boyajian@akov68.DEC (03/13/84)
I recently encountered a problem that results in a question that one of you peo- ple might be able to answer. How does the Beta Hi-Fi unit read the stereo signal off of the helical tracks? Do the heads automatically read the signal, or are there control signals on the control signal track that tell the heads to read the stereo signal? The problem that generates the above question(s) is as follows: The other week, I purchased a Beta Hi-Fi copy of BLADE RUNNER. When I sat down to watch/listen to it, I found no stereo signal. There are 5 simple tests for this: (1) the "Beta Hi-Fi" light should come on; (2) the stereo/bilingual in- dicator light should come on at the stereo position; (3) there should be a much fuller sound than one gets with a mono tape; (4) there usually is a very notica- ble channel separation (at least there is on the other BHF tapes I have or have listened to); and (5) there should be no high-end hiss. The BLADE RUNNER tape flunked all 5 tests. Just to make sure everything was in working order, I tried my other 3 BHF tapes, and they were fine. The manager at the store where I ord- ered the tape let me take their rental copy home (free of charge) to test *it*. It was fine, so they have sent the "bad" copy back to get it replaced. I can't really figure out why there would be no stereo signal on the tape unless one of the following situations occured: (1) as the recording studio made 'n' dupes at once from a master, one of the machines was not set for stereo input (this would mean that a whole batch of tapes would be "bad") or (2) as I postulated in the question I made at the beginning of this article, there are control signals on the tape that tell the read heads to read a stereo signal off the tape and these controls signals somehow got munged. Even if no one's got an answer to my question, I thought I'd let the newsgroup know that such a problem can occur (if it's occurred once, it can occur many more times). --- jayembee (Jerry Boyajian, DEC Maynard) UUCP: (decvax!decwrl!rhea!akov68!boyajian) ARPA: (decwrl!rhea!akov68!boyajian@Shasta)
dmmartindale@watcgl.UUCP (Dave Martindale) (03/15/84)
Sounds like you got an ordinary Beta tape rather than a Beta HiFi tape. They definitely exist - I watched Blade Runner on a friends Beta HiFi VCR and the tape was definitely not HiFi. Since it wasn't labelled as such by the rental place, there was nothing to complain about. (Beta HiFi tapes have the ordinary audio tracks recorded too, for compatibility.)
perl@rdin.UUCP (Robert Perlberg) (03/16/84)
The audio on a Beta HIFI tape is modulated on a carrier whose frequency is higher than that which any video signal achieves. The player detects the existance of this high frequency component and triggers the demodulator (and front panel light(s)). Since the audio carrier is higher than NTSC video, players and recorders other than BHF's may not be able to deal with it. Your tape may have been copied using non-BHF equipment.
wmartin@brl-vgr.ARPA (Will Martin ) (03/18/84)
My first guess would simply be that a non-Beta-Hi-Fi version of the tape got labelled or boxed as a Beta-Hi-Fi version. Is there some reason to think that the problem is more complex than that?
ron@brl-vgr.ARPA (Ron Natalie <ron>) (03/20/84)
There isno such thing as a BHF audio "track." The sound is carried on the video carrier. My memory is flakey but I believe the non hi-fi audio is recorded on a separate track (i.e. not using the helical head). -Ron
boyajian@akov68.DEC (03/26/84)
brl-vgr!wmartin: > My first guess would simply be that a non-Beta-Hi-Fi version of the > tape got labelled or boxed as a Beta-Hi-Fi version. Is there some > reason to think that the problem is more complex than that? Well, yes there is. Since BHF tapes also carry a regular mono track so that they can be played on regular Beta machines (the BHF also records a mono track in addition to stereo tracks), there is no need to have separate BHF and non-BHF editions of any given movie. See my previous message for an elaboration. --- jayembee (Jerry Boyajian, DEC Maynard) UUCP: (decvax!decwrl!rhea!akov68!boyajian) ARPA: (decwrl!rhea!akov68!boyajian@Shasta)