Clicking sound from homemade tape captures?
 

Hello,

I'm trying to get my equipment all in order before starting on a vhs digitizing project.

Problem: I'm getting a constant clicking sound on the pc (both recordings and previews) from home made tapes ONLY.
-Commercial tapes DO NOT make the noise.
-The noise CANNOT be heard when watching a tape on the tv using the same VCR.

Equiment/Software used:
PC: 1st gen i5 Home built PC with win10 edu
VCR: Proscan PSVR71
Capture: ATI hd600, Dazzle DVC100, Creative SB1240 external sound card
Software: Action! screen recorder, virtualdub

All equiment and software work properly, no driver issues or anything.

Actions Taken:
-I took the VCR and cleaned all surfaces that touch the tape after watching several youtubes on the subject.
-All VCR sound options have been tried: Stereo, Mono, SAP, HIFI, Linear, Mix
-I've tried capturing sound with both the capture devices as well as my external sound card which has RCA inputs.
-Tried tapes made from several home made sources, sound remains.
-Tried several commercial tapes, no sound.
-ATI registry hack
-several sets of cables

I'm sure I can do something about it in audacity or something similar but I have a lot of tapes to get through and that would add a very lengthy extra step.

I've seen other threads where someone has the same or a similar problem but the solutions never seem to be posted.

Could it be some sort of macrovision interference? If so, why would it only affect home made tapes and not commercial? I probably have that backwards.

I've attached a sample captured with virtualdub then compressed with handbrake.

Any solution or point in the right direction would be greatly appreciated.

That's a terrible setup.
- lousy VCR
- no TBC of any kind
- Win10

This is only the first of many problems you're going to have.

You're getting power interference noise from somewhere. The likely candidates are that VCR (specifically, the VCR>computer interaction).

Youtube videos for cleaning VCRs are often made by morons, and you'll actually further ruin the deck. For example , DO NOT EVER USE COTTON SWABS! (aka Q-TIPS). <sigh> So now, it begs the question: what exactly did you do?

A proper workflow is VCR > TBC > capture device/card.
Not just any VCR/TBC/card, but recommeded items.
That ATI 600 USB card is great. (If the PCI 600, the cards is crap, AGC issues.)

This has nothing to do with anti-copy/Macrovision, nor anything being dirty.

You need to run a process of elimination. The first avenue is trying/using another VCR.

Thank you for your prompt reply.

I thought I had a decent vcr. I guess I'll have to do some shopping.

-The problem existed before and after "cleaning".
-I can dual boot with win7. I'll try that next for the heck of it until I get a different vcr.
-ATI hd600 is usb, so I have THAT going for me.

Any thoughts as to why commercial tapes aren't affected?

Do you get the effect on commercial tapes if you change the VCR sound option (for tape playback) to linear? Commercial tapes usually have hi-fi sound on them, which will go through a different path in the VCR electronics than the standard linear audio track. The hi-fi audio is fm-modulated (a bit like FM radio) and is less suspectible to picking up electronic noise from external sources or grounding issues during on playback.

The approach here as noted is to check the various parts of the capture setup in isolation to find what's causing it.

It doesn't sound like a dirty audio head symptom, that would cause muffled audio instead.

Also don't use screen capture software to capture video/audio because it doesn't capture the source from the capture card, instead it captures the video from your computer video card and audio from windows mixer, a mistake a lot of noobs make, Use a proper capture device that can interact with your capture card such as vdub.

I'm afraid that the noise is generated by the original camcorder, you should have tested with a TV first before assuming anything.

I think you may be on to something with the different sound types. I tried a couple more commercial tapes and with a low quality one released in LP mode, there was the sound. It was faint but definitely there.

So I guess I need a new machine.

Thank you for all your replies.

I'll post again whether it fixes the problem or not, so someone else with the same problem can see the solution.

It could still be interference that only affects a linear head. Unlikely, but possible.

OK, follow up:

I got a better VCR with a TBC: JVC HR-S7800U

The picture is noticably better and after a few hiccups, the clicking sound went away, most of the time.

Here are some more samples showing the difference between capturing sound with the HD600 usb vs my external sound card.

Action 7-30-2020 8-13-00 AM: sound card capture with Action! capture software. There's some overly aggressive sound reduction going on that I can't find an option to disable. It's a shame because its much easier to use than virtualdub.

The following samples were made with virtualdub and then compressed with handbrake.

test 3 sb sound: sound card capture with virtualdub with input levels somewhere in the middle.

Test4hd600usb Sound-1: HD600usb sound with levels all the way up. Lots of hiss, no clicking.

Test 5 Sb Sound-1: sound card capture with vdub and line in levels all the way up.

When A/B testing all the audio tracks in Audacity with decent headphones (PSB M4U-1) this setup seems to capture more of the sound (birds in background, slightly less muffled voice) but more importantly, THE CLICKING IS BACK.

I've attached a screenshot of Audacity that shows the clicking present in the lower waveform.

My Conclusions:
1. The VCR definitely helped. I was initially wary of all the TBC fanaticism on this site but I'm now a convert. It makes a real difference and if you want a hq capture it's the way to go.
2. The source is bad and you can't polish a turd (much).
3. The best sound capture might be with the sound card with levels somewhere in the middle at a level to be determined but failing that, the HD600usb is decent enough unless you absolutely need ALL the sound, hiss and so on, included.