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Sanyo and Toshiba were two of the first companies to make an attempt to interest the public in a home video recording system. Their format, called the V-Cord (short for Video reCORDer) contained many design characteristics that were similar to the Betamax. This may be one of the reasons that both manufactures later joined forces with Sony to produce Beta machines (less tooling and imagineering). In the photo above is shown the last, and most advanced, model from Sanyo. Called the V-Cord  (the roman numeral two was added because, unlike it predecessors, this one recorded in color and had two recording and playback speeds). As you can see it very similar to the Beta units to come later. One interesting difference was the layout of the functions keyboard. Click on the picture and you will notice that it is reversed from what would later become the standard. Not a problem if you were accustomed to this system, but confusing when you used it along with units from other manufacturers. Click on the picture again and you will see a rear view. Almost identical to Beta units to come with the exception of the large 75 ohm coax barrel connectors for the camera outlets. The next photo shows the RF unit that produced the TV signal output going to the television. It is located inside a compartment on the bottom of the unit. Interestingly the V-Cord only sent a signal to the TV when placed in playback or with the record button was pressed down, the screen was blank in the standby mode. Click on the photo and the unit is seen with the top panel removed. Notice that the drum assembly is to the left of the cassette compartment. This is perhaps the most unique difference between this format design and all the others. Click again and you can see close up the side loading mechanism and cassette doorway. It is lower left. Notice the video drum is almost identical in size and structure to the Beta units that would come later. The next photo is looking down inside the cassette compartment receiver or doorway. Here we see how the V-Cord system stopped the tape at the ends. The tape in the cassette had a clear leader at beginning and end of the tape. An end of tape light sent a beam across the tape that when broken would stop forward and reverse movement, this method would be used later in VHS machines. The other interesting thing seen here're the tabs or catches that opened and closed the cassette opening sliding door (seen in the upcoming photo). These two curved fingers were used to pull the door open when the cassette was pushed in and closed it again when it was pulled out. Click on the picture and the cassette door is illustrated in the next photo. This door design was simple, clean and secure. It was well suited for protecting the tape and preventing spills or snags. Also the access hole for the tape capture and threading was very small, another added plus. Click on the picture again and you can see the door sliding open as the cassette is being inserted. Click again and the cassette is down and the door is tucked away inside the tape shell. Notice the glow on the leader tape from the lamp, also visible is the photocell protruding up into the cassette shell. The pinch roller and guide are sitting in the cassette pocket prior to pulling the tape out during the threading operation. Sanyo V-Cords (and their Betas models to come later) did not load the tape into the tape path until record or playback was requested. Also, rewind and fast forward was done with the tape inside the cassette. Click on the picture once more and the clear leader is seen fully threaded around the tape path. It is very similar to early Beta in its layout, except that it is located to the side of the cassette assembly. Early V-Cord units recorded what was calle split field video. That is, they only recorded half of the two scans of a video picture. During playback the video drum and electronics filled in the missing half of the picture. Explained this way a video picture consists of two interlaced scans at roughly 1/30 of a second intervals to make up one frame picture of video. You don't notice the individual scan because your brain puts it together into one picture, like watching a movie. You can see the difference of a single frame if you pause a video picture and examine it closely. It is noticeably less sharp and dense than the moving video image because only one half of the total picture is being scanned for pause. This latest model was a improvement over the ones before it because it was capable of recording both halves of the picture. To keep it compatible with past models a switch on the back allowed the user to select single or double scan. This is another reason why this last model was designated as the . |