Betamax 711 Tape Loading Mechanism without Cassette

When Sony first introduced the Betamax VCR to the world in the late seventies, they touted the superiority of their U-Loading tape transport, which was claimed to be less stressful than the competing VHS M-load.

But that original Beta transport (code name 710) took up a lot of space and make the VCRs big and bulky so Sony re-engineered it and designed the 711 transport which first appeared in late 1981 on the SL-2500. To save space the tape now threaded around the left side of the head drum and was held in place for scanning by three hinged guides, which folded up for use and retracted when the cassette was ejected. This action is clearly visible in this HD video.

Some early problems of mechanism breakage were eventually overcome by making it more rugged and ultimately it became the de facto tape threading mechanism on all of Sony's consumer Betamax models. Many industrial models, however, where the size of the machine was less of an issue, continued to use the larger U-loading system up to and including many Beta SP and Digi Beta professional decks.

This video is of the transport inside an EDV-7500 Betamax, which represented the last refinement of the mechanism. Instead of rubber belts and pulleys this transport was almost entirely gear-driven, and much quieter than some previous versions. Unfortunately, despite the reliability and cleanliness of the transport inside this particular machine, it has other electronic problems due to corrosion from improper storage and introduces static into the playback picture.

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