(This is sort of related to my previous question about DVC Pro capture, as it pertains to the old news archive tapes at my TV station.)
Before we used DVC Pro, we used SVHS for news operations. We have a few hundred SVHS tapes on the shelves, and I recently tried to capture some. I've run into a problem with the audio, though. On these tapes, the majority of the audio is, well, inaudible. That is, until I manually tweak the tracking a little, then it comes in. Unfortunately, doing this affects the picture quality; it goes from relatively pristine to grainy. I seem to have a choice: perfect, but SILENT, video, or not-so-great video, but at least with sound. I would prefer NOT to have to dub each tape TWICE, once for sound and once for video, then reunite them.
I thought I'd heard before that while the audio for standard VHS runs along the edge of the tape, the audio for SVHS is recorded and embedded WITH the video information. Is there an analog track as well? There's no way reporters could edit a package if the B-roll video they inserted in their story erased the running audio track on the A-roll.
I have two decks I've tried, a (relatively inexpensive) Mitsubishi HS-U748, and a (not as inexpensive) JVC HR-S7800U. I don't have the remote for either, I've just been programming universal remotes for the basic functions. I don't suppose there's any magic solution the REAL remote for either deck might give me, something like an audio quality toggle (stereo/mono) or something?
It's baffling they would have gotten rid of all of their professional svhs decks, but, here we are.
Where equipped, both regular VHS and S-VHS are capable of recording and playback linear mono audio at the top edge of the tape and HiFi stereo in a layer below the video tracks with two additional HiFi heads on the video drum, Older VHS decks did linear stereo on the edge of the tape using dual linear head.
Unless you post an audio or audio/video sample here there is no way of knowing what problems you are facing and what sort of audio you've been able to capture.
This problem can occur to varying degrees. For best video and audio playback the machines need to be in top working order. I'd first have both machines checked and serviced including having the tape paths of both machines scrupulously cleaned manually, by somebody who knows how to do this work. This wont necessarily fix or reduce the problem but it's recommended maintenance work prior to playing a valuable tape.
After that, yes upload an example or two. Play a sample tape back while adjusting the tracking so we can see and hear the effect you describe.
It was not unusual on smaller news operations to just have Hi-Fi audio on these tapes, even one channel (L or R) only, depending on the use; mono was often configured/dubbed silent.
It was not unusual on smaller news operations to just have Hi-Fi audio on these tapes, even one channel (L or R) only, depending on the use; mono was often configured/dubbed silent.
If you mean they only recorded on the HiFi tracks that sounds a strange choice as it would have cost no more to record onto the linear as well and it could have acted as a backup track if the HiFi playback became problematic at the time or years later. Linear or HiFi tracks can become damaged so building in redundancy seems like a no brainer.
In the case of the "no audio" version, what I did was simply insert the tape in the vcr and let the JVC deck do its auto-adjustments. The picture stabilizes, and I guess DNR is applied, but I'm left with no audio.
With the "audio" version, I did the same thing, except this time I manually adjusted the tracking. Since there's no on-screen indication of what you're doing, other than watching the quality changes, I can best guess that it was about 4 clicks of "channel down" that brought audio back.
The photoshop documents are side by side grabs of the same frame (or close to it) exported from VirtualDub. The left is the "no audio" version with auto-adjustment, and the right is taken from "with audio" version after manual tracking tweaks. You may or may not be able to make out some grain between the two versions, depending on where you look, and how close.
It's not TERRIBLE, I guess, though it's more obvious on some clips than others. I can probably live with it, and I doubt many people if any at work will notice or care about a little grain. I certainly don't want to have to do a ton of post-processing, prolonging the process I was just hoping maybe there was a simple option I was overlooking, like a button turning HiFi off and forcing it to draw audio from the mono tracks instead....assuming that's even a thing!
The tweaked version looks just as good as the original, at least through the harsh compression, I wouldn't worry about too much, But having the audio come on that quick makes me think that these audio tracks are PCM, S-VHS did have digital audio for a brief period of time at the end of the VHS era, So possibly the audio is digital, definitely not linear audio since tracking has no effect on the stationary heads. HiFi usually would exhibit some buzzing noise when the tape is mis-tracking.
Edit: I read your post again and you mentioned playing the tapes with those two consumer models that I know for sure they don't have digital audio playback capability, So it has to be HiFi audio then. But the remote control definitely has the option to choose linear and HiFi only or a mixt of both, But if only one track available the function is inactive.
Most VCR's automatically switched to a HiFi track if it was there. If it wasnt there it defaulted to linear.
My guess is the original recorder recorded the HiFi track as well as the linear but there was no signal fed to the HiFi audio input sockets, or perhaps the VCR's input faders for HiFi only were set to minimum. (Separate audio input sockets for linear and HiFi was a feature of some semi pro decks). Hence your playback machine switches to the HiFi track which is there but with no actual signal was fed to the recording VCR's HiFi sockets. The solution would be to use a deck which allows linear track only playback, whether by a switch, or menu or audio output socket selection.
I discovered this issue myself once on a customer's tape. My old old non HiFi VHS deck played audio perfectly but my newer VHS HiFi deck was silent.
If you're feeling adventurous and all of your tapes are doing the same thing, you can probably just adjust the Audio/Control head so that it produces sound when the autotracking is enabled. That'll just adjust where it is looking for linear audio I think though that can also affect the rest of the tape path to some slight degree.
So are you saying that the audio that you do end up getting is HiFi or no? Usually Hifi would be stereo whereas usually linear is mono.
I'm not saying you should get a totally different machine, but some machines like the AG1980 will output both the hifi and linear/mono simultaneously, or output linear mono through both R+L.
Not an expert on audio here, so take some of that with a grain of salt, those are just some initial thoughts. I don't recall if the JVCs have a way to manually select the linear track for audio or not.
If you're feeling adventurous and all of your tapes are doing the same thing, you can probably just adjust the Audio/Control head so that it produces sound when the autotracking is enabled. That'll just adjust where it is looking for linear audio I think though that can also affect the rest of the tape path to some slight degree.
I'm not saying you should get a totally different machine, but some machines like the AG1980 will output both the hifi and linear/mono simultaneously, or output linear mono through both R+L.
Not an expert on audio here, so take some of that with a grain of salt, those are just some initial thoughts. I don't recall if the JVCs have a way to manually select the linear track for audio or not.
The above quote is very basic -- overly so -- but it is accurate for a simple explanation.
Yes, the JVC can is like the Panasonic, with HiFi L, or R, or both, and linear, or mix (never use mix). But the Panasonic can have better audio. Of course, the deck is a money pit, so there's that. And shout-out to Deter, who has some AG-1980s available right now.
Here is a brief summery of "professional" VHS audio. Most every deck supported dual linear audio tracks. Normally only one track is used for audio and the second was commonly used for linear time code. When HiFi decks showed up, they usually defaulted to recording audio to both the HiFi tracks and to the linear track, still leaving the second linear track free for time code use, although it rarely was because these modern decks supported vertical interval time code.
The Panasonic AG-1980 is somewhat unique in that it had a separate dedicated linear audio in/out on the back. This was if someone choose to use the track for time code and solely use the HiFi tracks for audio. I have a few tapes that were from pro Panasonic units with the dual linear tracks. They all play fine in consumer VCRs.
If you need to force a JVC deck to play linear audio tracks, you need the remote. The "A MONITOR" button cycles between Hi-Fi, linear, and mix.
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If you're feeling adventurous and all of your tapes are doing the same thing, you can probably just adjust the Audio/Control head so that it produces sound when the autotracking is enabled. That'll just adjust where it is looking for linear audio I think though that can also affect the rest of the tape path to some slight degree.
So are you saying that the audio that you do end up getting is HiFi or no? Usually Hifi would be stereo whereas usually linear is mono.
I'm not saying you should get a totally different machine, but some machines like the AG1980 will output both the hifi and linear/mono simultaneously, or output linear mono through both R+L.
Not an expert on audio here, so take some of that with a grain of salt, those are just some initial thoughts. I don't recall if the JVCs have a way to manually select the linear track for audio or not.
I'm fairly certain what I'm getting after I tweak the tracking is NOT Hifi, or stereo at all. And on the rare bits of video where I CAN hear some audio without tweaking first, it doesn't seem to be stereo, just one of either channel 1 or channel 2. I don't know if just a single track was recorded as hifi for some reason, or if I'm just barely picking up the 1 linear channel before I adjust to get them both.
There was another package I thought about posting here that started with nat sound of shoppers, rather than complete silence like the other one. A reporter was supposed to start talking a second or two in, but you can't hear that track until I adjust the tracking. A few clicks of "channel down" and the reporter track pops in. But for the most part on these tapes, I hear nothing at all without tracking adjustments, at least on the local stuff. Stuff from national news feeds vary.
I'm not sure I'm feeling that adventurous to tinker inside! These news tapes are the only ones I'll be dealing with that actual SVHS; all of my personal library is just standard VHS and they haven't done anything weird so far.
I'm not actively searching for any other vcr's YET, but if I stumble across one at a price I can't refuse, well....
Quote:
Originally Posted by NJRoadfan
If you need to force a JVC deck to play linear audio tracks, you need the remote. The "A MONITOR" button cycles between Hi-Fi, linear, and mix.
Know of any reliable replacement or universal remotes that might fit the bill?
I've seen a couple that supposedly are compatible, but I didn't see any "A MONITOR" button, at least not labeled that way.
Were the tapes camera originals or edited results?
Does the playback machine panel give any indication as to which audio it is outputting?
Any idea what gear was used to make the tapes?
If the original had LTC recorded on an audio track you should be able to hear it in a mono linear track VHS player.
A VHS recorder without linear track would be very unusual but one with separate linear track dubbing could have been set to yield a blank linear track.
An essentially blank (near silent) mono linear track could result if a balanced mic source was connected to stereo inputs via a simple splitter resulting in left and right inputs out of phase.
Hi-Fi audio is AFM recorded on tape layered under the video and it could be sensitive to tracking setting as is the video image. The linear tracks would be sensitive to audio head position but not so much to tracking. Adjustment of the audio had position could effect video tracking and if the machine recorded two track (stereo) linear audio the left-right balance could be effected by position.
Obtaining a remote control is important. S-VHS recorders often allowed audio output selections of stereo, left only, right only, liner track only, and a mix of the Hi-Fi and Linear tracks.
FWIW: deep filtering and amplification of the no-audio sound revealed some garbled voice under the noise. However, that may have been cross talk in the playback.
The MP4 audio sampling rate is reported as 48 kHz, but the audio in the files cuts off sharply at ~17 kHz
I know for sure a JVC VCR would display NORM for linear and L-R for HiFi Stereo, the OP needs to look in the VFD display. The audio being mono or low quality does not always mean it's coming from the linear track.
These tapes would be the ones that were edited TO from the raw camera tapes, then used for on-air playback during newscasts. As each tape gradually filled up, it would go on the archive shelf, and another would be started. These have been sitting on a shelf for decades.
I don't see any indication on the front of the JVC deck other than "SVHS", "SP" and the running time counter. The Magnavox doesn't even show THAT much, just a "power" indicator, and a sort of turning-wheel indicator that it's playing.
All I know about the original gear is that the decks were Sony pro-models of some kind, those all-gray SP-only editing deals. And they didn't keep a single one, if you can believe that.
I just ordered a JVC remote; will be probably be mid-week before it arrives.
Quote:
Originally Posted by dpalomaki
Were the tapes camera originals or edited results?
Does the playback machine panel give any indication as to which audio it is outputting?
Any idea what gear was used to make the tapes?
If the original had LTC recorded on an audio track you should be able to hear it in a mono linear track VHS player.
A VHS recorder without linear track would be very unusual but one with separate linear track dubbing could have been set to yield a blank linear track.
An essentially blank (near silent) mono linear track could result if a balanced mic source was connected to stereo inputs via a simple splitter resulting in left and right inputs out of phase.
Hi-Fi audio is AFM recorded on tape layered under the video and it could be sensitive to tracking setting as is the video image. The linear tracks would be sensitive to audio head position but not so much to tracking. Adjustment of the audio had position could effect video tracking and if the machine recorded two track (stereo) linear audio the left-right balance could be effected by position.
Obtaining a remote control is important. S-VHS recorders often allowed audio output selections of stereo, left only, right only, liner track only, and a mix of the Hi-Fi and Linear tracks.
FWIW: deep filtering and amplification of the no-audio sound revealed some garbled voice under the noise. However, that may have been cross talk in the playback.
The MP4 audio sampling rate is reported as 48 kHz, but the audio in the files cuts off sharply at ~17 kHz
These news tapes are the only ones I'll be dealing with that actual SVHS; all of my personal library is just standard VHS and they haven't done anything weird so far.
