I purchased a Panasonic NV-HS950 from
Ebay, shich the seller said had issues ejecting tapes. No problem, I thought; probably just needs some grease. It turns out that the pinch roller keeps getting stuck, and I found that a workaround is to give it a firm push, and the tape goes on it's way.
My initial capture turned out pretty good. The picture was decent, given the problems I'd encountered on previous capture attempts using a regular VCR. My excitement was short lived though, because this 'new' VCR started introducing its own problems on this tape.
The picture will go snowy for a few seconds then come back. It always does this on the same section of tape as well. I know its definitely the vcr because I ruled out all other possibilities: I tried the tape in a regular VCR, and it's fine. I also bypassed my entire workflow, and plugged the machine into my old CRT TV both with the internal TBC on, and also with it off - same problem. So it's definitely the VCR.
I've also noticed that the VCR starts making a squealing noise from the head after it's been running for a while, so could it just be that my unit is dead?
I've attached the video of the bad capture. It's short, due to the file size limit, but hopefully will give an idea of the problem.