VCR Day 2024 is on Friday, June 7, 2024: VCR ,?

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Within this digital age, the number of people still own collections of VCR box teams of favourite Television shows, old favourites and films which are not available or just haven’t been bought on DVD? VCR day is devoted towards the humble video, and remembers the straightforward elegance of analogue recording and playback.

VCR's are basically obselete these days.

The best place to look would be a second hand shop like Cash Converters or somewhere like that.

Unless you want to buy a DVD/VCR.

It has a DVD player on one side and VCR on the other.

Good luck.

Do you remember the old days?

Ahhh the old days.

First we survived being born to mothers who smoked and drank while they were pregnant. They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes. Then after that trauma, we were put to sleep on out tummies in baby cribs covered with bright colored lead based paints. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors, or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention , the risk we took hitchhiking. As infants and children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, booster seats, seat belts or air bags.

Riding in the back of a pick up on a warm day was always a special treat. We drank water from a garden hose and not from a bottle. We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and no one actually died from this. we ate cupcakes, white bread, and real butter. We drank Kool-Aid made with sugar, but we weren't over weight because we were always outside playing.

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on. No one was able to reach us all day and we were O.K. We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.

We did not have Play Station 3, Nitendo Wie, X-box 360, no video games at all, no 150 channels on cable, no Videos or DVD's, no surround sound or CDs, no cell phones, no personal computers, no internet or chat rooms. We had friends and we went outside and found them.

We fell out of trees, got cuts, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents. we ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever. We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays, made up games with sticks and tennis balls and, although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes. we rode our bikes or walked to a frinds house and KNOCKED on the door or rang the doorbell, or just walked in and talked to them. Little league had try outs and not everyone made the team. Those who didnt had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that.

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law. These generations have produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever. The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas. We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it.

That was the good old days.

I have a VCR (SONY, model #SLV -N55 "Flash Rewind").....it worked perfectly until a few days ago?

A VCR is a complex system of belts, pulleys, gears, cams, and levers that must all be operating in perfect synchronization for every aspect of the mechanism to work properly.

One of the functions of a VCR is to eject the cassette at the end of the tape to prevent stretching and possibly breaking the tape. When a tape is inserted into the VCR, a spindle comes up through the front of the body of the cassette and it pulls the tape toward a pinch roller. As the tape is pulled out, it comes in contact with the record/playback heads. When the rotating spindle contacts the pinch roller, it then pulls the tape along at the required speed. When the tape reaches the end, the tension on the tape is detected by a roller attached to a lever. This lever then actuates a mechanism that ejects the cassette.

The spindle is driven by a belt that is attached to the drive motor. Other belts or gears that are attached to the drive motor provide the drive for the eject mechanism, and for fast-forward/rewind operation.

There is also a button on the cassette itself that allows the tape reels to operate freely when it is pressed by a lever in the VCR when the cassette is inserted. When this button is not pressed, this locks the tape reels to prevent a cassette from having the tape be pulled out when the cassette is not in the VCR.

So, what's the problem with your VCR? One of two things: Either the cassette is bad and the reel-locking button does not work to release the lock on the wheels when it's inserted into the VCR, or the lever that pushes the button on the cassette isn't fully pushing in the button. Either way, the tape reels are locked and the tape tension detection mechanism thinks that the tape is at the end. This then activates the eject mechanism and the tape pops out.

What probably happened is the tape that got jammed may have been a bad cassette. Or, the cleaning solution got on the pinch roller and/or the play spindle and it didn't move the tape properly, resulting in the tape jamming. Then, when you forcibly removed the cassette from the VCR, you accidentally tweaked the mechanism that pushes the button on the cassette that unlocks the reels.

I suppose you could take the case off the VCR, plug it in, and pop in a tape to study the mechanism that frees the tape reels. See if it is correctly lined up with the button on the cassette. Does it seem to actuate correctly? And, if not, is it something that can be bent back into place to get it to work again.

Beyond that, you'll probably have to take it somewhere to get repaired. I'm sure the technicians have seen this problem before.