Vertical alignment issues, saturation with NV-FS200?

[DeejayProductions]

I have recently purchased a Panasonic NV-FS200 which initially performed well. I now plan to get it serviced but I am currently trying to learn as much as possible about correctly identiying issues with anything I use and hope to understand what the problems are before a service is carried out by a professional.

The first video shows the video vertically adjust and this keeps happening with any video. I find that if I stop and play again it will adjust correctly but then will re-adjust itself again later (this happens with any tape and the clips are all from prerecorded material). Could this be a failing of the TBC which is set to on? I also find that every video I play, be it prerecorded or otherwise has to be set to TBC otherwise I get no acceptable picture at all even with tracking adjustments.

The second sample demonstrates a recent problem which (to me and my newbie observations) seems like a massive problem with the contrast, saturation and ghosting. This issue has only just developed and seems more alarming.

Can anyone shed any light on what the problems might be with this machine? Much appreciated.

[bever]

Quote:

Originally Posted by DeejayProductions

The first video shows the video vertically adjust and this keeps happening with any video

I try to open the first video with VLC but my player reproduces audio only (?) By vertically adjust do you mean frames where you see the vertical interval blanking bar drifting down or up through the picture? If so then it would be a synchronization problem.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DeejayProductions

The second sample demonstrates a recent problem which (to me and my newbie observations) seems like a massive problem with the contrast, saturation and ghosting. This issue has only just developed and seems more alarming.

possibly a problem with gain and ultimately amplitude of video signal. you should have about 1 volt peak to peak of signal coming out of your composite video output. (You can probably get an idea if it is amplitede by using the histogram in virtualdub)

Quote:

Originally Posted by DeejayProductions

Can anyone shed any light on what the problems might be with this machine?

At the risk of jumping on the bad capacitor bandwagon, I will say that a possibility is that your machine has symptoms of classic panasonic failing capacitor syndrome. There is a wealth of information about this on the internet you can read about it and probably find symptoms similar

[DeejayProductions]

Hi Bever thanks for your reply and here are the clips without a blank screen

Yes I believe that happens a lot but in this case it remains stable, splitting the screen.

Thanks for your advice on the second issue to. THis seems to be getting progressivley worse although I now stopped experimenting with it.

I have seen some stuff on bad capacitors, sounds expensive!

Many thanks

Dave

[Quasipal]

To wrap this up it turned out to be a fault on the PCB with the delay line on it - most likely the brown potted hybrid sub boards (which are not available). I have seen this fault a couple of times now so looks like the FS200 has an Achilles heel in this area. Only way around this is replace the whole PCB.