HBO Star Wars preservations (a Work In Progress) — Page 7

poita said:
Thanks Puggo, the VO-9850 isn’t high band is it?
If the tapes need baking, are you able to offer that service?

Hi Poita - The VO-9850 is low band, and can play either normal or SP tapes. Are your tapes high band? I think the two formats are totally incompatible with each other. Low band is much more common, but if your tapes are high-band, that would be really cool because the quality could be higher.

As for baking, I’ve baked hundreds of open-reel EIAJ tapes. I use an American Harvest food dehydrator - it’s quite gentle and has a pretty accurate thermostat. It is the same model used by BAVC (Bay Area Video Coalition). I haven’t tried baking a U-Matic tape before. I did some reading online… it seems most houses simply bake the whole cassette intact, and a few remove the tape from the housing. There is a tradeoff there… U-Matic housings are a pain in the rear to re-assemble, much more difficult than, say, audio cassettes. Apparently, if you leave the tape in the housing, there is some small risk of “outgassing”, which is if some material in the housing releases gasses during the baking that do something bad (not clear what, exactly - something to the tape, I think?).

Most U-Matic tapes don’t require baking - it depends on the tape stock. Almost all Ampex tapes exhibit sticky-shed (mine were getting it just a few years after I bought them), some 3M, and a few Sonys (but most Sony’s are ok – except Sony EIAJ open-reel tapes; almost all of those require baking in my experience. Not sure why Sony UMatics are ok but Sony EIAJs aren’t). Bottom line, if it doesn’t require baking, I wouldn’t bake it. If you learn that it does, and you want me to bake it in the housing, I can do that. (I am not confident removing it from the housing and reassembling it myself). So do some research, think about your options, and let me know.

Make sure you are well-versed in cleaning the tape path of your U-Matic deck. Because if you observe that your tape requires baking because it squeals and stops playing, the tape path will most definitely need a thorough cleaning !! 😃 I can’t tell you how many times I’ve cleaned the tape path of my EIAJ deck.

Yup, I have some high band tapes from 1982, and the tapes may be high band, as they played back in a BVU but not in a standard U-matic deck, so we will know soon.

Yeah, I know all about cleaning U-matic decks, I have four here, and have passed on instructions to be used if required.

For anyone wondering what U-Matic is, let these lovely ladies from Sony fill you in.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGNXwZooiPc

oh man! this thread is the greatest! HBO is how i was first introduced to Star Wars. i think my parents still have the recording on VHS at home. i was going to offer it up, but it looks like you guys might have a better source now.

i also found this

http://www.ebay.com/itm/STAR-WARS-Droids-R2D2-C3PO-original-unused-1977-Mead-60-Sheet-Notebook-exc-/222126540066?hash=item33b7c60522

might be good for a recreation if the seller is willing to scan it

The deck needs to be cleaned so that we get the best possible transfer, and I had to soure a 7pin dub cable so that we can convert the Y/C 688 to NTSC Y/C levels, as this gives much better quality than coming out via composite.
There is a lot happening, it all costs money and time, the time being multiple people’s time, all of whom have to fit it in around families, life etc. and I am managing it from across oceans to get it done.
So it will take as long as it takes, but assuming the tapes are okay, and the cable works, and the JVC TBC/Transcoder works then it will get done fairly soon. I’ll update the thread with any news, at the moment cables and other items are yet to be tested or are in transit.

i was able to dig up my parents old VHS and it is in really good quality. its only missing the last few seconds of the credits! I have an old Panasonic DVD VHS combo that will record VHS to DVD. i am currently “Dubbing” it as they call it. hopefully it will all turn out well

I finally found the time to upload a VHS rip of this on the spleen