Philips VR 670B/39 - sdvice on repair needed

[the_basilisk]

The Philips VR 670B/39 is a multistandard VCR - PAL/SECAM bought in France.

It has worked perfectly for many years. Recently the video output has failed.
When a tape is played, after some 20 sec, the tracking error message 'TRAC' is
displayed. The video output, when captured and replayed, is just a load of noise, which explains the error message.

The heads have been cleaned, but that made no difference; The sound output and mechanicals work as normal.

When I insert a write-protected casette and press the record button, a full
screen error message is displayed - which is what one would expect.

It seems that either the recording heads have failed, or the transmission from
the moving heads to the static part of the video chain.

Any advice please.

[goodpsusearch]

Re: Philips VR 670B/39 - sdvice on repair needed

I have 3 Philips VCRs laying around here, all dead, I heard that they are notorious for failing.

But, just in case you might be lucky I paste some guidelines I wrote in another thread:

1) Modem TV sets very aggressively block the signal when the image processor thinks it is too messed up and show no signal message. That way you are totally unaware of what is happening on the VHS and a lot happened that I couldn't know. So, please try to test VHS devices/tapes on CRT Tvs or LCD that are very forgiving of the video input they receive from SCART/RCA/S-VIDEO and allow a lot of snow and/or tracking errors.

2) Unfortunately some of cassettes that are 20 or 30 or more years old are starting to deteriorate. Sometimes it is not visible if you open the cover and look at the tape, other times it is. These is also a chance that the magnetic material is fine but the tape is just demagnetized, due to poor storage near magnets, or moisture creeping in. In my case, I was very unlucky because I tested 4-5 VHS machines with a bad cassette that stressed the heads and made my Samsung LCD TV show no image after a couple of seconds. So please make sure you find a KNOWN Working tape first , then coduct any testing.

3) Give some time to the heads. If you get to have a Known good VHS tape and try it on a device that has not worked since 2004, the video head will appear dead, you will get absolutely no image at first, then, 2-5 minutes later you will get some image but it will be too snowy, then after more minutes of playback it will be less snowy and after 30-45 minutes the image will get crystal clear (well for VHS standards). So, don't write off the VHS recorder too soon. This auto healing process happened on several VCRs that I tested.


More here:
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showth...69#post1099069