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  #1  
07-20-2019, 06:12 AM
LightWorker01 LightWorker01 is offline
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This may seem an odd problem but one I have been stumped with.

I have a few VCR machines and up until recently did not use NTSC tapes.

I acquired a really nice VHS-C camcorder for free which has great low-light performance. But when I checked it closer, it was an NTSC, not a PAL unit. Now I am aware that you should have an NTSC player for NTSC tapes for best results and that any 'NTSC Playback' VCRs output a Quasi signal and not a true NTSC output. I had recorded two home movies on it before I realised and thus labelled them as NTSC and have reserved the camcorder for use in night/low light shots until I have solved my little problem I am having with playing back the tapes over HDMI via the panasonic.

My TV/VCR/DVD combi (PAL with NTSC Playback in SP/EP modes, and PAL tapes in SP/LP modes) plays the NTSC tapes back well, and the camcorder plays them perfectly through the HDTV.

My main VHS decks, a panasonic DMZ-EZ47V and an older consumer panasonic machine play them well as well, both support NTSC playback in SP/EP modes (and PAL Tapes for rec/pb in SP/LP/EP modes)

But the problem comes when I play them over HDMI which is how the panasonic is usually plugged in. The DMZ-EZ47V is plugged into my HDTVs HDMI port and the other panasonic is hooked up to it via its scart port. This is so I can easily dub tapes. The output of both machines is over HDMI via the panasonic EZ47V.

When I try and play NTSC tapes in the machines, black bars come up across the bottom and it asks me to connect it to the TV with it's scart output to fix the problem, which it does. However, I want to keep the deck plugged into HDMI. VHS actually looks reasonably good using the panasonic upscaler on my HDTV, and I often play home movies and movies through it. I am wondering if the panasonic's upscaler does not like the Quasi NTSC signal for some reason or other.

I understand the 'NTSC Playback' of PAL decks is a Quasi type method and not true NTSC, though the TV will accept both PAL/NTSC as all modern HDTVs will.

Is there any solution to solve this problem with the panasonic deck over HDMI? Or is my best option to simply watch the NTSC tapes on the TV/VCR combo or get a separate NTSC deck for those tapes or use the panasonic's scart output? (I would need to get a scart selector splitter in this case, as the TV's scart input is already used by a games console). The camcorder itself plays the tapes great through the HDTV as it is an NTSC deck in it's own right, my PAL decks play them well over scart through the panasonic.

Of course, the other option is to swap the camcorder for a PAL model so as to keep all my tapes compatible with all common equipment here, but this one was mint with barely any hours on it, batteries even held a full charge near enough and I like it. It's low light performance was also a plus. And who says no to a free camera when they like to make videos on a shoestring?

I have been trying to find the equivalent JVC model in PAL land, but not found a decent working one yet or one that has not been beaten up. I have a PAL JVC model that I do use, but it is lower end without the night scope and is not as good in low-light.

Are there any solutions? I would even consider HDMI upscaling of the VCR's scart output so I can still use it via the HDMI port, if that would solve my problem. This also may be good to know if I collect any movies from NTSC land, as I do like to collect VHS movies to watch.

I did not want to get a separate NTSC deck for this purpose, as I wanted to keep the use simple and 'catch all' for when my partner wants to show tapes to people or watch them with little input on his side apart from popping the tape in.
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  #2  
07-20-2019, 01:13 PM
latreche34 latreche34 is offline
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Probably your VCR plays NTSC in 50 frames per second where it should be 60 frames per second, So that's not a HDMI video standard I guess.
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07-20-2019, 04:55 PM
LightWorker01 LightWorker01 is offline
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It seemed after much digging I found a solution to this problem. It turns out this deck is a true dual system deck, and can record in both PAL AND NTSC and can output both. But you have to go into the system setup options and set the system to NTSC. This will: 1. set the deck to NTSC mode, for PB and REC, so only SP / EP modes are available (in PAL, it has SP/LP/EP modes). This will have the deck in true NTSC mode.

And 2. Enable an NTSC tape to play over HDMI without giving you problems. However, playing a PAL tape over HDMI in that mode will give a similar problem to what the NTSC tapes were giving. So i can just switch between those two settings and leave it set-up depending on the tapes I want to view.
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