I recently purchased a SL-HF500 that had broken tooth on the driving arm gear for the cassette loading. Quite a common gear to fail on these. I have had this gear available for a few years but I thought I would share with the group my gear. I bolstered the area where the tooth usually breaks. The issue is that tooth sees a lot of stress when a tape is loaded. The HF500 had a bad STK which probably caused the previous owner to shelve the unit with the tape stuck inside.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/284865572775

I have a Sony SL-100 that was working fine until recently. The audio is now muffled. It's still present but almost impossible to hear or decipher. Any idea what would cause this issue? I've opened it and it was dusty inside. I dusted that out but nothing changed. I still get video coming in fine.

Like the title says, I obtain some of these lines with some old tapes I am playing on a "brand new" refurbished Sony SL-60. The tracking wheel doesn't help here and if the lines show up, it's almost always around contours against bright backgrounds. The machine is perfect otherwise, could this be a tape issue? Also, I would rather not open and clean the recorder for warranty reasons, it only arrived a few weeks ago from a well-established retailer on ebay. Any idea?

https://preview.redd.it/0dj3l5p5zt5e1.jpg?width=1246&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8fe0673e571223907b761676e82290933d358463

From the glory days of MTV & Radio Shack!

Hey Gang,

I got my first betamax setup not long ago, but never had any tapes to play on it. I recently picked up a box of tapes, and have found that there may be a few hiccups I'm looking for some advice on.

1. The picture

The picture quality is actually very good! I've been very pleased with the image quality. However, there are white lines of static that play over the image every 5-6 seconds. This happens on every tape I've played. I've tried every trick for fixing this but the playback speed and tracking aren't fixing anything.

2. The audio

The image quality is lovely, but the audio quality is the complete opposite. Wobbly, static, mess. I've tried very hard to try switching the playback speed, altering the tracking, and fast forwarding then rewinding through the tape in its entirety to see if anything changes. No matter what, the audio stays wobbly and shrill.

Does anyone know what's wrong with the player? Is this fixable or just an age problem? Any help would be great!

Hi there,
I have an issue with my VTC M-10. When a tape is inserted it does not engage the loading mechanism ( the carousel which takes the ribbon around the head ). It also does not engage the loading end switch. When I manually turn the loading motor and slowly turn the mechanism around the loading ring around the head until where it is supposed to be, when I turn the machine on it resets everything to its normal position as if no tape is loaded so I know the motors are working but the tape is not engaging something to tell the machine "there is a tape inside, load the ribbon around the head and play". The cassette-in switch does work and detects when a tape is inserted but that is as far as it goes, the rest of the mechanics does not engage. When I press play I can see the head spinning but after a few seconds it stops playing and the head turns off ( as if the machine is stopping the tape to say something is wrong ). When I manually make contact with the loading end-switch pins and press play the right tape rotor turns and plays although the carousel did not take the tape ribbon around the head.

Any ideas?

Here is a video I made explaining all the issues:

https://youtu.be/wyT9oanf5to

I’ll admit I’m not the biggest A CHRISTMAS STORY fan but there’s something charming about that art on this 1984 Beta release along with the quality of the transfer that just feels right.

https://preview.redd.it/7sek0fa77r2e1.png?width=523&format=png&auto=webp&s=46ca447d6378453af45aa9790511663e6cf9a6a9

I collect movie related stuff and the betamax is the last one i want to have in my collection. I already have laserdisc,vhs,dvd,and blu ray players. Is there any betamax brands for the actual player that i should avoid?

Hey all! Thought I'd share something I've done quite a bit of research into that you all might enjoy. To give a bit of background: letterboxed tapes have always been something I've been sort of interested in. While VHS got quite a lot of letterboxed tapes, some of which are more common than others (still hunting for any hard evidence that Batman Forever and any Bond films aside from Goldeneye got them!), letterboxed Beta tapes have always been an enigma. Because Beta was basically dead before most people would've wanted to watch movies in widescreen, not many letterboxed Beta tapes were ever released. However, I still want to document the small handful that do.

NOTE: currently, the only known letterboxed Betamax titles are titles that were letterboxed on home media normally, and not like many letterboxed VHS releases where both standard and letterboxed versions exist.

Update: The above remains true with the exception of the recently discovered Apocalypse Now widescreen Beta.

Now, without further ado, all known letterboxed Betamax releases in alphabetical order.

Always (1990)

Apocalypse Now, Widescreen Edition (1979): A Betamax variant of the widescreen edition VHS released in 1992. The only release on this list to be a film not letterboxed on home media by default. Uses the VHS case with Beta stickers like many other late Beta releases. Thanks to user Dimmer35 for providing us with photos of this release!

Color Purple, The (1985)

Innerspace (1987)

King of Hearts (1966): Also one of the only letterboxed CED titles. Uses a VHS box with Beta stickers, see the third photo.

Lawrence of Arabia, Widescreen Director's Cut (1962): While there is a Betamax equivalent to the pan-and-scanned VHS tapes, there is also a Beta equivalent of the widescreen Director's Cut tapes. Another one that uses VHS boxes with Beta stickers.

Manhattan (1979)

For now, that's it. I'll update this list if I ever find any more.

Hey all. I've recently been looking into rare Beta releases, and while looking into the infamous Mission Impossible Beta, I found this Lost Media Wiki Forum post about it: https://forums.lostmediawiki.com/thread/7813/mission-impossible-betamax-release . The reason I found this forum post interesting is because it mentions this:

The most recent movie I could find with a Betamax release was the 1993 movie Point of No Return.

In particular, that hyperlink points to an old Ebay listing presumably for that tape. While the link is long since dead, it at least shows that a Beta copy of it exists and it was sold online at some point in time. However, outside of that forum post and dead Ebay link, I couldn't find any other evidence that this release ever existed. Does anyone here have the tape or at least have any more evidence it existed?

Got these a number of years ago from my grandpa, who got them from my great-grandpa, who supposedly recorded countless TV programs on them. Haven't played through them yet but apparently he was meticulous and would stop the recording at commercial breaks, so sadly, likely no old commercials on these tapes. I've also got dozens and dozens of VHS tapes with similar recordings.

Hello BetaMax community. I just purchased a Hi-Fi BetaMax off eBay, that came with a Hollywood movie, because I have two very precious home movies that I want to transfer. I cleaned the heads on the new machine, turned it on and tried to play the movie. I was getting some pretty messed up images, and decided to fast forward the tape to check it farther in, but the tape broke!

Now I'm thinking that I may want to take my home movie apart and hand wind it to the end of the tape and then back again. My thinking is that because it's 25+ years old and hasn't been played, the edges of the tape might have started to stick together and thus can lead to a tape break. I've read that you can't really splice beta tape, so I'd have to create two smaller reels from the one, and that sounds like a huge pain.

Has anyone tried my hand winding method? Any suggestions from anyone out there?

So hey, hi! I'm not the interested party, mearly attempting to reach out on their behalf. I can provide a connection via dm. My cousin has inherited a massive physical media estate. CED is just the beginning. There's at least one working player, plus I think three new in box. I could be wrong. At this point it's a bit overwhelming.

Plus also so many Betamax tapes, players, recorders, and actually movies. Think about Casablancas beta library and you will be spot on as the estate holds ALL the Casablanca Betamax tapes.

Obviously looking for volume deals. I am not the seller but DM me your details and I will make sure they are attended to. I will connect you.

Also selling ridiculous quantities of DVD and Blu-ray!!!! Are you missing a season of something? We will see if it's in the pile.