FORMAT: V2000     DATE: 1980 PRICE: £600 [2005: £1700] 57x32x16cm 14 kg

The 2x4 was Grundig's first V2000 machine, and seems to have beat the Philips VR2020 to the market by about a month. It clearly is not derived in any way from the Philips machines, and in fact resembles most strongly the SVR4004 machine from the Super Video format which Grundig abandoned a couple of years before.

Like many Grundigs, nearly everything about the 2x4 is bizarre. The cassette loading system is a sort of perspex "greenhouse" on the right; when this is closed with a cassette inside, the carriage and tape can be seen descending gracefully into the works. The main operating buttons are distributed randomly around the fascia, with the tuner/timer controls to the left under a panel. To confuse the user, the eject button is labelled Tape, the button marked Stop is actually Pause, and there's an extra button with a curious symbol on it which is effectively the Stop key - it unlaces the tape without ejecting.

Both the tuner and the timer controls are also completely unfathomable, with more misleading labels and meaningless symbols. There is also a knob on the top which is apparently a picture sharpness control, but has no visible effect on the picture. Definitely a machine which needs a good manual - which we haven't got...
One of the criticisms levelled at the 2x4 was its lack of trick-play features, and an upgraded model called the 2x4 plus was released about a year later which addressed these shortcomings. An extra panel below the cassette compartment contained three special playback keys for still frame, slow motion and forward picture search. No reverse picture search was provided.

Internally the 2x4 is another modular design, with plug-in circuits on a main motherboard. Curiously, Grundig chose to use the Betamax-style "C" lacing pattern in their machines, rather than the "M" lacing pattern used by VHS and Philips' V2000 machines. Rumour has it that in the long run this was more reliable than the Philips system, with it's "cable-car" loading pins.