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| FORMAT: V2000 XL | |||||
DATE: 1984 PRICE: £499 [2005: £1075] 43x28x13cm 7.5 kg | ||||||
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| By 1985 the V2000 format was staring down the barrel of a gun, as VHS was clearly going to win the format war. But things might have been different if Philips had got the format onto the market ealier, because the last generation machines were frankly astounding, and years ahead of the competition. | |
 | All these second-generation machines were similar in styling, keeping the now traditional Philips sloping front but in a much smaller and stylish modernised form. The incredible shrinking VCR The 2840 compared to the earlier Philips range. Much smaller, and less than half the weight! |
| The 2840 was one of the very last V2000 machines, and is simply stuffed with features. It can play in slow motion, fast motion and even reverse, all with a perfect noise-free picture thanks to V2000's dynamic track following. It can record in stereo, or use the two audio tracks to provide two different languages, which you can switch between. It has audio dub, and the "counter GOTO feature" introduced with the original VR2020 (though the counter is still not hours/minutes). The timer can be set up for multiple programs up to a month ahead, and is set using real dates -- the machine even knows what year it is, and understands leap-years. (I'm not sure if it tracks summer time, however...) |  |
| You can also see how much tape is remaining, and how much is left as you set up each timer program, so you don't come home from holiday and find that the tape ran out before the end of the programs. V2000 cassettes have always coded the length of the tape using a pattern of three holes, but earlier machines didn't use this information. | |
 | Actually you were unlikely to run out of tape anyway, because the 2840 supports the Long Play version of the Video 2000 format, which Philips called XL or Extra Long. This meant that you could record a staggering 16 hours on a single tape, and eight hours uninterupted on one side. |  |
| (Not even the Betamax AG-C7 tape changer [shown in room 12] could match this, using four complete tapes!) A slow-speed version of V2000 had been promised almost since the format had been launched, but only one or two models were ever produced. Unfortunately the incredible capacity didn't have any effect on sales, which by 1985 were in free-fall, and the format was officially abandoned later the same year. The other long-awaited format variants - a miniature V2000 and a machine which could record or play both sides of a cassette without removing it - never did make it to market. | ||
This machine was very kindly donated to the museum by the Reverend and Mrs Davies. | ||
