JVC HR-S5500U output video menu text jittering?

[ChrisTopia]

Greetings!

I'm new to this whole process. I recently bought a JVC HR-S5500U on ebay and currently have it attached to an Elgato USB capture card via S-Video (accepts composite and S-Video). I am using VirtualDub to capture raw AV. Before even playing a tape, I noticed that the menu text was jittering. After taking a closer look, it appeared that there was also quite a bit of noise in the output video even though there was no tape playing. I have attached a video of this occurring.

I won't lie, I haven't even bothered to clean the heads on this thing yet. But would that really even matter anyway, since there is no tape being played and yet these issues are still occurring?

[latreche34]

Did you do basic diagnosis? like comparing the composite output noise to the S-Video one? S-Video plug has a flawed design, The cable connector barrel puts too much stress on the S-Video socket so it could be a loose Y pin or cracked soldier joint on the PCB, Also try a different cable and see if it makes any difference. I had to re soldier quite few of faulty S-Video sockets, Luckily S-Video was not popular among the average crowd otherwise every VCR or a video box would have a faulty connector.

[ChrisTopia]

Attached is a sample of the composite output. It appears that the noise has cleared up at least.

[lordsmurf]

Do NOT clean heads. It is not a magic cure-all for VCRs, and it is vastly overdone (and ruins the VCRs in the process). Dirty VCR heads primarily result in excess dropouts, and that's it. It doesn't fix whatever ails the VCR.

That may be dot crawl. And the s-video cable is usually the culprit.

Damaged s-video connector is also possible, as mentioned, though much less common.

Elgato is a lousy capture card. It may also be the issue. JVC menus are not 100% perfect NTSC, and those can cause problems with lesser cards, VCRs, and TBCs.

[ChrisTopia]

So far the following configurations have been attempted:

JVC HR-S5500U -> S-Video -> Elgato Capture Card
-Menu jitter/dot-crawl
-White noise apparent on video output, even after replacing S-Video cable (although same make/model)

JVC HR-S5500U -> Composite Video -> Elgato Capture Card
-Menu jitter/dot-crawl
-No noise detected

Sony Handycam -> S-Video -> Elgato Capture Card
-White noise apparent on video output, entirely different S-Video cable than previously used

Sony Handycam -> Composite Video -> Elgato Capture Card
-No noise detected

At this point I thought the white noise was certainly due to the Elgato capture card. Then I did one last test:

Sony Handycam -> S-Video -> JVC HR-S5500U -> Composite Video -> Elgato Capture Card
-Menu jitter/dot-crawl
-White noise apparent on video output

The results from the last configuration surprised me. I figured that since the Elgato capture card was now receiving composite video, all white noise should have disappeared just as in the previous two Composite Video -> Elgato Capture Card configurations.

I have decided to replace the Elgato capture card and will post an update once I've found a reasonably priced upgrade.

[hodgey]

It's normal for there to be dot crawl on VCR menus, I think the OSC chips often only had composite output, so you see the color signal (checkerboard pattern) embedded in the luma/brightness signal. If using composite the Y/C filter will try to separate out these things.

The jittering text may also be normal, but white noise is not though.

[ChrisTopia]

Okay, so I've changed my configuration to the following:

JVC HR-S5500U -> S-Video -> Panasonic DMR-ES15 -> S-Video -> Elgato Capture Card

The only issue remaining (that I can detect) is this odd horizontal obscurity at the bottom of the video (see attached). I'm pretty certain this is being caused by the JVC HR-S5500U. Does anyone have any advice on how to fix this issue?

[hodgey]

That's normal. It will be there on any VCR. It's the area where the VCR switches from one video head to the other (head switching noise). You woudln't normally see it on a CRT TV as they would the crop hide edges of the image a bit (known as overscan.)

I am seeing a little bit of dot crawl/vertical lines though (e.g on the pink top of the table thing in front of the dinosaur), which one woudn't expect when using S-Video. Otherwise a SVHS VCR + ES15 is an ok budget setup.

Re the jittering menu text, it's probably a result of whatever deinterlacing was used on the captured video.but Wasn't sure with the original clip, but the last one you posted has clearly been deinterlaced, so I presume the other ones were too. I don't know if it's done by the capture app or whatever app was used to convert the video (the file is tagged with adobe premiere at least). Analog SD video is interlaced, and static text is something simpler deinterlacing algorithms tend to struggle with.