I have a decent player. Front loading but doesnt have stereo. I paid 40 bucks for it which is ok. I just wanted to mess with one and see what they were about. Now I get to try to sell it, lol. It has all the paperwork and a remote though I am trying to get the remote to work. I watched night of the comet and am happy now, lol.

Wow man !
Struck gold again mikey !
You have the midas touch!
Enjoy it .......

It is an SL 20, which I know nothing about. It is front loading and isnt stereo. Still, it works great. Plays great and I am pretty happy. I am going to run my CED player through it, lol. Talk about old school

The SL-20 was one of Sony's EZ-Beta models, meant to sell for a very low price. The low price didn't mean low picture quality though - the SL-10 and SL-20 have super sharp, noise free pictures with minimal artifacts from the video noise reduction system that was part of the Beta II and III speeds. Plus, they play Beta I/X1 speed tapes superbly. The only difference between the SL-10 and 20 is the 10's remote is wired and not wireless like the SL-20.

Were pre-recorded Beta movies in BI or BII mode?

All prerecorded Beta was done in the Beta II speed, which was the "official" standard record/play mode for Beta and equivalent to VHS SP. During the first year of operation, Magnetic Video did offer their films in the Beta I speed on a special order basis. They cost $25 to $50 more than the Beta II version since an additional tape (or two) was required. Sadly though, Mag Vid used duplicating VCR's (SL-8200's) that had recording heads optimized for the Beta II speed, so the Beta I tapes didn't look that much better. Due to lack of demand, they quickly dropped Beta I as an option.

I have a promo Beta tape that Columbia Records sent to TV stations that contains Billy Joel videos from the Glass Houses album - since it's an "industrial" tape meant for broadcast, it is in the Beta I mode and was made on an industrial Betamax with wide-gap heads optimized for Beta I (which was the official speed for industrial Beta) - it looks phenomenal. Plus, it's in stereo, since industrial Beta had linear stereo from the start, and thanks to the fast tape speed, it sounds really good.

After Beta II was released it became optional for Beta VCR manufacturers to include Beta I playback, so once home video really took off, no company ever tried doing Beta I releases since playback compatability wasn't guaranteed. And unlike VHS, which had awful releases done in the slowest SLP mode, Beta never had prerecorded tapes in the Beta III mode because Beta II could record 3.5 hours on an L-750 blank.

In Japan, where the Beta I speed was never abandoned, they did have prerecorded tapes at that speed - also in SuperBeta and SuperBeta Is. SuperBeta Is was SuperBeta at the Beta I speed with an additional high band carrier shift of 600 kHz to give 300 lines of resolution. I think there were some demo and test tapes in ED-Beta in Japan too, but that format was awful - it was even noisier than Super VHS and could only maintain its 500 lines of resolution if the heads were wet cleaned after every 3 hours or so. Sony never offered the Beta I speed with the ED-Beta format.

Good score Mikey... there is Betamax Hi-Fi stereo model currently up for sale (bidding only).

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/VERY-RARE-Wor ... 8447wt_932

I just noticed another Betamax player a bit steep $399.98
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/SONY-SL-HFT7- ... 9973wt_756

There are other player decks but only for parts only.

I am going to sell it and put it towards my fund for the hifi betamax. That is my final goal and if I can sell this thing it will put me 1/2 way there. The decent beta players arent cheap any more and there is a sl-25 for sale that is the same as mine for 325 dollars. THey get the wood trim though.

You might also want to keep a look out for Linear Stereo as Hi-Fi (at least with Hi-Fi VHS) the stereo linear can’t be read on Hi-Fi Stereo decks, so you can have an early Stereo linear tape that won’t play on a Hi-Fi deck (as it doesn't have a Hi-Fi track on it), yet Hi-Fi Stereo tapes are backward compatible on both Stereo linear and Hi-Fi decks.

Just like, some Laserdisc players or discs if you don't have the right player you can't hear the soundtrack? Some have analouge only and some discs might have D/A yet you can't listen to D track unless you have a compatible player.

I know the one I want, it is just pretty expensive. I will look out for that though!

I've been mostly looking at used professional decks some go cheaply and for most they go for £££. I don't have any Beta tapes only VHS. I was looking at Beta tape films early last week some 10 or so pages on eBay-UK some good buy now prices.

I own one. Night of the comet, lol.

Oh the one where it turns the town into zombies I know I like that sci-fi 80's flick haven't seen it since on VHS in the 80's.

The world! Lol, just a cheesy movie but it is pretty good.

There was no linear stereo Beta released in the US - Beta Hi-Fi was Beta's first stereo format in the US.

SOmething along this line.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Fully-Working-S ... 1c288276ee

It looks almost brand new out of the box. Does it also come with Cobra (1986)



Looks rough around the edges on the flat screen might look better on direct view CRT or maybe a scaler to add some more lines to the picture.

The colour is fair for the Beta tape. Not sure if the camera is producing that tint of green on the middle of the blue light, it should be clear blue with a hint of white as there is a white light behind it.

Thats cool!

What's cool I just hovered the mouse over the image for the URL.



The owner must have been a person that takes pride in taking care of items. It does surely look brand new.

Well, if you're really gonna go Beta, might as well go big or go home . . .

Betamax Dream Machines

Just skip over the ED-Beta boxes.

That HL-SF2100 is one crazy piece of hardware!