Technics SV-P100 - Digital Audio on VHS tapes - in 1981
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- čas přidán 31. 05. 2024
- Before the CD came out, you could record your own digital audio - on video tape.
Have a look at a HiFi unicorn, the Technics SV-P100 - the first integrated digital audio tape recorder.
In this video you'll get a demo and hear about the history of PCM recording onto tape.
This all took place years before the introduction of DAT in 1987 - (Digital Audio Tape).
If you’re interested, here's a video all about DAT: • Digital Audio Tape: Th...
00:00 Intro
02:34 A tour of the machine
04:38 Cutting-edge for 1980
08:14 Getting around the tape
15:53 A potted history of PCM
20:30 A quick look inside
22:04 Digital in and out?
26:43 What about VHS HiFi?
28:38 Wrap up
31:17 14-bit play-out
All music is from the CZcams Audio Library.
czcams.com/users/audiolibrary...
I Have a Reservation - Tracktribe
So Smooth - Danny Kean/Doug Maxwell
The Jam - Slynk & Mr Stabalina
Over Time - Vibe Tracks
Special thanks to the following invaluable online resources.
www.wishbookweb.com
worldradiohistory.com
www.hifiengine.com
www.hifi-archiv.info
www.radioshackcatalogs.com
www.discogs.com
FAQs
Q) What would happen if you tried to play a normal video on the SVP-100?
A) It’s mentioned in the video at 26mins 21secs - but you can see for yourself at 24mins 20secs just after I turn the machine on.
You can see here what the output from the SV-P100 looks like with no tape playing. B&W stripes. That's the only video output the machine will produce. It’s either this screen with digital data or this screen without. Also the sound would be silent, because there no analog audio capabilities on the SV-P100.
Q) Could you dub the digital output signal to a normal VHS machine?
A) It might be possible but also consider how Technics only recommended one specific Pansonic U-Matic machine as a suitable dubbing device even though at this point Panasonic also made a whole range of VHS video recorders. This is likely because a normal VHS recorder couldn’t record a sharp enough signal. I believe that U-Matic by this point had around 330 lines of resolution as opposed to approx 250 on VHS.
The composite video output circuitry in the SV-P100 was specially configured for the digital video signal transmission. It’s highly likely that it will output slightly more resolution than a normal VHS machine would be capable of capturing. The SV-P100 can however capture that resolution on its built-in VHS tape recorder because the video recording circuit isn’t standard, it’s monochrome for a start and no doubt it’s able to record a slightly sharper black and white video than a normal VHS video recorder could.
Perhaps a decent 1990s VHS machine might stand a better chance than a 1981 VHS recorder, but even if it worked perfectly - it’s all academic as the only recordings I have on PCM VHS are just copied off an MP3 player. It would be easier to copy those MP3 files instead. If I had some rare original PCM VHS tapes that I wanted to back-up, it would be better to try and capture these with a video capture card to get an off-tape backup. Alas though I don’t have any PCM tapes other than the ones I’ve recorded myself from MP3s.
Q) Have you heard of ADAT? That was also on VHS
A) Yes I have - that came later - this video is about a device from 1981 - The First integrated Digital Audio Cassette Recorder. That's what makes this unique. You can only be the first, once.
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---------Outro Music----------
Over Time - Vibe Tracks • Over Time - Vibe Track...
-----Outro Sound Effect-----
ThatSFXGuy - • Six Million Dollar man... - Věda a technologie
Congratulations on a million subscribers Matt. If I may, you've done more over the years than simply review equipment; your videos have brought a sense of wonder back into the world. Heart felt thanks.
Totally agree. I'm not into the vast majority of products and tech on this channel but I still haven't missed a video.
Just checked it out and i had been unsubbed!! Luckily I was still getting the recommendations though
Absolutely agree. I've discovered a lot of cool, obscure technology from the past on this channel.
Second that. There's a million people watching because the content is so good!
Mat has done so well. The content is always phenomenal. Another commemorative Play Button on its way?
Congratulations on reaching the big 1.000.000 mate! And to top it of with my starting brand of keyboards.. Technics, that's pretty neat! If I had known this earlier, I could have made a MIDI file version of the outro music for you to play on the MT-90S... maybe later! Let's get you to cool 10.000.000? ^_^
Yes, ABSOLUTELY! Been here since the early 100,000's - amazing my friend!!!
My PC Clock says 22:11, July 11 2020. Techmoan's video says July 11 2020. Your comment says 2 days ago... WTF?!?!
Ainz ul Patreons get early access. :)
@@AndersEngerJensen Aaaah makes sense. I thought I was stuck in a reality shift.... Kinda disappointed now.
I have an old Technics SX-PR804, makes me sad that they exited the musical instrument market after it and the KN7000 :(
I usually watch your videos to see entertaining pieces of technology and novelties. But I realized today you're in fact a proper historian, almost archeologist, documenting with every devices our modern electronic history.
Thanks for all your work ! Future generations won't learn History in books, but here with you on CZcams.
Calm down
@@michaeldeluca6331
Be polite.
Loved this video. I actually have an experience with something similar. Back in the early 90's, the band i was in went into a makeshift studio to record a few songs for our second 7in single. The guy who recorded us, was all excited about "digitally" recording us. Much to our chagrin, he handed us a VHS tape. Now, being 20 years old our reaction was less than excited, mostly because we didnt know what to do with it or how to listen to it for that matter. That was our master tape. We were told it was CD quality. In the end, the record was not very good(due to massive beer consumption and having a rudimentary concept of writing and playing) but the quality of the recording was fantastic. somehow we sold all 500 copies we pressed. Thanks for jarring back that memory!
what was your band called?
Is the record on Discogs? If not, you should add it! And if it is on Discogs, you should add your story. Very cool behind-the-scenes info.
@@JWD1992 it actually is on Discogs. The band name is Liverball and the ep title is Test Burn. Amateur-ish punk rock. The clarity of the digital recording exposed our lack of talent that the previous analog recordings we did hid under distortion and beer lol so It’s not very good, obviously. For the era and the low budget aspect of the recording the quality is actually reasonably good. But it was of a time and place and a fun experience.
I used to use VHS Hi-Fi to record 6-hour-long music "mix-tapes" for parties, so no one would have to mess with my audio equipment during the party. Hide the amp and VCR in a locked room, and run the speaker wires out under the door into another room. Press play and you wouldn't have to touch it for another 6 hours. It was great!
Oh -- and congratulations on hitting 1 Million Subscribers!
Right on! I used to put audio on VCR tapes too. I would also record radio programs on them too (Howard Stern and local collage radio shows). It was a great option for long recordings back in the day.
Did EXACTLY the same thing. Used a JVC HiFi VHS machine and used the HiFi recording section and had nearly 6 hours of music for a wedding party. Some asked for copies of the recordings which was easily available when I re-recorded this music onto cassette. And of course everything was awesome. And congratulations on your new milestone.
Or when your buddy got the 4-disc Clapton Crossroads boxed set and you could record it on one tape. Of course on the 6 hour speed, tracking noise set it after a year or two.
Before car CD players I put albums on vhs tapes and played on portable Panasonic vhs stereo vcr through car stereo for 6 to 8 hours continuous music.
I wonder if any shops used it for the muzak?
*I love Technics design from this era - looks fairly modern even now*
I guessed it was from the nineties at least, not 1981!
What makes you feel HiFi or home electronics from the early 1980s would look old fashioned? (It's not equipment from WW2 we are talking about.) The basic designs patterns have been largely unchanged in mainstream products since around 1976, and in some cases much earlier, at least in Japan and Europe. It went pretty cheesy and plastic in the late 80s and 90s though, when the markets were saturated, but it has recoverered pretty good since then, in many areas.
@@melskunk As a rule of thumb, if the design has rounded edges, it's from the 90's. But if it has sharp and square edges, it's from the 80's.
@@GoldSrc_ that is a super good rule of thumb!
@@herrbonk3635 In the early 1980s they were only just moving away from silver brushed aluminium panels and fake woodgrain.
@Techmoan . . . this is off-topic from this YT subject, as I want to express my appreciation with how you *Title* the descriptions of your uploads in an honest and fair way with your YT posts. I say this as I've noticed the escalating amount of _click-bait_ among YT channels of late. I'm becoming much more selective with what I view on YT; with the *Title description* of the YT posts being a major part of that selective process. YT posters that use alarmist adverbs, or alarmist words in general; and with brightly colored large fonts with YT thumbnails wordings, I'm less inclined to click on it as compared to past years.
^ THIS ^
^ yep, *this* ^
edit: !!! GONE SEXUAL POLICE CALLED !!! I NEARLY DIEDED !!!
HOLY SHIT THIS EXACTLY
LEARN THIS ONE TRICK THAT GETS PEOPLE TO CLICK YOUR VIDEOS
Just when you think that Techmoan has run out of audio formats...
LOL. Cant deny that :)
I don't think he has reviewed punch card audio format
@@appsjuragan7611 LOL
@@appsjuragan7611 do the old player pianos that play off of punch cards count?
Why would you ever think he has run out of formats? lol
Audio on HiFi VHS was so excellent. I routinely used it for 6 hour recordings from radio or for mixes to play for an entire party. Seemed indistinguishable from CD or was very close in quality. It was like an audio quality secret weapon of the 1980s.
Thomas Talbot oh cool.
I did a show on community radio in the early 2000's and they were using VHS audio for pre-recorded shows and the overnight/graveyard on longplay.
They only replaced it less than a decade ago when the studio was moved to a different building.
My vhs hifi produced some rattle in the sound when making pure audio recordings.
The DAT sounded better than the CD, that's why they killed it.
@@Hector_Malot Hilariously, a TON of masters were sent off to the CD press on DAT. DAT was very much not killed by CD, at least not in the professional field. CD was the consumer format, DAT was what the professionals used.
Digital audio actually has a noise floor and it is defined by the amount of bits. Fewer bits means more rounding errors and normally these would produce an audible artefact, but there is a trick that turns them into nice white noise: dithering. Basically, you round up or down randomly, and that removes repeating patterns that humans preserve as artifacting. But yeah, with with few bits, the noise is loud. Another way to look at it is that the number of bits tells you how loud can you play the audio with the noise remaining at the same volume.
This is a very interesting tidbit that I definitely didn't know. An example of a real contribution to the topic instead of all the noise from people who didn't get enough attention as a child. Thank you.
@@Will-fn7bz I'm just glad someone read the comment. :) Usually commenting on CZcams feels like shouting in the wind.
I’d imagine that any noise on something like this or a CD player it’s so low that whatever other pieces of audio equipment I have in the chain would drown it out.
It's worth watching this digital audio presentation from Monty Montgomery. It clears some misconceptions about digital audio, and it's very well presented. czcams.com/video/cIQ9IXSUzuM/video.html
That's really interesting. Appreciate the info
This is quite impressive for that time. The electronics needed for A/D and D/A conversion was huge, not to mention the mechanics needed to to locate the beginning and end of the recordings on the tape. Those engineers did a great job!
I used to use VHS HiFi as an audio recorder, to get up to 6 hours of playback, back in 1984. I don't think I could have afforded the SV-P100. Cool video. Thanks for the flashback.
Hi, Matt! I am glad to finally see this beautiful machine in your review. It's sad that you didn't mention my channel and the article on the habr.com which probably was used to create this video, however, I am glad you purchased it and as an owner of Technics SV-P100 I would like to comment a couple of things from the video:
1) First of all, yes, SV-P100 sounds really beautiful and you can't tell the difference between CD Audio and this 14-bit PCM.
2) This machine vulnerable of some problems, most notably the leaky Matsushita caps, especially in closed-case digital boards. Also, digital circuits in all of SV-P100 (I had two of them) are often unable to correct errors, so occasionally clicks can be heard. It's sad to say, but Sony with their PCM-F1 made way more robust to error correction machine.
3) And that's right, Digital In/Out is virtually the same as Video In/Out sockets in other PCM processors and can be used with another VTR. The unique feature of the SV-P100 is that it can be synchronized with an external video signal instead of any other (non-pro) PCM adapters, which theoretically can allow editing on these machines. This is why Technics initially planned to make them white-colored, since this is the color of the Panasonic's broadcast equipment in those years. But problems with error correction and very slow tape transport apparently did not allow this model to be anything more than a rare and expensive Hi-Fi equipment.
4) You can hear a weird analog sound from the linear audio channel, and it's not a mistake! If you connect your headphones to the SV-P100 and try to fast-forward or rewind the tape while hold "play" button, you will hear your music in accelerated playback. This can't be achieved by reading-and-decoding a video pattern (no PCM processor can do this), but instead it was using analog audio. Technics managed to do this trick of being able to hear what you recorded while rewinding. And again, along with the editing marks, that was another unique feature that no one has ever done.
5) Technics SV-P100 is rare and, of course, expensive machine. But not so rare as Hitachi PCM-V300 which I also have in my collection. For about 300 units of SV-P100 were produced while only 70 or 100 units of PCM-V300 were ever made. Hitachi made the similar to Technics machine, while using VT-6500 as a transport mecha that was shoved without any changes inside the case, even with the front panel that was stuck inside :D
So, if you need some interesting information about this strange era of an early digital hardware, I can help you find it and also offer you part of my unique (and probably the world's largest) collection of PCM hardware. Cheers, your fan from Russia.
@tan j maz No need to sub, man. I can barely make videos even in my native language.
The feeling when you binge watch a show and you are sad when you’re done- that’s the feel I get from the full outro. Always loved it and missed it. Knowing where the audio came from makes it 1000x better. Then history of BBC and NHK developing PCM was riveting. This is the top notch, top shelf techmoan content id pay to sit in a theatre to watch. Congrats on 1M- I will always support you in any endevour. Thank you for so much content, it’s a special thing to sit down and watch, better than any cinema or TV. Just......thank you.
Loll
I know what you mean! I love the little digital sound right at the very end of these videos, I sit through the credits just to hear it. Then you know it's going to be another week at least for the next video :(
thanks satan
That composite output...WOW. When I thought this was already an INCREDIBLE piece of equipment, then it has that functionality. A full blown composite video signal with the visual PCM data. SO COOL. That low bandwidth audio almost seems like a cue track. Maybe they had planned on using that as a high speed scanning function. The electronics at the time had no way of decoding an 8x speed PCM stream, so that cue track could be used instead.
Thank you for the great video.
If I win the lottery, I'm putting one of those next to a Nagra VPR-5.
I'm fairly certain my college radio station had one of these in the early 90's that they used to record all their radio shows. In fact I remember seeing it there and thinking it was odd when the guy who ran the program mentioned they used a digital recorder onto VHS. Audio quality was excellent from what I recall.
"In the long distant future" Somehow I pictured Mr. Techmoan's head in a jar, Futurama Style, still teaching us, simple mortals, the wonders of technology in theyear 3020...
I think it's likely that the player will still be working nicely when CZcams is decommissioned.
And using robot nixons body!
"Welcome to the world of tomorrow!"
@@andljoy and people will finally stop complaining about his fingernails hangnails when he zooms the camera.
Until last year, when I foolishly gave it to charity not remembering what it was, I had another piece of Sony hardware I believe was incredibly rare. It was a 400 disc DVD and SACD player. I even had a number of SACDs for it. If I still had it I'd have shipped it to the UK for you for a bit of celebration on the million subscribers mark. Cheers, sir.
It’s OK I’ve got a couple of those - I’m confident it’ll be the same model too. I’ll take a look at them one day.
11:28 The counter stops at index mark 1337. Coincidence? I think not, this is a confession that Mr Techmoan is indeed a geek :)
Synchronicity
I’m impressed at how I can’t tell a difference in the outtro music.
I used to record cd's with my hifi vhs recorder.
I wrote album name and song titles with my Atari ST and recorded that as video, so one could listen to music and see song titles from tv.
Same. But with a Commodore 64.
Send Techmoan one of those tapes!
that sounds so "futuristic"!!!!!!.
i was just thinking i should've put my vinyl on a hifi vcr back in the day...but prolly couldn't afford it back then...hifi vcr was top $ in the 80's
come to think of it i actually have a Philips cd/ hi-fi vcr combo in the basement from the 90's
Another great piece of history. I remember when the BBC started demoing Nicam Stereo on Radio 3. They used a Sony F1 processor and U-Matic combo to record the Proms. Normal FM showed no real difference apart from less tape noise, but the Nicam was a revelation. I attended a private demo at Broadcasting House (I had a friend in the Engineering Team who were supporting it) and listening to the digital recording with only two stages of analogue was amazing. Of course at the time there were no digital mixing desks, or amplifiers with digital input, but they did use a Quad setup with a pair of ESL-57s. At the time it was the clearest music recording I had ever heard. They used a piano concerto, and the quite sections with just the piano where so clear you could imagine you were in the same room. It would be interesting to compare the Sony PCM with Technics.
One of the issues with digital audio or video until at least the late 90s was that coding and decoding at high quality pretty much required dedicated hardware. One of the weird things I discovered in the early 80s was that the cost of ADC had come down drastically because of Cruise Missiles! Apparently they needed a fast A to D and TRW bought a license to a BBC Research Department design that normally took up two large PCBs and made it into a rather large chip. The chip still cost as much as the two boards but it made the equipement much smaller and therefore cheaper. A strange bit of history. In the mid-90s I consulted on a project for MTV to use remote video servers for inserting ads into the downlinks. We digitised standard def PAL video using a SunSpark 10 workstation with a custom DSP that use 4 RISK processors. It cost £52K!
"I'll see your mixtape, and raise you this *MEGA MIX*
Still rocking my perfectly working 1987 Technics SL-P770 CD player. These dinosaurs were built to last with no planned obsolescence in mind.
PLayed in a band in the early 90's and we recorded some events on a HIFI VHS recorder. Still have those tapes and they still sound great.
Hope you digitized them for archival. Tapes tend to get stuck and become unreadable over the years. Just ask NASA how much data it cost them, until they found out that such a problem exists and that they had lots of it.
It's quite similar to loosing magnetization of floppies over time. Different cause, but same effect: data loss.
@@frankschneider6156 Thought about that but haven't done anything yet. Also, have to do it anyway while I have a working VCR. Can't buy a new one these days.
@@anakondase One tends to put such stuff off, because there is always something more important, I know, but if it is of emotional value to you, and loosing the recordings is an unpleasant thought, then create a more modern backup rather sooner than later, as the data WILL degrade. It's just a question how fast. Just a hint, but I'm pretty sure you already knew that yourself. ;-)
@@frankschneider6156 Yes, I know.
I thought tapes were gonna outlast modern society. All big online companies back up on tape for long-term data storage nowadays.
Well, maybe tape technology has become more robust since the eighties?.. 💁♂️
I worked with a Alesis ADAT, multitrack recorder (8 tracks on a VHS tape)
@Plastic Icon 2 - Freewheeling Gunslinger Edition That's the DTRS format isn't it?
Correction, a SuperVHS tape for the ADAT.
@@crashbandicoot4everr No, F1
@@crashbandicoot4everr and the ADAT wasn't DTRS, that was the DA-88.
This comment & replies made me smile. 😁📼📼LOVED my ADATs!!📼📼 Had 3 Alexis XT20s chained together in one of my very first (semi) serious home studio setups. Loved that SuperVHS was an inexpensive media at the time, and of course you can't forget the ol' 'death-by-patchbay!' Ah, the memories of tangled D-SUB to XLR snake cable insanity definitely makes my grateful for my Pro Tools rig. I kinda miss the madness though, but definitely not the troubleshooting!
As a kid I was very impressed with the audio quality of VHS tapes that had Hi-Fi tracks. I actually made a tape of a few of my CD;'s with video from some games I was playing. I was blown away by how good it sounded.
I'm pleased to discover that I wasn't alone in using a decent VHS as an audio only tape deck. It certainly had my bottom of the range Marantz SD220 tape deck from a decade earlier beaten.
My old Akai from 1994ish weighs a tonne and has Dolby surround processing (added rear channels only) and a little 12 WPC amp designed to drive the rear channel speakers.
@@yorkemar That sucks. are you saying that the VHS tape generates tones on it that are damaging to certain speaker? I have large 4way speakers I used for play back but i only messed with it a few times. I guess it would depend on if your VCR or Stereo receiver has filtering to remove those damaging frequencies.
@@brpadington Just watch the volume when playing it if you have smaller speakers. It shows with excessive cone movement.
@@JPX64Channel VHS Hifi was initially marketed as a a high quality audio recorder. The early machines had audiophile features like manual recording level, RCA in/out, simulcast, MPX filter etc. This all waned in later years.
We have eric clapton unpluged and bryan adams concert both in cd and vhs hi f. same title.the vhs deliver fat and uncompresed sound than the audio cd.
this was all the ( HF audio ) rage at 1981 CES show. . . i know cause i was there...... lov what u do . . . . Cheers
80s and 90s hifi was soooo cool. missing the soul today of some solid hardware
I've been watching TechMoan for years now and I'm so happy to see you hit the 1M. So well deserved. Congratulations!
Today is 2 Apr 2022 and I rewatched this video, because it came up after Techmoan’s most recent video, and I was as captivated by this wonderful piece of hardware as I was the first time I heard about it, right here.
I want to really look inside one, see how it works, how they got DSP’s to do what they did back then, given the technology and just so many things.
I’m forever curious about things like this, so it was great to rewatch it and still feel the same wonder I did the first time around.
Back in 1998/1999 when I didnt have a CD Player built in my stereo system, I used to plug my Sony Discman into my Panasonic HiFi VCR and copy some borrowed audio cds. The fact that I could record using EP (SLP) speed was a bonus, because a single VHS tape would store up to 6 hours of music with almost lossless quality. Watching this video today, 21 years later, warms my heart!
re the VHS HiFi, when I worked at a small radio station in the early-/mid-90's, we used 6 hour VHS tapes for automation. The plus side is we could put up to 6 hours of programming on a single tape. On the downside, of course you had to record 6 hours in real-time. So it wasn't like "real" automation, but it did allow us a cheap way to "time shift" what we put on the air.
A lot of Radio stations used HIFi VHS for recording Air Checks of entire shifts. Particularly Talk radio. This was before digital was financially viable for most in the 80's and 90's. Easy to keep and catalog a huge library of shows and much cheaper than equivalent Reel to reel tape. Main advantages being the cost of the tape and recorder and the sheer length of each tape. A very cheap solution.
Did you get a lot of vehicles towed when you worked at the radio station?
In the mid 90s we would use hifi VCRs to record audio in our home studios, and then transfer them to cassette tape.
Look at you with a million subscribers. Congratulations. Well done
I was wondering if anyone saw that!
Zzz zzz zzz
Yes, quite a milestone!!! This video is very interesting. I remember being on an FM radio station back in the 90's, and they used a HiFi VCR on LP to record the live program for archive. LP gave six hours of HiFi stereo audio per E180 VHS cassette. The audio performance of the HiFi VCR's was exceptional, and better then any reel-to-reel recorder of the time, and could record for much longer then even the best R-2-R machine at the time. When EP came along, you could get up to NINE hours of crystal-clear audio on a standard 3-hour E180 VHS tape. Certainly the video was poor at EP on an E180, but if all you want was the audio.......
At the time these came out, I was learning to read Japanese and since audio has always been one of my interests, I saw reviews of this unit in tech magazines.
While listening to the end music, I was thinking about the people who thought up this device, the ones who engineered it, designed it, built it, tested it, sold it, used it. Most of them are probably still alive, although retired. However, whenever someone watches this video, maybe they will be remembered. Like the people behind many beautiful things that came and went away. Nice closure.
Just when you thought you saw everything about VHS based off LGR and Technology Connections..
Matt comes in with this beast and celebrates 1mil subs...
Like a boss.
The reason I'm in love with retro electronics is that a lot of it still works or can be serviced. My synthesizers from the 80's will probably outlive me. Good luck trying to revive any of the modern gadgets in 10 years. Especially all the ones with sealed batteries.
@Eric Belinc My father has Akai GX-635D reel to reel machine and Sony TC-U5 tape deck, both from 1979. Still operational and looking brand new. 2 of my favourite tape machines, because I grew up playing with them.
That's because modern smartphones and suchlike are designed with planned obsolescence. Apple didn't make so much money by intending you to still be using a 5 year old iPhone today. Nope, gotta get you on that upgrade path. Don't ask questions. Consoome product, then get excited for next product.
@@RJRC_105 Same thing with electric cars. Since the battery is half the car's cost and has a limited lifespan, the assumption is that no one is going to pay, say $10K to revitalize an 8 year old vehicle, when the range becomes an issue. It's an attempt at making disposable transportation. They think people have infinitely deep pockets.
"...or can be serviced." Computers, and probably hi-fi from the period, will often be on the path to destruction from leaking capacitors, in addition to the batteries.
DAT tape was a thing that was so important in the 90s for bands
VHS is underrated for audio. A decent 90's Hi Fi VHS recorder was far better than the cassette decks of the time.
Alesis Adat was the answer on this with super vhs tapes .
A thing of beauty!
@@uvoikimovundutrauerblume3302 but it's digital
VHS Hi Fi was better than compact cassette, its only downside was the FM modulation used for recording it, which introduced some "color" to the sound.
a fair amt of dbx companding was involved too, because the native SNR of the fm stereo subcarrier wasn't that great
Well deserved 1M Matt, amazed it didn't happen sooner with your level of quality uploads.
Here's to 2M! 🍻
All these years with Techmoan, great.
I appreciate that.
Thank you.
Matt, this is a very exciting find - probably my favourite. Early PCM technology was pretty amazing at the time, and this Technics machine was most definitely cutting edge.
I recorded audio onto my VHS HiFi with great results from 1988
But i had no idea the machines were even made in 1981
What a Superb piece of equipment
22:20 “You night not have given them a second thought.”
Mat, I spent the last twenty minutes waiting for you to explain the digital in/out ports and wondering what protocol they used! V pleased you obliged ;-)
I was nervous throughout the whole video that he wasn't going to play the tape on a television. Glad he did
I was wondering too! I saw digital I/O and thought - that can’t be SPDIF. Can it?
Being 14 bits wasn’t really that bad. Early CD players with “16 bit” DACs weren’t linear enough. They would give you 13-14 bits resolution on a good day.
The old Commodore Amiga (1984) sported four 8 bit audio channels (2 on left, 2 on right), which did sound a bit "tinny", though quite amazing for its day. Later (early 90s if memory serves), through a bit of audio processing and channel trickery, a way was found to produce 14 bit stereo, which had a whole other world of sound quality to it. I'd be hard pressed to hear the difference between that and a CD (and yes I tried).
inshadowz I stumbled over a blog a few years back. They had files sampled with different resolution and I have to agree. Still the early CD players sounded pretty bad. That was probably due to poor separation btw analog and digital subsystems. Digital circuits are noisy and precaution must be taken not to drown the analog signals in noise. Like the VHS recorder in this video. The analog signal probably leaked into the the time code recording by mistake. Then what’s to stop the digital signals leaking into the analog.
The Atari 800 (1979) could combine its 4 8-bit audio channels into 2 16-bit channels, though they weren't left/right oriented like the Amiga's were.
redfive2008 The Atari 8 vs 16 bits doesn't relate to digital audio resolution, it was just the size of the clock divider registers for the square wave tone generators. 16 bits allowed a larger divisor so it could produce lower tones. When I programmed music on one way back in the day, I usually combined two channels into a single 16-bit channel for bass notes, and left the remaining two channels as 8-bit, for three usable channels total. Good times!
Bengt Johansson I believe there are some very early Philips players with 14-bit DACs. This is part of the reason for the optional pre-emphasis used on some early CDs. 16-bit didn't really need it.
I think the biggest obstacle to good sound on early CD players was the lack of oversampling. They had to use complicated, steep analog filters as a result. (Some players actually switched a single DAC back and forth between channels, so high frequencies were out of phase, but in practice this wasn't really noticeable.) There were also a lot of badly mastered CDs, which didn't help matters.
I've been tracking these things for two years now? Holy shit I haven't seen a single one for sale. Good on you for finding one, and in such good condition at that.
I love that these channels exist to kind of document the museum pieces that a decade ago no one would look at a second time. If I ever come across any worthwhile item I'd donate first rather than hoard in my basement or something.
Hearing that 40 year old machine play the outro actually got me in the feels. You're doing God's work Techmoan.
Had a friend who used to record music to S-VHS and always sounded amazing...Congrats on the 1m subs mate. so well deserved...One of the best channels on You Tube.
We used svhs tapes to record the sonar working tapes in the early 2000s when I was on the USS San Juan. It was called the AN/UNK-9 but we called it the junk 9 because it was terrible and had the worst GUI ever invented 😂
@@AlfaRomeoQ yeah I remember ADAT being in studios but never used them. Think they were Alesis machines...huge beastly things but did the job 😁
2:36 at least it has got tracks to make up for the lack of turret and armament
Also, congratulations on 1 million subs.
I wanted this recorder in 1983 when I was 15. I was fascinated by it. Never got it though. Happy to see this.
Excellent video as always! I see others have mentioned the ADAT machines and "SuperVHS" formats that were used for a short time in recording studios. I actually have a session on 16 track digital audio on Super VHS still. I have had it converted of course to Wav. files. I had it converted by as far as I could find "The only person left in my Small Canadian City" whom owned a working ADAT machine. I may have some of the details mixed up as far as the machine and what I recall but basically it was a 16 track digital multi tracking studio and my band were very leery of using it for our music at the time as we had been used to working with 2" tape in the studio and full analog everything up until then. As well the industry was by that time talking about the lack of warmth and how digital wasn't "As pleasant to the human ear" as Analog was. Now we have actual noise adding VST3 units or other types of ways of making it sound like the "Good Old days" LOL.
I still have a SVHS VCR, I used it to transfer Hi8 footage from my camcorder. I had no idea people used the format for audio, but it does make sense.
It would match a Porsche 928 of the same year almost perfectly.
Even better use it as the car radio on a Porsche 928.
I remember when dat was such a threat to the record industry and that their biggest fear of having unlimited digital masters all from a copy.
After all the copyright concessions were made, the cost was hardly worth it except for the novelty of owning one.
Then it was the cd burner and eventually mp3. Thanks for again for that trip down memory lane!
After the DAT and before the cd burners there were the DCC (digital compact cassette) and the Minidisc...
@@jimbotron70 the MD most likely failed to compete with MP3 players for all its anti-piracy and copy protect features
I love you! I was thinking the whole time; "What happens when you play a tape recorded in the SV-P100 in a standard VCR?!?" ...Then you did! Thanx for putting my mind at rest.
I just watched this fascinating video, and realised that this device must have been the forerunner of a piece of equipment I used in my recording studio for many years called the "Alesis ADAT". It was an 8-track multitrack recorder, using SVHS tape, and the first affordable digital multitrack. "ADAT" then became the name of the digital multitrack audio standard, which is still in use for some home studio equipment, having now updated to include a 96KHz/24-bit standard.
I still have one of the second generation "XT" 48K/16b machines now, and it still gets used for its ins & outs, along with its matching PCI card whenever I need a few extra ADAC channels in and out of my editing PC, although I haven't used it as an actual tape deck for years. The ADACs are still remarkably good and transparent for a machine manufactured in the mid-90's. I know you normally tend to concentrate solely on consumer gear, but if you could get your hands on an Alesis ADAT machine, I'd be interested to see a video about that format.
Heartfelt congratulations on reaching 1 million Mat - and thank you for providing the fascinating material that has *earned* you so many subscribers. Some would consider this esoteric (hah!) - and very few would have the energy and intellect to explore the history of hi-fidelity with such zeal and detail We're very fortunate you're as much in love with this as we are, and that you have such a natural gift for presentation.
The sentence everyone is waiting for: Let's have a look inside!
@ lars genrich - Actually he needs to send this to BigClive so we can hear, "Let's take it to bits..." lol
a great idea for his merch actually. nice way to mark a millie too. @Techmoan
Hahaha Indeed, I was like... Come on, open the darn thing!, Open it....open it haha
Sick to death of rubbish shows like “Rings of power” , this weekend I’m binge watching Techmoan. You are doing God’s work my friend ! 👍🏻👍🏻
I grew up in the 90s recording stuff to cassette and even now in 2022 I'm impressed by this device! Being able to set markers is a game changer!
What I love about this channel is that you do Mr. Dengon, this and everything in between. Plus, giving us the perspective of current technology and prices of the era it came from. Thank you, and congrats on 1m, well earned with hard work and passion. Or maybe it's because you are considered the fifth Kardashian with your glamorous look and sex appeal. Not sure which.
I'd take Techmoan every day over a Kardashian and I'm not even gay.
This actually reminds me of the later ADAT system from Alesis. 8 tracks of digital audio on SVHS
Yep, I used them back in 1991, when the studio I was working in changed out the Reel to Reel 16 track tape machine. To be honest, I preferred the analog machine - it sounded great and looked very cool in operation. But the ADATs gave very accurate and clean recordings, I must admit.
My first thought after seeing the Technics device in the video was that it would potentially be a lot more useful for musicians than any kind of HiFi type use. But only having two tracks, having no real facility for editing (unless you bought TWO insanely expensive recorders), and probably not being able to submit the tapes to anyone for consideration/publishing still would have doomed it.
GOD I hated using ADATs! If you wanted to use more than one machine, they would never sync up properly once they got warm. Forget trying to punch in on the 3rd machine, you’d be lucky if they locked in with each other by the 2nd chorus! Always had to make a sub-mix down to the last two tracks. Some great albums were made on them though!
And in another quirk of history, ADAT's I/O format remains the standard protocol for digital multitrack interoperability, even though the physical tape format itself is essentially obsolete.
Until today, I was unaware that I probably contributed to its technology. In 1975, I developed (and patented, see US Patent 4,030,129) a digital audio recorder that used VHS video tape transport mechanisms. I developed it for the laser light show company I worked for, Laserium(r), but it was never mass-produced, so my patent was sold, along with a number of others, to a Japanese industry consortium. What a pleasant surprise to know that my patent eventually found its way into a product! Bill Whitlock, Life Fellow of the Audio Engineering Society, Ventura, CA
Thanks for your contribution, and that you shared the information and patent number. It were very interesting reading.
I've been an AV tech for 30 years and you've shown me the sight of sound today! Thank you my friend. X
Back in the day, I mastered my home recording studio compositions on VHS Hi-Fi, instead of cassette because the sound was noticeably superior.
Yep, it was a really fine format if you couldn't afford DAT. Also great for bouncing a 4-track cassette down to stereo and back to the 4-track so you could add a 5th and 6th track.
VHS Hi-Fi, of course, was still analogue. It sounded OK when the Hi-Fi heads were new, but as they wore you started to get a crackly buzz on the audio. The Hi-Fi sound was quite a low-level recording as it had to share the same tape area with the video without interfering with it. That low level meant Hi-Fi head wear was more of a problem than it was for the video heads which shared the same drum.
@@robinvince616 Not for me. ...I always kept the heads clean and used high grade TDK tapes. Perhaps I didn't listen to them enough. haha
@@EtTubeBruTube 👍🎧
I did the same thing. I purchased two Panasonic Hi-Fi decks back in the late 1980’s and still have them both today. Unfortunately, they no longer get much use as today’s audio technology is simply better and more convenient. But I do use them on occasion when I get nostalgic. 😀
The Techmoan Rule: If it doesn’t have a visualiser or a VU meter its not worth it.
"whoops I bought another visualizer" Everybody take a shot for the drinking game
Everything he reviews is everything i have never ever heard of, and i was born in 87
Yeah? Explain the wire recorder then. (That thing is so cool, I honestly want one. I saw one you eBay a while back for under $100 and only force of will kept me from buying it.)
I was surprised he wasn't salivating at the giant rack mount vu meter in the catalog he referenced. That thing was enormous.
Le LLuc : And so say we all! =:o}
matsushita is the best and always will be :) the stuff that I have from them is ages old and it simply doesnt break down, there is no "low end", it just works
This is amazing. Thanks for showing this piece of vintage tech. I remember the Sony PCM in 1990 a friend of mine used in his band. He "digitized" the audio to and from a separate Betamax unit via the video in / out. Cool stuff and quite costly in that era. Congrats on the 1M subscribers!
Congrats on the 1M subs! And I hope this wonderful machine get a dedicated place in your Hi-Fi stack.
SUPERB! Technics made the best gear in those days. I'm still using my technics reel to reel. Thanks so much!
Yes... Panasonic really knew and still does know how to screw them together.
Did you ever notice that Panasonic and Fujitsu run together and make each others stuff for each other? They have been thicker than brothers for many years. Fujitsu is behind many high end brands you know of. That is an interesting rat hole to explore.
I used to have an 8-channel ADAT recorder that took video cassettes. I used it to back up my 8-channel reel-to-reel audio tracks of my own music, which I recorded one instrument at a time.
Congrats on the 1 Million Matt. Youve been a huge influence on my own tech support business, so much so that I've moved into restoring and repairing a lot of old retro tech, turntables, tape decks and even the odd laser disk player included.
Keep up the amazing work and here's to the next million.
I absolutely love that machine!!! What a gorgeous piece of equipment!
I always used to record sound on mi hifi vhs in the 90ties
I agree. Technics and Panasonic gear has always had a lovely, understated, quality look to it.
I'm not sure, but it looks like the stuff used in the 70s in TV studios storing captures. wouldn't wonder, if the technology used would have actually originated from there, just being applied in a new way (audio only).
24:30 I've seen VHS for digital storage in the 90s (LGR did a review for Danmere Backer a while ago) but never seen this kind of PCM machine like this before. It's a really cool product but it's too ahead of its time. (And wrong customers too, I guess.)
Thanks for the video and congratulation for 1M subscribers. I can't wait to see the muppet unboxing your gold button soon. (But, please, don't be too rough like the blower one)
I had an add-on for my Amiga that connected a video recorder to the computer for backup storage. It wasnt by Danmere but was pretty much the same system.
It actually worked flawlessly, never had a problem with it apart from the slow speed. You could fit an almost unheard of amount of data on a tape compared to the hard disks of the time (over 500mb on a 3 hour tape iirc).
I want that damn Danmere Backer!
Software equivelent might be possible but a huge pain in the ass.
@@meetoo594 I saw an add-on card for PC that had a composite video output, and allowed you to back up your entire system to a VHS tape in case of disaster. Always curious to see what the picture recorded on the tape looked like; probably similar to this.
@@Tomsonic41 That would be the Danmere vhs Backer, Clint at LGR has a great video on it including what the output looks like on a TV.
I had a system for the Amiga which allowed you to backup floppies to VHS. It was hit and miss if you didn't use specific brands of tape.
Yes, ordinary domestic VHS machines were used for audio for radio, usually on ours Memorex E-195 tapes which were reliable and dirt cheap, were used on lp, that was 6.5 hours, of programme material if needed. If I remember correctly there was a 5hr tape which gave 10 hours on lp. Excellent quality from the FM modulation used. I have a stack of cassettes and still use one as part of my 'hifi'.
I remember in the very early '80's seeing the Sony digital processors used with a Panasonic VHS recorder being used in field recordings of live bands and our local symphony orchestra. A couple of audiophile hobbyists had gone in together on the equipment and hired out their services to offset the cost of their hobby.
When I was in the Signal Corps in the Army, we used PCM signals for multiplexing as well as encryption. some of our equipment dated to the 1960's, and it was bonafide digital. Funny thing about the military, we had equipment so advanced, it would impress Flash Gordon or Buck Rogers, but we also had technology, that Samuel FB Morse would laugh at! We somehow managed to make it all work together.
VHS Hifi was great! A friend of mine had a scheme that involved a parallel port video capture device, some custom programming, and VHS Hifi audio. By taking periodic JPG "screen shots" of his favorite Digital Satellite Music channel and recording the audio, at the end of the day he had a list of songs and when they were played, convenient to locate and dub off to cassette. Great video and congratulations on 1 million subscribers. I hope CZcams sends you a golden MiniDisc or something...
My brother also had a HiFi VHS deck and would make 6 hr mixtapes of his favourite artists. The sound was great. :-)
Amazing device, it looks so modern, lovely display too. Imagine if they build one around 1990 with less metal and cheaper components for around the price of a VCR!
I was aware that it existed. I did see it in the brochures, but it was no where in the shops. All I had hope for was a demo, since I would never have the money for it. Thanks for the demo 40 years later!
I bought an SVP-100 in September of 1982 after hearing a CD demo at summer CES in Chicago before the CD was available. It had a playback defect that required extensive redesign of one board. My tape that showed the defect went to Japan for almost a year but I DID get it back and they DID repair it. It did have a serious quirk in that when you stopped recording and then started again, it would rewind the tape a few seconds and blow away the tail of the previous recording. I was simultaneously using a Sony PCM-701 with a Betamax deck which does not rewind at stop so the recording session was not a bust. BTW I paid $2500 for the SVP in '82. Being first on the block with new technology is always expensive. But the SOUND was better than ANY analog recorder. ZERO wow and flutter, noise floor -85dB. it was the FIRST time I could not tell the difference between live and playback. I still have the first tape and it still sounds great though I have made it into a CD for convenience.
Well 1 million subs is right now!
Congrats to Techmoan, one of me and my brother's favourite CZcamsr.
Greetings from Malaysia
Congrats for the million subscribers!
All this information on toploaders and drawer loaders and their progression is fascinating. I remember as a child, watching CDs spin via the TINY window in my basic toploading CD player. Now as an adult, I can't agree more with the sentiment that hiding the disc away inside the player is absolutely naff!
Its so interesting too, to see which CD player from the years worth of possible contenders became your one of choice. I'm not sure if you have ever done a video on your personal HI-Fi system and what attracted you to the individual pieces of tech, but im certainly going to double check after seeing this video :)
I'm so pleased to have been a small part of your journey. From explaining the differences between MD-80s and taking pictures of Yo-Sushi to showing us fascinating rare technology and cool independently made products.
I think the fact that it seems like it can change where it takes it digital clock source from is quite interesting too.
Future proofing for products that never existed.
I think that may be the clock for synchronising the digital signal.
True, but where would you input the clock?
For me it looks like it can only be taken from the digital input, so can you lock recording to digital input? or analog recording use clock from digital input? or playback based on digital input clock?
Would simplify mixing on whatever mixer that use the composite video digital audio?
@@erlendse Analog does not need a clock signal. It would be for using an internally generated word clock or to reclock the input. Which as this is composite video and not AES/EBU, it's combining two almost anachronistic technologies.
Off topic of this vid but you could use an audio amplifier output to drive secondary of a transformer as a frequency converter just feed in a sinewave from sig gen app set 60 hz or ?? And take hv from pri into yank device lol i can make a vid if your intersted m8 .. Steve you want 120 to 50v ish or any combo 120 0 120 to 25 0 25 or ?? I could make you a transformer for this for next to nothing
Two things:
1) It would be interesting to take the digital out from this into an SVHS recorder and then the playback from the SVHS recorder back in to the digital input and see if that is enough bandwith to generate a perfect digital copy. Of course that's silly in practice but it would be fun to do just out of curiosity.
2) I would bet the intention of the distorted analog audio on the analog track had originally been to provide some type of audio search capability. This is similar to the way that professional VHS/SVHS decks would allow you to hear the linear audio as you picture searched through a tape. In this way you could hear where tracks began and ended even if you hadn't made an index mark.
It might also have simply been so you could determine the content of one of these digital tapes without having to put it into a digital player. If you had a library of these tapes you could find out what was on the tape simply by popping it into a regular VHS deck and listening to the linear audio.
Regarding point 1) Yeah it should work. This unit is just a regular VHS deck with a built in PCM encoder and decoder. So from what Techmoan has shown us the PCM audio is just striped onto the regular video tracks on the tape as a B&W video signal with sync. So you should be able to make copies using any SVHS deck (or VHS deck for that matter) by feeding digital out on the Technics, to composite in, on the record deck.
I was about to suggest the same as 1). Or you could digitize the composite video, upload it to CZcams and record it back to a VHS from computer's composite output. That would be magnificently inefficient way to copy music but at least it would be lossless. Probably someone with too much free time could code a codec that could read and even create a compatible video file.
It will work, however if you recorded it to a DVHS, then played the DVHS picture back to the decoder the audio is severely distorted as the MPEG compression screws up the cleanliness of the signal. S-VHS works just as well as VHS and betamax for PCM encoded recordings. Multiple copies will however degrade the signal unless you use the output of a proper recorder, as timebase errors creep in.
Yes, or just into a VHS player and then back into the Technics SV-P100 - I was watching shouting "play it back through the box!" I did wonder if the "ghost" audio was a monitoring feature?
@@MIKIEC71 That's just it; in this era I doubt the recorder could just accept digital audio input and play it as a DAC, you likely would need to record it and play back the recording.
The history-of-PCM diversion was totes amazeballs!
A brilliant piece of equipment that landed at the wrong moment relative to the CD player. Great to see one still working.
Congratulations on 1M subscribers...I've been watching, and anticipating, new videos from you for about four years now, and it's always a worthwhile treat. Great job.
Wow, by the title I thought it was ADAT, but.. 1981!! Congrats on 1M!
This is a fantastic review, and I really didn´t know any digital audio recorded on a VHS Type Tape, unless the SVHS tapes on ADAT machines, like the ALESIS ADAT 'Black Face' or XT-20. There was 8 digital audio channels, used on professional recordings, maybe in the 90s. They were 16 bit 44,1 kHz (first one) or 20 bit 44,1 kHz or 48 kHz (xt-20) formats. In these old times, I´ve had a band, and had recorded using the BlackFace ADAT. Now the tapes are here, and I´m struggling to extract those audios. And finally it´s very interesting see the beggining of the process of the audio on the
VHS tapes on the early 80s, that technology maybe evolved to the ADAT machines.
Thank you Matt for sharing this rare piece of Japanese engineering. Playing digital audio via a video recorder is indeed tricky because, unlike music playing non-stop along the tape, playing sound inside video required to pack the data in the visible part of a "video" stream (576 lines over 625, and 4/5 of the horizontal line length). The Technics CD player with the visible vertical CD in it is gorgeous !
Presumably they wouldn't have to worry about packing it into the visible part of the signal, because it was never intended for display on a TV. I'm no expert on this, but my understanding is that even the vertical retrace is encoded on the tape so the VHS player doesn't need to generate any sync signals, and this is why the picture rolls on a deteriorated tape. So presumably they could use the whole thing and get a continuous audio stream which would simplify things a bit.
That tape loading mechanism is the sexiest thing ever :P
I dunno. Those metal buttons and oh so satisfying metal round turner (I can't bring myself to say knob 🤣) are pretty damn attractive!
I was about to comment at how slickly engineered it looks. Typical technics.
I have a low end Technics cd deck from the late 80s. It still works as smoothly and quickly as it would have done new.
THAT was bad ass!! I never knew such a thing existed.
Wow! What an interesting piece of equipment. Didn't know this exist. Back in the early 90's, I used VHS tape to record my music (using the audio channels only) and played them back on my Sony SLV-777NC and Sharp VC-90ET Hifi stereo VHS Recorder connected to my Hifi equipment I got up to 3 hours of nonstop music on 180 minutes VHS tape.
I remember seeing that machine in a J&R Music World flyer back in the 80's. I had forgotten about that particular piece of tech until now. Brings back memories.
DCC came out 10 years later. The progress of digital audio during the 80's was swift.
But unfortunately, digital audio tapes were still something that most consumers didn't want
@B3ro1080 That's kinda my point. The early 80's computers couldn't handle compression algorithms.
Digital audio tape was great for us musicians before cd writing became practical and reliable
@@AaronSmart.online Indeed but it didn't help that DAT was delayed by court proceedings brought by the RIAA and then hampered by them insisting on the inclusion of a copy management system. That delayed the products launched by a couple of years and undoubtedly added to the costs when it eventually did launch.
Absolutely loved this! I knew why I'd subbed a few years back!
Memories of working for Philips in the mid 80's until 2000 came when watching this as I owned one of the first DCC machines and was hard pushed to find anything other than CD for a source that did DCC any justice. I was aware of the capabilities of VHS Tapes, as they were still lingering in recording studios when VHS Video Died a Death!
I still have cases of VHS tapes loaded with timed recordings from late night ad-free FM shows. Obviously not digital but, it made for long analog recordings which I could listen to later. Thanks so much for this glimpse at a very rare and cool technology.
What people forget about PCM, Pulse Code Modulation, is that it's exactly that, modulation, not an encoded data file decoded by a complex algorithm. So it's feasible to hear the modulated content without the correct demodulator the same way it's possible to hear FM with an AM radio and vice versa.