Panasonic NV-HS960 - sharpness issue
 

Hi :-)
I've just bought a "Panasonic NV-HS960" used. It seems to be in good condition and I'm very happy with it. There's only one anoying thing that bothers me:

In the menu settings, there's only 3 settings for "picture style", that's "sharp, soft and AUTO" (see Menu-1,2 and 3 attachements). Sharp seems to sharp, soft seems to soft. Auto seems perfect most of the times, BUT! It's a littlebit unstable :-(

Some times when I start playing a tape, the footage becomes sharp like this:
http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/atta...1&d=1425312925

Other times, it gets more soft/blury, like this:
http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/atta...1&d=1425312925

It can change a bit in sharpness for every time that I hit the stop and play buttons :-(

And some times it simply changes from sharp to soft/blury while playing (see the "sharp2soft.m2v) attachment video. In this clip you can see that it starts playing "sharp/normal", then it appeares a short flicker (a tape error) at timecode 00:04, after that it turns soft and blury. Then it stays soft/blury like that till the end of the tape. It doesn't return back to sharp/normal after a while :-(

The problem seems worse for worn or bad quality tapes.
Is this normal behaviour for this VCR?
Is there anything I can do to prevent this from happening?

I have this machine. I have noted that even at SOFT setting, some sharpening is applied so I leave it at this. If a tape looks blurry with this setting it is not because of the SOFT setting, rather that the tape is of poor quality. AUTO is supposed to track the state of the tape but honestly, how can a machine look at its own picture and judge correctly? Honestly, leave it at soft and know that it is still a bit sharpened. SHARP is just horrible - don't use that.

Hi and thank you very much for your reply :-)
Are you sure? What do you compare to?

I have a feeling that the picture from my Panasonic HS960 at the soft settings looks softer than the picture from my JVC HR-S7600 at normal settings. Hmmmm...

I just watched your clip. Yes, I see the change - please see my comments below. Bear in mind these are just comments and may well not be the answer (tapa play issues are always tricky to pinpoint).

1. Is the tape a dub from another VHS? I see what looks like two separate switch points. If a dub then you have the problem of an unstable signal level on the tape throwing the AUTO setting off.

2. I see quite high noise levels on this tape. That may be the tape suffering from some lowering of the magnetic signal. If this is the case then the CVC (permanently on with this machine) may be clashing with the AUTO setting to create an unstable levels. CVC monitors the heads to compensate for wear and also applies some sharpening when the signal quality allows it.

In this situation I would use one of my older Panasonic machines with manual tracking and also manual sharpness control. Such models as the NV-F70 or NV-F77 from 1988-1993 seem to play these problem tapes much better. A manual slider is able to go from soft to sharp with infinite control. The 960 you have is great but it was not designed to play old or worn tapes as it was made to do fresh recordings and play the latest films on VHS format. It works great with some tapes, not so great with others.

Thank you so much for Your advices... I'm sorry for being late with this reply.

1. Yes, your observations are correct. This footage is from a 2nd-gen copy of another VHS tape ;-)

2. This tape is in terrible condition with lots of noise and low details and sharpness.

I don't really know how it was copied, but I guess it was copied between two low quality VCR's :-( Don't know if it ever will be possible to get deasent quality out of it :P But thanks for the advice about using an older VCR With manual tracking. I'll keep that in mind ;-)

I managed to buy a Panasonic NV-HS1000 yesterday. This has the manual sharpness slider but not manual tracking... but the sharpness slider doesn't work on this unit. I'll create a new topic on that subjuct :P

Well done with the HS1000. It does have manual tracking - on the remote only though. You use some buttons and one press only of either up or down just turns off the auto tracking without adjusting it. More presses (or hold) moves the tracking.

Oh yes, that's true. But that kind of manual tracking is on my NV-HS960 also. I thought you ment it had to be one of those older tracking systems, more mechanical tracking by turning a wheel/button on the front of the VCR ;)

Okey. I will try this tape in my Panasonic NV-HS 1000 now, see how that Works.
Thanks you very much! :)

My preference for a slider or a auto tracking on-off switch is as I have found that when tapes are made up of multiple recordings it can trigger off the auto tracking again and again (makes for unstable viewing as the tracking 'hunts'). They used to give us such controls but then they disappeared...oh well. At least we have some control.

I have the same question......