Info about our sale Panasonic AG1980s

Our refurbished Panasonic AG1980s have special professional features that give a sharper, more stable picture than other VCR's. In fact, this machine is labeled "For Commercial Use Only". It's built-in Time Base Corrector makes it ideal for stabilizing and  transferring VHS tapes to a digital format.

How this VCR was repaired and aligned:

Our resident technician Tom Grant, has over thirty years in the audio-visual profession. Tom has completely refurbished, cleaned and adjusted this VCR.

The Electronics - Several circuit boards, including the motherboard are tested for bad or weak capacitors. Any poor capacitors are replaced.  Under all circumstances we always replace all of the SMD capacitors in the Y-C Color video board. The front display board is also rebuilt with all new capacitors. (NOTE: we always use quality, brand name replacement capacitors. This ensures that the AG1980 will give the best playback results ) 

The Mechanism - The VCR's mechanism is removed and disassembled to allow inspection and lubrication of the gears and mechanical parts. During this part of the rebuild, the synchronization of the mechanism is checked, and the mechanism is manually advanced through all of it's stages before it's re-inserted into the main chassis. An upgraded thread motor featuring our proprietary design improvements is installed (this solves many of the threading problems inherent in the original AG1980 design). The capstan and flywheel assembly is disassembled, cleaned, and the bearings are lubricated (if the bearings are worn, we replace them with near-to-new capstan bearings), The video head drum is disassembled, cleaned, and the bearings lubricated (the supplied video heads are carefully selected to give near-to-new playback quality). During our inspection of the mechanism, any other weak or worn parts are replaced.

Alignment - While viewing the video head envelope on our waveform monitor, the tape path is electronically aligned. The waveform analyzer also allows us to see the playback performance of the video heads. Using several test tapes, we can determine the condition of the video heads (video heads that don't meet our criteria are replaced with good condition heads). The linear audio track is also tweaked for best alignment. Video output level and Y/C levels are set to Panasonic's specifications.

Final Testing - We spend 3 hours of intensive testing. Tom uses twelve different tapes that were recorded on several different VCRs. These tapes were recorded between 1979 to 1997.  This final compatibility test ensures that you'll have great playback quality over a wide range of tapes.

We finalize our testing by simultaneously viewing the AG-1980's video output on a waveform monitor, pulse-cross monitor and color video monitor.  With this equipment we can confirm correct operation of the time base corrector, color output and overall picture quality.  We also compare the AG1980's video waveform to industry standards for resolution and stability of the image.

The completely aligned AG1980 is in top shape, ready to transfer all your tapes to digital !  90 day warranty and 10 day return policy*  (see terms below)