VHS 1 second normal display, 1second black screen.

[Steven Blair]

My first post here. I've read a bunch of stuff on the site and I'm thoroughly impressed with the caliber of knowledge here.

Here's my dilemma.

I recently tried to play some old VHS tapes from the mid 1990s. The Magnavox VHS/DVD player has played these tapes fine before but has not been used for at least 5 years. It's the same Sharp Aquos TV as well. Both machines date to the mid 2000s. Nothing has been changed other than time since the last successful playing of these tapes.

Here's the issue:

- the tape would play fine for about 1 second and then go black screen blank for about 1 second for the duration of the tape.
- the 1 second interval is surprising consistent but does occasionally become more frequent with the black screen and the video segment only becoming shorter.
- the audio continues normally throughout.
- fast forward loses audio but shows the intact video continuously.
- all 6 or 7 tapes tried behave identically.
- I connected a different VHS machine and ran different cables to the same TV ports with exactly the same result.
- adjusting the tracking only changes the video quality but the alternating video/black screen continues unaffected.

I have yet to try to hook up either VHS machine to a second (RCA) TV.

TV or VHS machine(s) or tape issue?

I look forward to hearing from anyone with a bigger digi-brain than my pea-sized model...cheers ..Steve

[latreche34]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steven Blair

- I connected a different VHS machine and ran different cables to the same TV ports with exactly the same result.

This statement doesn't leave much of a doubt if you use common sense.

[Steven Blair]

Quote:

Originally Posted by latreche34

This statement doesn't leave much of a doubt if you use common sense.

I was simply giving all parameters available on the issue.

So any thoughts on what has changed in the TV that would cause this?

[dpalomaki]

Did you try the second TV with each VCR?
Did you try RF (e.g., channel 3), s-video, and/or composite connections to the TVs?

Are these home recordings or commercial tapes.

[Steven Blair]

Using my common sense as suggested above, I took one of the machines to a second TV. The tapes worked fine. So it's an issue with the Sharp Aquos TV.

The tapes are home made. They still look nearly as good as the day they were copied from the camera.

As mentioned, the setup worked fine 5-6 years ago with no physical changes since.

Edit: The connection was composite.