AG-1980P smearing and dark
 

When recording video from an SLP tape using AG-1980p (TBC on, s-video, hooked to a DMR-ES15), the clip looks like this. It's dark and when you bump up the video on post has plenty of lines/noise, smudging, and chroma looks bad.

Compared to my other el cheapo VCR (composite, non-TBC, DMR-ES15), the clip is cleaner.

Any idea what's happening here?

I was able to figure out what's causing the issue: the DVD recorder. Took it off the chain and the picture is bright and normal again. I do lose the stabilization and tear-fixes it provides though, so I'm wondering why it's doing that. Tried other DVD recorders (EZ28, ES18) and it's the same thing.

All tapes?
Just some tapes?
Only SLP speed tapes?
Home recordings too or only commercial tapes?
Did you try composite connection to the ES15 from the AG-1980?

All tapes. Tapes are a mixed bag of SLP and SP but are all home recordings.

I didn't try composite from ES-15 to 1980p yet because it defeats the purpose of not using s-video, but I can see what you're getting at and will give it a shot later and report back.

It just occurred to me that the 1980p doesn't have RCA out for video, just BNC composite.

Edit: Looks like I'm going to need a BNC Male to RCA Female Adapter.

BNC Male to RCA adapter just arrived today so I was able to test.

Same issue as when I had the ES-15 plugged in through s-video. Picture is dark and chroma looks all fudged up. Here's a video and below is a screenshot for quick reference:

https://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/error.gif

On second thought, problem doesn't show up on composite. I tried another tape then placed it back in and it seemed to display better now.

So, I guess the ES-15 doesn't work only when I use s-video.

Has that AG1980 been refurbished recently? What you're describing sounds like your unit might be in need of a recap. Not sure why it only would do that when passed through a panasonic though. I haven't heard of the AG1980 having any specific compatibility issues there.

I will also mention that S-Video and Composite (at least on the AG1980 I've been testing recently) can have drastically different chroma levels on the same machine which is pretty obvious on a vectorscope. I haven't done any calibrations per se though, so could be that after recapping requires adjusting a Chroma potentiometer or similar. S-Video was relatively spot-on for levels without any adjustments on the unit I'm currently messing with without adjustments

This is as far as I've gotten with my AG1980 using an AIW9000 card and then bob-deinterlaced with QTGMC to 60fps with hybrid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByyXFIsFUAg - Granted this is a commercially produced tape in SP which is ideal. There is a high pitched audio distortion which I haven't chased down yet, but always looking to improve the video quality as well. That's without a passthrough of any kind, just straight from the AG1980 to the card with the internal line TBC on. There were no dropped frames during capture.

^ This is a "sealed" unused unit I was able to buy from a Japanese warehouse that closed down recently and was selling stuff to get rid of them. Yeah I know there's no such thing as "new" for an electronic that was obsolete decades ago, so I guess this falls in the "f'ed-up capacitors" category simply because of age. It does work alright though except for when used with the ES15 via s-video.

I have a question that's completely unrelated and hoping you can answer it: Would a PAL ES10 (or at least I assume it's PAL based on the box) work as a passthrough with the AG-1980p/NTSC VCR? Or do I need an NTSC ES10?

Tried it again with the 1980p connected directly to the Intensity Shuttle via s-video and it's unusually dark although everything else seems okay.

https://imgur.com/a/LQ9EJZo

I guess it's faulty capacitors?

Edit: After giving it time to warm up, the picture is a little better. Or so I think?

https://imgur.com/a/tFYb8DP

Is this unit known to do warm ups? lol

The changes with "warm-up" can imply an aging electrolytic capacitor issue; i.e., as DC power is applied to the cap it gradually reforms to work a better. Caps can age faster if never powered on.

FWIW the AG-1980 creates the composite output by mixing the Y and C output signals in the IC3001 chip on the main board. That chips contains amplifiers and the Y/C mixer circuit. If the composite works better than the Y/C it may be that there is an issue downstream of the Y/C mixer element.