U-Matic Sony VO-9600P weird patterns?
 

Hello! I'm trying to digitize a few tapes but get weird moire wave patterns on all when playing.
Since the tape is U-matic rather than SP, I'm not sure if it's the player or the tapes.

My setup
SONY VO-9600P (U-matic SP)
ADVC-55

I have worked on something like 10 players of that vintage. That appears to be a digital noise pattern likely caused by the ADVC-55. If the ADVC-55 is anything like the ADVC-100 and 110, they pretty much all need recapping of their SMT capacitors. Could also be that your power supply being used on the ADVC-55 is causing that noise also.

Whether the tape is SP or not shouldn't cause this pattern coming out of the player.

Easy enough to test though, just try capturing with something else and see if you get the same noise pattern or not.

ADVC-55 is essentially identical to ADVC-110, near-identical sibling to 50 and 100.

The Canopus DV box being at fault is my initial idea as well.

I appreciate your responses.

I tried with a mini-DV player and another ADVC, I had BNC to S-video and tried two different cables and still received the wave pattern.

After that, I changed to a BNC to RCA video, which fixed the issue.

The 9600P outputs composite, so yeah it was probably the passive composte to S-Video adapter causing it in this case.

This is why quality cables and adapters are very important, Never use cheap flimsy cr@p, You only get to do it once so do it right in the first place.

In photography, it's like putting a kit lens (cheap plastic lens) on a high-end SLR. You could always spot the rich grandpa, because he had a $2k+ camera with a ~$100 lens. It made no sense.

You have to resist the temptation to use cheap junk. Otherwise your output is junk (and a waste of time).