Hitachi PCM-V300
A complete digital recorder in one box, VHS transport and all, that weighed 41.8 pounds and cost about as much as a used car.
Overview
The first thing you notice is the heft. At 41.8 lbs (18.81 kg), the PCM-V300 is not a processor you set on top of a VCR. It is the VCR, plus the PCM encoder, plus the analog front end, all in a single chassis measuring 17⅓ inches wide by 10⅙ tall. Hitachi had already been in the consumer PCM game for a while. Audio (June 1982, p.42) noted that Hitachi was among the first major companies to offer a consumer PCM processor nearly three years earlier, and that earlier unit required the buyer to supply a videocassette recorder. The PCM-V300 closes that loop. Nothing else is needed to make a two-channel digital recording except performers and microphones, or a mixing console that won't clip the dynamic range.
The format is the EIAJ standard (EIAJ STC-007), NTSC video signal, helical-scan VHS transport. Sampling runs at 44.056 kHz with 14-bit linear quantization. Error correction is handled by 16-bit CRCC plus P and Q correction words. A T-120 VHS cassette yields 120 minutes of record/playback time. Line input is 300 mV rms, line output 1.0 V rms, digital dubbing output 1.0 volt peak-to-peak, and the headphone jack is rated at 8 ohms. Power requirements are 120 V, 60 Hz. The price was approximately $3,200.
The front panel is elaborate, and anyone who has run a professional VTR will feel at home. A VHS cassette compartment sits at the upper left, flanked by two three-position slide switches. One is an auto-rewind selector with Off, Stop, and Rewind/Play positions. The other is a timer switch with Off, Record, and Play. Below the compartment is a cluster of light-touch, solenoid-logic transport buttons: fast-forward, play, rewind, stop, plus a row of smaller buttons for record, pause, and the rest. A swing-door at the lower right, near the stereo headphone jack, hides a rotary tracking control, a pre-emphasis on/off switch, and a rotary control labeled "DSLC" - Data Slice Level Control - which is said to help the machine pull digital data off tapes recorded on other machines. Three indicator lights flash when digital dropouts occur. Additional lamps at the top of the unit report P and Q error correction activity, pre-emphasis engagement, output muting (no tape or an improperly recorded tape), and dubbing mode. Dual-concentric record level controls and a small output-level control round out the layout.
Hitachi also built in an Address Search system to make editing a digital tape more exact. The rear panel of the review sample carried pairs of line-in and line-out jacks, dubbing in/out jacks, and another pair labeled "Audio In/Out". Without an owner's manual, nobody could say what that pair was for.
Audio (June 1982, p.42) ran the PCM-V300 through a Sound Technology Model 1500A tape tester and found record/play frequency response at 0 dB and −20 dB almost perfectly flat from 20 Hz to 20 kHz. It was so flat that the vertical scale had to be expanded to 2 dB per division, because at the usual 10 dB per division the two curves would have looked like straight lines. The manufacturer's spec is 20 Hz to 20 kHz, ±0.5 dB, and the review bears that out. Channel separation at 1 kHz measured 71.5 dB, still around 65 dB at 20 kHz. The reviewer suspected that figure was limited by capacitive coupling between the test cables rather than by the machine itself, since crosstalk theoretically shouldn't exist in a digital system. Dynamic range is specified as more than 85 dB, harmonic distortion as less than 0.01% at 1 kHz. Wow and flutter is below measurable range: the test instrument, capable of resolving 0.01%, simply reported "SIGNAL TOO LOW."
Listening impressions in that same review were unreserved. Through a top-grade set of reference headphones, which eliminated every analog stage except the phones and the built-in headphone amplifier, the clarity and purity of sound was described as difficult to describe properly, and excellent. The reviewer acknowledged a reader's complaint that his enthusiasm for digital sounded childish, and stood by it: the first time you hear digital reproduced over a fine system, restraint may not come easily. The musical selections, ranging from classical to electronic organ to pop, held up equally well over the reference speakers.
This is a 1982 machine built around a VHS transport, and the transport is the wear item. Heads, belts, and the solenoid-logic mechanism are all decades old now. The 41.8-pound weight and 10⅙-inch height make it a shelf-space commitment. The approximately $3,200 original price means surviving units were never cheap consumer goods, and whatever studios and well-heeled hobbyists bought them treated them accordingly. It offers 14-bit EIAJ PCM, 44.056 kHz sampling, and a measured flatness that analog tape of the era could not approach. Whether it still plays a tape is another question, and one to ask before any money changes hands.
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