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1975 Umatic 3/4″ video machine plays color for 1 minute then goes black and white
1975 Umatic 3/4″ video machine plays color for 1 minute then goes black and white
I cleaned the drum head several times, even whacked it with my boot a few times.
Is it a boat anchor ? or might there be an easy fix I don’t know of.
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13 Replies
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It might be as simple as a board swap. Those decks were made to be easily serviced. Finding someone with parts and who knows how to repair them is the trick.
If you have a lot of footage to transfer it might be worth it to fix. If you only have a couple of tapes then it would be better to send them off to a transfer service.
Joe
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In the day, I saw that type of intermittent behavior caused by a funky cable connection. What type of connection does that deck use, composite or SVHS? (***If there is no SVHS connection on any 3/4 machines, I might be confusing my own 3/4 deck with my BetaSP deck)
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss ProductionsDavid is a Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Apple Final Cut Pro forum.
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I appreciate the effort to make the suggestions, board swap, and if only a few tapes take to somebody else
but they are totally irrelevant to my question.
thanks anyways though for the effort.
steve -
David,
good and relevant suggestions, thanks.
It has several connectors, the other I don’t recall what, some sort of blue rectangular multi-pin, but, it does have Composite and RF Out connectors. The RF appears to be the same as still comes into people’s homes from Cable TV/Internet services.
I did try a different composite cable, and the RF too.
Same results.
It plays colour for about 1 minute, then the colour begins to fade and flicker, and then it disappears in a flash, one resolution line after the other from top of screen to bottom, and it’s gone.
I am assuming it’s a board finally gone bad after 40 years – like the other guy suggested – which makes it a good boat anchor.
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Hey Steve,
What are you monitoring the deck on?
Straight to video monitor for confidence, or through a digital video capture system?
(Just making sure that it isn’t software going B/W)It is soo long since I edited on U-Matic, and I was working in PAL – none of the “Not The Same Color” Twice stuff 😉
However, could it be a Low- / High-band tape issue?Lastly: What Black burst (sync) are you feeding the box? Seem to remember if it doesn’t have a stable sync, this could affect the colors – unlikely, but worth trying.
If everything else fails: Capture 1 minute at a time and stitch it together later on a NLE or similar.
Hope this helps?
All the Best
Mads@madsvid, London, UK
Check out my other hangouts:
Twitter: @madsvid
https://mads-thinkingoutloud.blogspot.co.uk -
Really nice to chat with you about this 🙂
I’m going thru DVD burner to consumer TV for monitor. No probs with DVD burner or TV monitor, other tape sources retain colours.
My test Umatic tape goes B&W too same way.
I don’t have any signal adjusting equipment like fixing sync
Whenever I try from scratch playback is colour for 1 or 2 minutes, the customer’s tape displays a colour bar test screen perfectly, but, after colour disappears, and I rewind try again, no colours, I have to shut off the Umatic machine, wait, power it up, then I might get a bit more in colour.
To get all 7 minutes would take me more years than I have left on this planet. 🙁
The customer’s tape was recorded in 1994, why on Umatic in 1994 is a good question. I did the whole 7 minutes to DVD with a few spots in colour. She was happy to get what I could do for her.
So, I guess a sorta happy ending anyways.
thanks for the chat, eh !
steve -
Steve,
I was thinking about this overnight, and I kinda remembered that 3/4 decks required an incoming video signal to supply sync. At least I think I remember that…
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss ProductionsDavid is a Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Apple Final Cut Pro forum.
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Don’t know about that stuff David, it’s all greek to me I’m sorry to say.
I can say I didn’t have any trouble some years ago when I transferred my test tape using the machine.
Anyways, the customer tape is gone now, so, guess it’s end of story.
much thanks for trying to help.
steve
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Hey Steve,
It can be as simple as taking composite video signal from another old vtr playing back a tape with no “holes” in the recording. Normally you need a BNC cable which goes into “sunc” or “Video In” on the U-Matic – depending on your model of vtr.
All the Best
Mads@madsvid, London, UK
Check out my other hangouts:
Twitter: @madsvid
https://mads-thinkingoutloud.blogspot.co.uk -
Yep, Mads the mad man has it right…
I wonder how many synapses both of us restored collectively to dredge those memories up from the depths of our internal storage arrays?
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss ProductionsDavid is a Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Apple Final Cut Pro forum.
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