VHS-C capture wavy colour problem?
 

Hi everyone!

First post here. I managed just fine by searching on that forum until now. Hopefully you guys will be able to enlighten me :)

I'm starting capturing some old home movies on VHS-C (SECAM-L, French tapes) using a PANASONIC SVHS FS100H (One of the rare VCR than can read SECAM L)

I'm doing a pass-trough with a Panasonic DMRES15 (but it's irrelevant, I've got the same problem with and without it)

and capturing With a Blackmagic intensity extreme in Blackmagic media express.

The signal is traveling by S-VIDEO only.

The problem:

I'm having some wavy green and red lines on all my tapes. No problem on commercial VHS.

Are my VHS C too old and it's incurable or am I missing something ?

I have no way to try my tape on another VCR as the other one I own is a JVC HR9600 not SECAM L compatible so I only see them in black and white.

PS: I'm not trying to create a business out of this or to have the most perfect quality, just trying to save my old VHS-C in decent quality (without those wavy colored line that you can see on the image below)

Thanks a lot in advance, I would be forever grateful for any help as I'm loosing it.:eek:

Are you sure your VHS-C tapes are SECAM and not MESECAM? Also, are you sure the capture device accepts SECAM signal or MESECAM for that matters?

Hi latreche34! Thanks for your answer.

Yes 100% sure my VHS-C tapes are SECAM-L and that the VCR I'm using (Panasonic FS100H) can play it.

I actually manage to find a tape that work quite fine without that wavy colour problem.

Does that mean it comes from the VHS-C tapes and if so is there a way to clean this?

I also have a noise problem with the Panasonic FS100H that I don't have with the JVC HR9600. A permanent loud high pitch noise (sounds like a cricket). I've got that noise problem only with VHS-C. :hmm:

The color problem shown suggests that the tape is recorded in a different color standard, That's the only explanation I can think of, Having another tape played in your VCR has nothing to do with the actual tape.

Thanks a lot. I've got a couple of tapes that work perfectly fine but by deduction they have been recorded with a different camcorder than the one who have colour problem. Trying to get the reference of that camcorder to see if there is a difference in format recorded.

The strange thing is: my VCR is compatible with PAL, SECAM, MESECAM, SECAM L. (I've tried all options and only SECAM is getting color) And all the tapes were recorded with French equipment so it can't be NTSC. So what would it be?

Thanks for your help Latreche34!:)

Your VCR plays back MESECAM but you don't know for sure if your capture card handles it as mot don't.

Hey! From my understanding the Panasonic FS100H plays the SECAM-L of the tapes but can output in PAL. The PAL signal is then going trough a Panasonic DMRES15 (to avoid dropped frames and stabilise a bit the signal) then it is captured in PAL via the blackmagic intensity extreme capture card. It works great, no dropped frame, the quality is good with my most recent tapes but the few recorded with a Phillips Camcorder VKR6840 have that colour problem. I'm tempted to send one of a tape to a professional to see if he has the same problem. Would anyone know anyone good and reliable in the UK ?

Thanks a lot again :)

I would not convert SECAM to PAL and capture it but if you are okay with the results it's your choice. No I don't know anyone who could capture such a tape since I live in the US, but some European members maybe able to help such as RobustReviews.

I'm in the UK, I consider myself 'good and reliable'.

I can take a look for nix if you want me just to check it on one of our machines, we don't transfer individual tapes though.

I'm happy to just shove it in a machine if you want to send it over to us though, otherwise, Colin (Video99) is a contact of mine and he's a good egg if ou want to use him as he'll transfer a few tapes whereas I only really start at 25 for domestic stuff.

I'm happy to just shove it in a machine and check it for you, or try and work out what's going on though.

Oh wow.. I didn't expect that. That would be so amazing thank you so much. :)
I will send you a private message.
Thank you so much again.

Hi, my capture card do not capture Secam I believe. Blackmagic media express doesn't have any SECAM option (Let me triple check). How would you capture it without converting to PAL? Thanks so much for sending RobustReviews
my way :)

There is no other way of capturing SECAM but using a SECAM compatible capture card. If you like the conversion way it's up to you, The chroma will suffer from the conversion.

Does the FS100 allow you to skip SECAM->PAL conversion? I'm pretty sure the panasonic dvd-recorders can accept secam just fine and output in PAL (or if it outputs SECAM color you can use the component outputs instead). The color is converted to digital component inside the dvd-recorder (or tbc for that matter) in any case and outputs re-created stable video signal from that so what color encoding the output from that is doesn't really matter to quality unlike going through SECAM->PAL conversion circuitry in a VCR from 1989. (Well unless you use composite out from the ES15 but that's a bad idea in any case.)

Use this script i've posted a while back, that should fix it
HERE