Advice on transfer of 405 reel to reel VT tape to DVD

[martin1968]

I have an old VT tape I have played on a 60s Bell and Howell reel to reel video recorder.
There is not a stable picture on the standard monitor I'm using.

I think its 405 line , as its the only tape I have at the moment .
Will I need a 405 line TV/ Monitor to view.

What is required to transfer this tape to DVD , do i need a 405 to 625 line converter

Or is there a simple circuit I could build that would just let me transfer the tape.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks.
Martin.

[HamishBoxer]

I think you could feed the Audio /Video output from the reel to reel straight into a dvd recorder.

Not sure what you mean by unstable on present monitor though.Possibly an old monitor you are using is 405 lines?

[Restoration73]

A 405 video source may provide a locked field on a 625 monitor, but jumbled video.
If you could obtain an old 405 or multistandard monitor it could be viewed.
Easiest 405 conversion is optical, pointing a modern camera at the monitor

[Nicklyons2]

The first thing you need to do is ascertain for definite whether it is 405 or not. There's no point in mustering alot of advice and equipment to find it is 625 in the end. Post #3 is correct; note that a modern flat screen TV will not be sympathetic to noisy/poor sync material. You may be able to get 'more sense' of what's going on with an older tube monitor where you can adjust the line frequency/horizontal hold.

Pointing a camera at a monitor is the easiest method of conversion although electronic converters were made but I think you'll find them rare.

I would doubt the ability of a DVD machine to record 405 - there is nothing in its design which would accomodate the parameters of 405. It is not the same as recording it onto a VHS machine or Betamax or U-matic machine. These helical scan cassette machines will quite happily record almost anything so long as the field sync pulses appear in good order and as 405,625 and 819 all share the same field rate they can be recorded. Note though that the very late de-luxe VHS machines can't because the digital processing of the image 're blanks' the image assuming 625 output.

[AidanLunn]

You would need a dual standard monitor or TV set to determine whether the recording is 625 or 405. Within the next few weeks or so I'll no longer be needing the Sony CVM9-90 TV/monitor that I got off Nickylyons a few years ago, these are like the Sony 9-90 UB TV but with added baseband inputs for use as a monitor, and for all optical conversions I've seen from domestic formats, these seem to have been used.

You are welcome to borrow it or keep it depending on your requirements.

[cheerfulcharlie]

I don't recall Bell and Howell making video tape products, they were more associated with film products. So it would be interesting if you could supply some images.

However the picture could be unstable for a number of reasons, such as lost sync pulses due to a dirty/worn sync pulse head, oxide clogging or tape stretching, plus of course decayed electronic components within that circuit.

If the picture comes and goes then something amiss in the video head amplifier circuits might be likely? such as at worst a broken video head.

Can you hear sound? if so..
if it is stable but running at the wrong speed then it might be indeed a wrong standard tape playing on the VTR.
If the sound is ok and stable then there maybe faults in the video head dept as mentioned previous.
If it is not stable and wowing then the sync pulse head department (as mentioned previously) might be to blame?

[Nicklyons2]

Bell Howell 'badge engineered' quite a bit of stuff from the 1970s on; slide sync cassette machines and video recorders amongst them. It's a long time ago now but I've a feeling the video recorders were either JVC/Nivico or Shibaden 'badged' but I'm willing to be proved wrong. We're talking the era of the 1/4" Akai vtrrs and the Sony CV2100.