I owned this VCR for a while never had any problem with it, until recently I recorded some videos into a S-VHS tape in S-VHS PAL and noticed a noisy color stripe on the very top of the frame - See video below, Prior to this recording the VCR was plugged in as usual in standby mode for few months. Immediately started investigating the problem and did the following tests:

- I played back tapes that was recorded in this machine about a year ago, in both VHS and S-VHS, NTSC and PAL, No stripe.
- Played back pre recorded NTSC VHS/S-VHS tapes, no stripe.
- Recorded in NTSC from NTSC source in VHS and S-VHS, The stripe is there in playback.
- Recorded in PAL from PAL source in VHS and S-VHS, The stripe is there in playback.

So it's clearly a problem of the recording board. TBC/DNR on or off didn't matter.

Here is a video of the problem.

One of the recordings I did on it before is this, Note that the video is not cropped on the top.

I have the service manual but I don't know where to start from.

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I probably should remove the main circuit board and inspect it for loose components or bad capacitors, These are easy to take a part anyway, After removing the face plate and the mechanism 6 screws the whole thing comes a part, I will get a chance to clean and lube the mechanism and inspect the dynamic drum gears for cracks. The record chroma board should be close to where the drum ribbon cable connects.

-- merged --

I figured it out on my own, The Chinese HDMI to S-Video adapter that I'm using is causing this color burst problems on the top of the fields, I tried recording from another source and the VCR recorded clean image. Now at least I know my VCR is not defective, ooof!