter. I am aware of the these 3 models ljsted bellow, but do you know other decks that can do the same?
- JVC HR-SC1000
- Blaupunkt RTVNV-V80FC
- Panasonic NV-V8000

The Blaupunkt and Panasonic look lke the best solution to play natively VHS-C tapes, hands down. They offer:
- very high quality build (no belts, all is done with gears, mostly metalic),
- SVHS HiFi,
- Time Base Corrector
- DNR
- Sharpness Control
- Video Y-C adjust
- V-Lock adjust
- Colour level Control
- video insert
- 6 head (4× video + 2x audio)
- audio dubb
- 3x s-video connectors
- several editing functions

In Europe you can still find them fully refurbished and with warranty in Germany and on the Netherlands, but are expensive.
Are there any other options? I have Betacam, DigiBeta and DVCam decks that take both small and standard size tapes.... and I would like to have the same for VHS and avoid 'adapters.

Bruno.

[october262]

there was a VHS-C video recorder - http://www.dustygizmos.com/arcpages/arctvvideo.htm#JVC%20HR-C3

[johnmeyer]

Why do you think you need to avoid adapters?? I am not aware of any quality difference. The only issue of which I am aware is a slight increase in the potential for jamming, although I think that only happens if you use a cheap or damaged adapter.

IMHO, you are MUCH better off focusing your efforts on getting the best possible VCR and then using an adapter. The few models which can natively accept the VHS-C cassette will almost certainly not give you quality that is even close to what you will get with a really good, traditional VCR using an adapter.

[DB83]

Surely the vhs-c was always meant to be played back in a standard vhs WITH an adapter. That would be the norm. Anything else becomes an expensive gimmick.


I may be wrong but under the hood of these bespoke units there has to be a transportation mechanism that performs the same function as with an adapter. The cassette appears to be inserted in an adapted standard slot and not an independent slot.

[johnmeyer]

Surely the vhs-c was always meant to be played back in a standard vhs WITH an adapter. That would be the norm. Anything else becomes an expensive gimmick.

I may be wrong but under the hood of these bespoke units there has to be a transportation mechanism that performs the same function as with an adapter. The cassette appears to be inserted in an adapted standard slot and not an independent slot.

Your second statement got me thinking about the VHS-C camcorder and its size, so I Googled "VHS-C head size" and found this on Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VHS-C#VHS-C_head_drum

It says that the VHS-C head size is 2/3 the size of a normal drum. I have no training on this, so I don't know if that could alter the quality of the video when played back on a normal VHS unit with a full-sized drum.

Someone else will have to chime in as to whether this matters. However, having now researched this, another route would be to forget about a dedicated VHS-C deck, which likely does not have high-end features, and instead get a really good VHS-C or S-VHS-C camcorder.

[Cornucopia]

Notice in the Wiki article the phrase "trace out the SAME recording path". That means the tape contents are formatted identically to standard VHS. And, having had to salvage a broken vhsc cassette by manually spooling it off onto standard vhs reels in order to play in a standard vcr to transfer, I can testify firsthand that they play identically as well.

While it ought to be obvious and left unsaid that "the original recording device is always the mechanism to best reproduce such recordings", there should be no otherwise performance hit by putting vhsc cassettes in a QUALITY adapter and playing in a better deck, regardless of native size. I am in agreement with johnmeyer in this. Quality playback options for full size tape are much better than those for mini size.


Scott

[Bsmarado]

there was a VHS-C video recorder - http://www.dustygizmos.com/arcpages/arctvvideo.htm#JVC%20HR-C3

Tank's for the info. I was not aware of this model! It looks like to be only VHS (not SVHS) and designed for field/portable operation, unlike the high end Panasonic and Blaupunks.

These 4 models that are capable of play VHS-C tapes natively appear to be rare and/or expensive, thus I will keep using the adapter (good one) and my Panasonic VCR - In fact I get good results and no major lroblems.

Thank's to all of you for the feedback and the information/exlerience shared.
Regards
Bruno.

[Bsmarado]

there was a VHS-C video recorder - http://www.dustygizmos.com/arcpages/arctvvideo.htm#JVC%20HR-C3

Tank's for the info. I was not aware of this model! It looks like to be only VHS (not SVHS) and designed for field/portable operation, unlike the high end Panasonic and Blaupunks.

These 4 models that are capable of play VHS-C tapes natively appear to be rare and/or expensive, thus I will keep using the adapter (good one) and my Panasonic VCR - In fact I get good results and no major lroblems.

Thank's to all of you for the feedback and the information/exlerience shared.
Regards
Bruno.