Memories Of Video

Our first sky box was an Amstrad SRD 520, It lasted for about 7 years before we switched to the (IMHO) far superior Pace MSS 100. My first portable tv and video player were from Matsui (Currys/Dixons own brand)

Probably common knowledge but Amstrad were originally part of the BSB group.

Did anyone have the Amstrad twin deck VCR?

Yes - though they left long before launch ISTR because Alan Sugar thought D-MAC receivers were going to take too long to bring to market/cost too much money. He jumped ship to the Sky PAL analogue service (that was broadcast on the FSS rather than DBS bands)

Was D-MAC full HD or at least an early example?

From wikipedia:

By 1986, despite there being two standards, D-MAC and D2-MAC, favoured by different countries in Europe, an EU Directive imposed MAC on the national DBS broadcasters, to provide a stepping stone from analogue PAL and SECAM formats to the eventual high definition and digital television of the future, with European TV manufacturers in a privileged position to provide the equipment required.

I’d give Applemask’s excellent documentary about BSB, Square Peg, a watch on Vimeo if you haven’t already done so. Amstrad basically dropped out as they said that the satellite system BSB wanted couldn’t be churned out at £200 a piece, where as Sky/Astra could be.

A friend of mine had the double decker VCR, I never saw it in action but I was certainly in awe of it at the time.

Already have and it is superb. As regards the twin deck can anyone tell me if it had one tuner or two?

If its this one:


It says you can "tape two things at once". Which tells me it would have had two tuners, but the image used seems to suggest only one tape is recording from the tuner and the other is from a tape?

But of course you'd usually only have one aerial connection, unless you can split RF which I don't think you can without degrading? Of course portable/rooftop aerials were and still are a thing so...

AFAIA splitting the signal would have degraded it but by how much is unclear. Wonder if they had SCART?

We had one of those for a while, the double deck Amstrad. Was actually more hassle than it was worth. I do recall mum attempting to tape Emmerdale farm, and tomorrows world once at the same time. Don't know if it was successful though.

Did anyone else have experiences of tapes chewing up in the machine?

I think everyone's had that. And chances are it was an important tape as well.

Sod's law dictates that the more important the tape, the more likely the video will eat it, sooner rather than later.

Of course when you look inside a video and see all the gummings, its surprising they didn't eat more tapes than they did: