JVC HR-S9900U bad video signal?
 

Tonight I was trying to play a tape on my JVC HR-S9900U but the video signal was very fuzzy static-y and incoherent. Audio wasn’t too bad but had some problems too. I thought maybe it was the tape since it was one I’d never played before but then tried one I had played before and same problem. Don’t know what happened. Just used this a few days ago and it was working fine and I don’t use this unit too frequently. Any thoughts?? This is what I see.

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Not off-hand. Would have to see/hear motion clip.

This is what I get.

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Not sure what exactly causes that but It could be dirty tape path including the heads, Bad pinch roller, not fully engaged transport, cassette compartment not fully seated .... etc. If not sure how to go by checking those things find a repair shop near you if you can. When you buy this 30+ years old machines don't expect them to work out of the box even if it was brand new never used, they all need full restoration to bring them up to normal working condition.

Did you open the deck (remove the lid), see what you can see?
Perhaps an oxide shedder happened?

I wouldn’t know what to look at even if I did open it. I’m not mechanically inclined when it comes to these things.

Open it, take a photo, let us look for you.

I will tonight when I get home.

It's more of take a video and zoom in to different components while the tape is playing, Still not the way to troubleshoot a VCR problem but something obvious may stand out if you're lucky.

I’ll try to do another sample video tonight as well as send pics.

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Here’s some pics of the inside without a tape in it.

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Next I have a clip popping a tape in and letting it run for about 30 seconds.

Nothing unusual to notice, except that this has the DD system, so it could be stuck out of adjustment, When you pause and play the tape, do you hear a whirling noise around the drum? or do you see the black small gears spinning when you do that, They are underneath the drum assembly sticking out a little bit on the right side of the drum.

Nothing unusual sounding when it’s paused. This is what I hear.

I did a closer look with a flashlight and no the black gears you spoke about were not spinning.

Have you cleaned the heads yet? Now that you have opened it up and nothing catastrophic appears to have happened, that would be my next step.

Never cleaned heads manually before and I don’t have a tape cleaner which most of the time never work anyways.

Just so everyone knows I’ve NEVER worked on the inside of any VCR.

That's not head clog as far as I know but I would give the tape transport a clean anyway just to eliminate that from the troubleshooting tree, The black gears are not supposed to spin during playback, only when you hit pause and only for a brief moment, the same goes for fast search and forward search.

Would you mind pointing out where those ares and the methods I should use to clean them?? I know it’s said never run a Q tip in a VCR.

I've not had time to write my cleaning guide, just given tips in posts.

TGrant's head cleaning info is decent: https://www.tgrantphoto.com/sales/in...ken-video-head
However:
- 10-20 is nuts, 1-5 is almost always all it takes
- GENTLE, GENTLE! Not enough emphasis here, don't be hamfisted goober.
- Standard copy paper, 20 lb, not some fancy vellum or cotton rag or whatever. Wrong paper worse than Q-tips!

Someone’s presently looking at it. When I get a diagnosis from that I’ll report back.

Just got it back last week. For the most part it’s working again. Cost of repairs was fair. But watching a tape today out of nowhere the slow speed feature started occurring automatically and at one point it started rewinding itself. Is this a faulty tape or is there something in the VCR that needs tweaking????

Just tried about 45 minutes of another tape. Didn’t spot it this time so hopefully the issue lied more with the tape I had been using. To be fair it was a tape that until today I had not tried before but still wanted to be cautious.

Sorry too lazy to start a new thread but anyways figured I ask everyone for their two cents on this. The JVC is still working but after checking some tapes I’m noticing some weird spots where there’s some jitters. But what’s weird about these is when the video is streaming from the VCR to my TV the color will go out of wack for a second when these jitters appear. However when I capture the video the color doesn’t fluctuate but the jitters remain. Today I tested four tapes. Some old, nome newish. Three of them I noticed this within the first 10-15 minutes, the other I watched for about a half hour and spotted nothing. Is this the built in TBC acting up, does the alignment need readjusting, is it more likely the tapes??? Hard to post examples for this because again the color fluctuation doesn’t occur during capture.

Posting would still show the jittering which may explain the color problem.

Here's a clip of two sample clips joined together. The first you can see some jitter right at the start. The second the jitter is near the end and a bit of rainbowish fraying occurs as well. Part of the reason why I chose to speak out on this is cause it doesn't happen indefinitely. At best maybe every few minutes but nonetheless its caught my attention.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Dmr...usp=share_link

If you are referring to the slight frame jump up and down, That can be fixed by an external frame TBC.

I was thinking that but what Lordsmurf informed me it sounded like I was mistaken with that.

What do you mean?

I had asked him (not in this thread) about the general differences between a built in TBC and an external TBC and mentioned that it was to my understanding that the external one could correct jitter to some degree. He said that was wrong.

No, He was referring to line TBC, Frame TBC is what addresses frame timing issues, But not all frame TBCs fix that type of frame jump, some don't even detect it since it's about 4 or 5 lines jump.

For starters, don't misuse the word "jitter".
- Technical/jargon "jitter" refers to wiggly video, which is what a line TBC corrects
- Slow or rapid vertical bouncing, essentially "layman jitter" (normal use of the words "jitter", not jargon), refers to video that is missing part/all of initial scan lines, and is often corrected by frame TBC. As mentioned, not all frame TBCs do this correction, mostly not-suggested models.

This is not too different from tearing, which is why VCR line TBCs can have issues.

Your PM asked questions, made assertions, not mentioned in the post. And that was a mix of correct and incorrect.

Well to be fair that was partly why in my PM I said “vague nutshell” meaning not entirely correct but not entirely incorrect either. So am I assume you agree with the notion the external TBC could potentially improve this???

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So more or less there’s nothing I can do about this or the VCR has to be looked at??? Because I’ve had this unit for a few months now and never noticed it doing this before. This is why I’m bringing this to everyone’s attention.

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Leaning more towards probably nothing that can be done. Just watched about a half hour of a tape with the TBC turned off and noticed nothing so more than likely the issue lies with the line TBC. Hopefully the Frame TBC I’ll end up using may improve this. Probably not when it’s mentioned that most of the TBC’s that might improve it aren’t recommended anyway.

Does the vertical jitter happen at roughly the same spots each time? This vertical "jumping" is how the TBC in the JVC consumer SVHS decks reacts to some types of issues on tapes and seem to be an inherent flaw of them, so on it's own that isn't indicative of anything being wrong with it. The external TBC units can help reduce it a bit in some cases but only to a degree. For tapes with a lot of jumping something like a panasonic dvd-recorder for the TBC function might work better.

Of course if the tape path is misaligned or there are other problems with the deck, that can make things worse.

No the vertical hitter happens somewhat randomly. In fact at one point when I saw it happen I rewound the tape the play the same section and it didn’t happen. I do have a the ES10 and ES15 Panasonic DVD recorders. The reason I don’t like to use them is cause they occasionally skip frames.

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Here’s a new problem. I get zero signal when trying to use S-Video with this unit. Tried two different cables with two different DVD recorders and no signal whatsoever. Composite works. Tested S-Video with one of the recorders with my Panasonic AG1980 just incase the cables were bad. One S-video output gave me no signal, the other did. So the problem most likely lies with the JVC. Any thoughts???

It depends on the cause and severity. But frame TBC can correct this, yes.
Keyword = "can", not will.

I don't see where that assertion was made. It could be the baked tape image, or the signal, or the VCR, or capture device.

Realize that "never noticed it" means nothing. Many people overlook issues until they don't. That's just human nature. You could not notice something for months, then get irritated. The brain sometimes has a long lag, long delay, to acknowledge issues.

So, for that reason, the VCR should not be eliminated. Though as per above, nothing really zeroed in on it either, other issues are more likely.

The line TBC inside VCR isn't 100% perfect. That's NOT a reason to not use it, but rather understand it won't work well 100% of the time. I may fail with some tapes, though it will be a tiny minority (maybe 5% at very most?). Anything more, and it is a VCR issue.

This is where external line TBC is needed, such as ES10/15, though some other devices have various qualities at times (more niche, weaker or different, interesting).

I don't think it's a flaw, or a limitation. But rather the tape issues fall outside of the median bounds of the device. Some errors get more fringe. Attempting to correct a fringe can knock it away from effectiveness from the median. If the TBC was adjustable, then it could probably be tweaked to address this. Or if it could be tweaked, and still failed, then maybe a flaw. But as it exists, I don't think it's fair to call it a flaw.

All correct, of course. I'd add that even ES10/15 type can fail on severe errors (including errors that don't "look that severe" but are signal-wise; visual != signal)_

Yep. Posterization, luma, AGC, whole list is quality hits. It's great for net improvements. But sometimes you don't get that net gain, and just further harm the image.

To me, you seem to be rushing from one issue to another, in a panic. You need to slow down, read.

For example, that last TBC "issue" wasn't an issue at all, but rather user error, as a feature (genlock) was turned on. Genlock isn't TBC, and it can screw with the signal. The TBC is fine. However, we're now pivoting to a different TBC(ish) that you may find more useful for your situation, so the outcome of your mistake is a happy accident. So that's a win. Take it. However, others may not end happy.

You've mentioned quite a few VCRs and DVD recorders. Is that all random buys from eBay? And I'd assume hasty buys? As I've mentioned many times, eBay is a video dumping ground now. I'd used eBay since the 90s, and bought video gear into the early 10s (before my health issues). I look at eBay now, even the late 10s, and am aghast at all the crap on their. Damaged, broken, or lied about ("working" and "tested" = too often blatantly obvious nonsense). You have to be savvy about eBay, don't be a victim. And I'm telling you that even trying to be savvy there is now almost impossible. Not just video gear, but other areas like photo or hobby collecting.

So sssssllllloooowwwww down. :)

Be a scientist here. Diligent, process of eliminations.

Wouldn't exactly say I'm "rushing" but simply trying different methods merely for curiosity's sake. Every VCR is different whether its in great shape, bad shape, good model, bad model, TBC, no TBC. Same with capture methods. Everything's gonna give different results. But when I have to remind everyone I'm not exactly the most mechanically inclined thats where my questions draw from. I'm still fairly new with this unit so part of the reason I asked about no S-Video signal and the TBC issues is simply feedback from others who may or may not have had this problem before. All around the JVC works fine. But given that I've been trying to steer away from composite in the last couple years in favor of S-video and given this is sorta my go to VCR at the moment for capturing and I already have a thread regarding issues with it it was just a natural choice to ask.

I'm sorry that I cannot fix or detect what is wrong with VCR's. If a suggestion is being made to "adjust this, adjust that" I need to be directly pointed where it is and what to do. Its not laziness, its simply lack of knowledge.