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From: wmartin@brl-tgr.ARPA (Will Martin )
Newsgroups: net.video
Subject: VCRs -- Stereo Audio & Antennae
Message-ID: <258@brl-tgr.ARPA>
Date: Mon, 29-Jul-85 13:42:29 EDT
Article-I.D.: brl-tgr.258
Posted: Mon Jul 29 13:42:29 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 31-Jul-85 05:40:13 EDT
Distribution: net
Organization: USAMC ALMSA
Lines: 46

Helped a friend buy a JVC VHS VCR (love them acronyms!) Friday night.
Something that I thought I understood, based on the traffic I've seen in
this newsgroup and the Videotech list on the ARPA side, was that I expected
that just about every VCR, except maybe the cheapest bottom-of-the-line
models, would have a stereo audio playback head for the longitudinally-
recorded audio tracks, and two audio output jacks. Then, in addition to
this, the fancier models would have the HiFi audio system, of course.

The one we bought -- a four-head VHS JVC which sold for $449, marked
down from ~$800 or so list -- had a single audio output jack. I fed it
into my friend's audio system through a Y-adapter, and he's happy with
the sound. Am I just simply totally mistaken about this stereo vs. mono
situation on VCRs? Do only the HiFi models also have "ordinary" stereo
audio heads and two-channel sound output? Or do just about all of "this
year's" models have that, and this one just happened to be an older
version?

Another point: He lives in a small apartment house, which is not wired
for cable and has no MATV antenna system. All he used was the rabbit-ear
antennae on his TV. I would think that this situation would be fairly
common; lots of people who live in the city here have no outside
antennae, and no cable for some years yet. However, the instruction book
and literature that came with the VCR completely ignored this
possibility. It assumes that you have an outside antenna or a cable
hookup, and makes no mention of how to attach another set of
(separately-purchased) rabbit ears, using the (supplied) 300-to-75 ohm
matching transformer and plug unit. I'm going to be doing this, since I
know how to; however, does anyone have any idea *why* this common
situation was ignored in the manufacturer's literature? (Aside from this
lack, I found the manual to be fairly well-written and clear in most
respects.)

Most people who are currently using the rabbit ear antennae on top of
their TVs and who buy a VCR are *not* going to realize that you really
have to buy another, separate set of rabbit ears for the VCR (there
usually is no way to use the set's antennae in this case -- they come
with short stubs of 300-ohm line, and splicing that stuff is usually a
bad idea, causing glitches and reflections and the like, so a new
separate set of rabbit ears is needed). I would think that leaving such
a mention out of the literature is asking for trouble, in the form of
returns and call-backs. Any comments on this?

Regards,
Will Martin

ARPA/MILNET: wmartin@almsa-1.ARPA    UUCP/Usenet: seismo!brl-bmd!wmartin