CVC was a short-lived video cassette format introduced in the early 1980s by Technicolor and Funai. The format used small video cassettes, only very slightly larger than an audio cassette, containing quarter-inch wide tape.

The format was something of a flop, apparently in no small part due to the video camera supplied with the machines having very poor low-light performance, and the low quality of the tape stock used in the cassettes making dropouts problematic.

Very few machines were ever made for the format. The most common is the 212 portable model. These were mainly sold under the Technicolor brand, but the same machine was also sold badged as Funai, Siemens and Uher. These are all basically the same machine, just rebranded. (Grundig CVC machines were of a different design using a different mechanism, and their machines were slightly more compact.)

Technical information about these machine is very scarce, and I was unable to find any information on belt sizes required to replace those that had disintegrated in my machines.

So, here are the sizes of the belts that I fitted to my machines. I hope this information will prove useful to anyone else trying to service or repair these rare machines. Note that these are not necessarily identical replacements for the originals, but they fit and seem to work fine.

• Capstan Belt: 93.5mm diameter x 5mm x 0.5mm flat
• Main Serpentine Belt: 80mm diameter x 1.3mm square section
• Loading Belt: 33mm diameter x 1.1mm square section
• Reel Drive Belt: 33mm diameter x 1.1mm square section
• Tape Counter Belt: 59mm diameter x 1.2mm square section

(Yes, the loading belt and reel drive belt are identical.)