AG-1980 pro issue: wavy-colour-lines?
 

Hey guys,

Years ago I turned to this forum for help and several of you were instrumental on setting me on the right path for digitizing video tapes the correct way. Because of you, my quality of reproduction has improved significantly. Much thanks to you. :)

Unfortunately, I'm having problems with my Panasonic AG-1980 Pro, so I thought I would turn to this helpful forum again and see if anyone can offer advice.

I bought my first AG-1980 Pro back in 2012/2013 and it was working great from the get go. Lucky me.
The quality started to falter sometime in the following year so I sent it off to Jots Electronics for repair. They replaced a bunch of capacitors and the machine was good as gold again.
A year and a half later and the machine experienced a tape jam and never really recovered after that.

I picked up another AG-1980 Pro sometime in Dec/Jan and, lucky me again, it was working great.
Last week though, the quality suddenly plummeted.

I've got these wavy-colourful-bandy lines running thru the image. Sometimes if I let the tape run for 30 min, rewind and play again, they disappear, but even that doesn't seem to be temporarily fixing the issue anymore. Also, when the TBC is engaged, the blacks get really, really plugged in. I've attached images so you can see what I mean. (I boosted the contrast of each image so the lines would be more noticeable on screen)

http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/imag.../THuyZ5d-1.jpg

http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/imag.../55rapKg-1.jpg

These issues are the exact same things that happened to my first AG-1980 before sending it off to Jots. They cropped up again during the tape jamming fiasco. Unfortunately, Jots was unable to fix the issue after resolving the tape jam, even after trying every solution they could think of (and not charging me… great guys over there!) :D

Now that I'm experiencing the same issues with this second machine, I've recalled something that might be important: the wavy-colourful-bandy lines started showing up immediately after returning to work and noticing that a power failure had happened to the store the night before.

All of my units are hooked up to power bars with working surge protection and none of them have been affected negatively in the past by power failures… except the AG-1980. I'm wondering if the AG-1980 Pro just doesn't react well to power failures. No clue though. Just hypothesizing here.

I've already replaced the internal power supply of the AG-1980 in an attempt to fix the problem, but no such luck. I had an extra laying around so I thought it was worth a try.

Has anyone experienced this problem before?

And if the problem is the result of a power failure in the building upsetting the machine, what's a good way to guard against it? Maybe unplugging the machine from the power source when I'm not using it?

Also, any recommendations on the best way proceed with this machine would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

Swap the freshly recapped Y/C board from your other AG-1980.

Upload images to the forum. Don't use Imgur, as it's not reliable long-term.
I fixed the post for you.

Keep in mind there were at least two different Y/C boards used in the AG1980 during the production run, and they might not be fully drop-in interchangeable. (Photos of them in another past thread.) Also, to DIY you will need electronics technician skills - it takes substantial disassembly of the AG-1980 to get to the point you can remove the Y/C board. Start the project only if you are confident in your skills. If not, contact one of the recommended repair services here for help; i.e., TGrant).

The tape jam may be that one or more of the nylon gears jumped a cog or two putting the mechanism out of mechanical synchronization.

Whoops. Sorry about that. Thanks for saving the images for me, Lordsmurf.

Oh yeah, I'm definitely not qualified to swap boards.
Looks like I'll have to send it off for repairs.

Has anyone seen this sort of thing before?

I had a similar "barber pole" effect, and well as other issues including dim/dark display that were corrected when I replaced electrolytic capacitors on the Y/C, display (and most other boards where it was convenient to do so). I probably rerplaced more than necessary.

My AG1980 was an early production model and started to show the issue about 5 or so years ago.

Send your units for repair to TGrant.

Don't forget the coupons: http://www.tgrantphoto.com/sales/ind...talFAQ-coupons

Jots was a great suggestion until 2013, when the lead tech retired, and they're not really fixing machines like this anymore. It was our choice for repairs for decades.

Tom is really knowledgeable and friendly person that we met in 2013, after looking at all the competition for the remaining repair shops out there. He's actually proving to maybe be more skilled at this that the Jots guys! He definitely has more in-depth knowledge on the decks.

Note that AG-1980 repairs are not cheap at about $300. But let's be honest -- each us probably paid about $200-300 for the VCR, and it was a $700 units brand new. (I have B&H ads to prove it. The MSRP was about $2k at one point, though I'm doubting that was ever the street price.) So have perspective.

Replacing the caps is also MORE than just replacing the caps! I learned this the hard way, especially when it comes to the luma values. After caps replacing, the deck needs to be fine-tuned. We have several fixed-cap decks here with contrast problems that are honestly unusable. And one was fixed by Jots.

We had Jots swap out a mainboard for us back in 2012. I keep the rest of the deck for spare parts.

Oh wow, great info, Lordsmurf. I will definitely be sending the unit to TGrant, thanks to your recommendation. :)