"David Farber" wrote:

I received this Sony PVW-2600 in for repair with the complaints of no video,
audio plays too fast. The machine looks like it has hardly been used. The
only beta tapes I have were recorded back in the 80's and were recorded in
either beta II or beta III format. I tried those tapes and it does play too
fast with no video display. Cleaning the stationary control(?) head didn't
help. Does this machine have the capability to play back those beta II,
III, tapes or should I ask the owner for some sample tapes?


PVW machines are not beta-MAX they are beta-CAM which is a broadcast
standard component recording format. If there was a fault causing
those symptoms you would be getting error messages (it is a
sophisticated machine), sounds like your customer is trying to play
beta max tapes - it's not going to happen.

Vic Thomas