Friday, December 5, 2008

The VKR-500 1965 Home Video Recorder





Well here's a Magazine ive had since the late 80's when I brought it at a Junk shop (on the prowl for 16mm TeleRecording no dougt)

As I dont need to state here, there are LOADS of missing TV shows (forget America, apart from the dumont network, pretty much they have Rich TV heritage)
But Us Aussies and our chums from England have had not much luck, For the past 25 years, well since I was 6-8 and read a book on my fav radio show at that time (hey, and still now)
The Goon Show Companion, It mentioned that there were loads of Goon shows missing from the archives. this shocked me as a lad and so did the 20th Anniversary Radio Times Dr Who special, which we got Down under ( I had 3 copies as I kept drawing Mows on the Dr's!) and It satated there were heaps opf missing Dr Who's. This has been a obsession with me in the past (no not a bad one) and Ive personally located 6, 4th series Goon shows for the BBC.
So my drift is there is a Helva lot of "missing Tv and Radio" even our Number 96 and the first seris of Rush (which we watched Via Umatic at school) are gone, but there may be a chance that someone recorded somthing anyrthing on these old tapes.
Im quite a fan of contiunity and Presentation.. you know the bits befor and after TV shows. well you can be sure that pretty much none exists anywhere. Like hearing old radio shows with the Add's intact seeing this old material gives us "yongsters" more of a picture of life back then.


Ok here is a link to the 1965 ATR mag about how to build a Quater Inch VT!!


Ill add some more pics of defunct tape systems (i have a box of old formats)
If you have any of these please dont hesitate to email me and i can let you know if your tape could have a missing program on it.. and of course i could restore it for nix.

and I'm not mentioning the Recorders themselves.
I don't have a "player" myself but ive Re-jigged a few for collectors. mainly replacing caps and resistors and associated electronics. youd be amazed how this trick can make a pile of 30YO unplayable tapes play again!!

Here's a few tapes from my collection!!

I have no idea whats on em. I restored most of my decks (for like minded collectors who have "passed on" ) so have no assess to a deck to play em back on ( and if you have an old one lying around I'd love to hear from you!)
But these are mostly Sony CV2000 and CV1250 and other makes .

did you know that some Epps of "Countdown" and even a few missing "Tommy Cooper" shows have been saved on the same type of tape as below!!

so yes in short I like old Archive TV! and strive to preserve some of it. I have 1000's old old UK shows that will never see the light of day, and you know what I love em, call me weird I don't care.
But that's not where it ends ive spent years looking though "junk shops" for said tapes and TR's.
What are TR's well it stands for TeleRecordings, its the process of recording a Video tape onto film for presivation and or sending to another country to show. Australia had a LOT of TR shows that are no longer in any archive, Ive come close to finding some but not recently. Did you know that Z-Cars is only represented by a handful of shows? it ran for 16 years!!

Oh BTW Im still working on bringing you the sounds of 78's and Transcription discs and "lounge type" albums, but seeing Im Moving to Queensland in a week im trying to transfer a pile of LP's/78rpm's and that's what the computer is doing 24/7!!