Philips VR656/75R picture bleed?
 

Hello,

I have a problem with my VCR playback with my Philips VR656/75R multi-system (PAL/NTSC playback) machine.

The problem is when I play back VHS tapes I get, what I call, "picture bleed". (see attachments for an example)

This picture bleed doesn't happen all the time, it comes and goes, happens in light scenes, dark scenes etc...

This happens on all tapes, PAL and NTSC, in both SP and LP mode. (tapes look perfectly fine on other VCRs)

There is no static on the screen and the audio is fine.

I can see no visible marks on the VCR head and the machine is making no abnormal noises. Tapes are loaded into the machine without any problem, machine can fastforward and rewind without issue.

Does anybody have any ideas ?

Thank you very much. :)

dirty or worn out heads manually (alcohol + piece of paper, turn counter clockwise) . Just clean and hope for the best

Hi themaster1,

Thanks for your reply. I cleaned the heads w/ alcohol and a piece of paper, turning anti-clockwise. Did it three times.

Unfortunately it seems to have made no improvement...

If you can upload a video that would be great

Sure, one question. this video is it (a) a video of the tape playing showing the picture bleed or (b) me cleaning the heads?

Cheers,

He’s trying to make a very educated guess about what the issue is. A video would help him do that so he can help you more than a picture does.

@d4vid4, a video of the bleeding. You can use VDub to trim just a few seconds showing the bleeding. Use Direct Stream Copy so that you don't re-encode the video.

I have managed to record some short video showing the video 'bleed' issue.

Cheers,

After watching your video it don't look like a worn out head to me, the symptons would be more like white/black streaks and maybe half the picture at times. I say it's a bad capacitor on the luminance demodulation or could be bad soldering or corrosion, just a guess

That certainly isn't a common problem, so chasing it down is going to be rather difficult but could be possible to do if you have soldering skills and a variety of test equipment and know how to use it. If I were in your situation, I would probably look for a different VCR since I don't think this one is anything particularly special other than being multi system.

Another suspect could be electrolytic capacitors on power supply board, in model from that production line are frequent that they go bad in the years.

Hello, thank you all for your replies.

A bit of an update with this.

To test, I connected an old miniDV camera to the VCR's rear auxiliary in (AUX) and sent the signal into the machine and then out to the TV, I also connected the camera to the front auxiliary in (F-AUX) and the video out to the TV.

The video that was sent out to the TV showed the same problems. No VHS was in the machine etc. So, not a VCR head problem. :)

I had the cover off the machine this morning and visually inspected all the capacitors that could be seen. No capacitors looked 'bad', no bulges, no 'leakage' signs at the bottom of them etc...

I have included two photos of the insides. "vcr-inside-a.jpg" (showing the rear of the board) and "vcr-inside-b.jpg" showing the power side of the board.

Which areas should I be looking at more closely?

In vcr-inside-a.jpg there is an area on the right side of the image with a computer chip and three capacitors labelled 'on screen' -- would that be where luminance demodulation is being done?

Cheers,

David

About my previous post, I made a mistake, I was thinking your VCR is European VR656, but after view pictures i understand is different model.

The problem is exactly the same if connect VCR to different TV?

More like "on screen display" that's something else. Try to find the service manual. Also try to flip the board and inspect for cracks, burn traces and corrosion

Yes, I connected my VHS capture device to the TV, (TV -> Capture Device ->Laptop) and captured 20 seconds - same result.

I think what enois was suggesting was to play the tape direct to the TV (without the capture device or computer involved) and see if the issue still exists.

Sorry, right. I have only the one TV. (Well there is one old LCD TV in storage, that is on the way out (showing massive delamination problems), I can drag out, but that'll have to be done tomorrow).

I originally did play the VHS direct to the TV, and in my last comment, I should have said, I was capturing the VHS directly to the laptop (no TV involved) (VHS -> Capture Device -> Laptop).

But, will check on the LCD TV tomorrow sometime.

Cheers,



Not going to hold my breath though.. :)

I've tried, hunted high and low, no service manual for this machine can be found.

People have said some Philips' were clones of JVCs -- which JVC this one is a clone of? I don't know...

Will be flipping the board tomorrow (most likely) and going over it very carefully.

Cheers,

David

I agree with Aramkolt. Even if you are just getting a regular VCR you can get one that functions correctly. You could keep this one to rewind tapes.

Exact, you have to eliminate the variables to avoid waste time to search defect where are not.
The first thing i would do is connect VCR direct to TV, if problem persist I try different TV and if also with different TV the problem is the same, then you are sure is VCR defective.
Anyway, as already suggested, could be a cracked solder/bad joint or a bad capacitor.