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Vintage Television and Video Vintage television and video equipment, programmes, VCRs etc.

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Old 17th Jan 2020, 3:25 am   #1
tblack1
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Default Digitising output from old Philips N1700 VCR

I'm starting from a fairly low knowledge base here. I have late 1970s Philips N1700 VCR which I would like to hook up to my laptop in order to digitise some old tapes. I have no idea how this could be accomplished. The sole input and output seem to be BNC coaxial jacks, female plug for input and male plug for output (pic). My recollection is that the antenna cable went into the VCR, you tuned it, and a cable went out of the VCR into the antenna input of the TV. I have a modern VCR to USB adaptor, which has three RCA jacks, but this is useless for the Philips where the only output is from a single BNC connection. How do I adapt the output from the VCR to make it suitable to go into the laptop?
Thanks, Tom
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Old 17th Jan 2020, 11:52 am   #2
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Default Re: Digitising output from old Philips N1700 VCR

If there are also BNC connectors, you should use those. Or did you refer to the IEC connectors in the picture?
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Old 17th Jan 2020, 11:58 am   #3
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Default Re: Digitising output from old Philips N1700 VCR

Hi,
I may be wrong, but I think the basic N1700 only had an rf output..
I seem to remember there are mods that can be done to add audio and video outputs ? But these may be quite complex...
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Old 17th Jan 2020, 12:07 pm   #4
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Default Re: Digitising output from old Philips N1700 VCR

Those look like standard BL coax connectors for RF in and out.
One clumsy suggestion if you have a more modern VCR that has RCA outputs on the unit is to feed the RF out on the N1700 to the modern VCR, (VHS?) and take the unit you have to feed the RCA outputs of that to your convertor then laptop.
This will use VCR to convert the RF signal to baseband.

You may find there is patterning on the picture due to the two RF modulators beating together, just move the frequency (channel) if one recorder.
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Old 17th Jan 2020, 12:08 pm   #5
dazzlevision
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Default Re: Digitising output from old Philips N1700 VCR

The N1700 does indeed only have an RF (radio frequency) output from its internal modulator.
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Old 17th Jan 2020, 2:31 pm   #6
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Default Re: Digitising output from old Philips N1700 VCR

There is a mod in "Television" magazine for adding baseband video and audio output to an n1700. I did it to mine at the time and seem to remember there was not much construction involved. Anyone have that reference?

Meanwhile, I've been looking into having my n1700 tapes digitised - approx. £40 each here but others may be available:

https://www.video99.co.uk/
Graham
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Old 17th Jan 2020, 2:43 pm   #7
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Default Re: Digitising output from old Philips N1700 VCR

Quote:
Originally Posted by llama View Post
There is a mod in "Television" magazine for adding baseband video and audio output to an n1700.
Graham
November 1979 edition.
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Old 17th Jan 2020, 3:22 pm   #8
malvision
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Default Re: Digitising output from old Philips N1700 VCR

Here https://www.americanradiohistory.com...UK-1979-11.pdf
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Old 17th Jan 2020, 3:44 pm   #9
Maarten
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Default Re: Digitising output from old Philips N1700 VCR

Since BNC connectors were mentioned, I suspected the machine might have been modded. However it's possible the IEC connectors were just mistakenly mentioned as being BNC.

@tblack1: could I have a picture of your type label please? I'm trying to get some insight in Philips VCR/VCC production numbers and also very curious which version was sold in Australia.
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Old 17th Jan 2020, 6:55 pm   #10
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Default Re: Digitising output from old Philips N1700 VCR

Quote:
Originally Posted by Nuvistor View Post
Those look like standard BL coax connectors for RF in and out.
One clumsy suggestion if you have a more modern VCR that has RCA outputs on the unit is to feed the RF out on the N1700 to the modern VCR, (VHS?) and take the unit you have to feed the RCA outputs of that to your convertor then laptop.
This will use VCR to convert the RF signal to baseband.

You may find there is patterning on the picture due to the two RF modulators beating together, just move the frequency (channel) if one recorder.
I've done this with mine and have excellent results. Although, I'll be modding it in the future to have direct composite video and audio outputs for a 'cleaner' transfer picture.

Richard.
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Old 17th Jan 2020, 7:38 pm   #11
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Default Re: Digitising output from old Philips N1700 VCR

Tom

These are standard aerial (RF) connectors, not BNC. The N1700 only has an RF input and output. But if your machine also has BNC connectors which are mainly used for composite video in/out, it means it had the modification done to it in the past. Just follow what Frank suggested. If you also have a desktop PC that has a free PCI slot, get an old TV tuner card and hook up the VCR that way.

Regards

Fivos
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Old 17th Jan 2020, 9:16 pm   #12
Graham G3ZVT
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Default Re: Digitising output from old Philips N1700 VCR

I've got something I find invaluable in that scenario.
It's a cheap supermarket DVD recorder I bought years ago.
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It has baseband audio and composite video inputs on RCA sockets, and also IEEE1394 "Firewire" input that was perfect for the last camcorder I owned
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But more to the point here, it has a UHF/VHF tuner, so it will record direct from your VCR's RF output.
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I record on a DVD-RW then pop the finalized disk into my PC and copy off the VOB files, then use the disk for something else.
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Old 17th Jan 2020, 10:14 pm   #13
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Default Re: Digitising output from old Philips N1700 VCR

March 1981 Television p254-244 also describes a solution to provide video and audio into the N1700. Not that that's what you want to do in your case of course, but I thought I'd mention it for completeness (and because I've just read it strangely enough).
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Old 22nd Jan 2020, 4:22 pm   #14
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Default Re: Digitising output from old Philips N1700 VCR

Colin just uploaded a video showing the process of modifying these machines for an AV output:
https://youtu.be/nvjOmFKjc18
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