Panasonic AG-1980 vs. VHS-C?

[Glitchy Windows 3.1]

Hello, so I recently bought a Panasonic AG-1980p VCR from Deter and I like it. It works great other than some audio issues that the VCR picks up. When I was in the process of buying it, a family member said he had some tapes he wanted me to digitize. I asked him what format he had and he said they were predominantly VHS-C tapes, and upon reading a couple of threads on here, some said that the Panasonic AG-1980 VCR was "gentler" to the VHS-C tapes than the JVC-based machines. Pretty much everyone was saying this with the exception of Deter himself. When I mentioned to Deter that I was going to use it for the conversion of some VHS-C tapes, he said:

Quote:

Originally Posted by deter

VHS-C or those adaptor tapes don't work well, I give no warranty if it get stuck or does not work.

Quote:

Originally Posted by deter

I don't know what to use for VHS-C tapes maybe the recording machine itself and than an external TBC.

These higher end VCR's are not made for these VHS-C tapes. However I did see a few old JVC Broadcast decks that would play them. Good luck on that they weight like 75 pounds and nobody wants to ever repair them.

These are from PMs here, so I am not sure whether I should go through putting the VHS-C with the adaptor through the Panasonic AG-1980p and risk it. So far, I do not intend on doing it due to the risk and multiple warnings Deter gave. Oddly, Deter is the only one to mention this, that I know, as any mention of the VHS-C adaptor messing with the mechanism of the Panasonic AG-1980 in these forums also has the mention of Deter telling them not to do it. I am not sure what exactly Deter refurbished with the Panasonic AG-1980p that I have as he has never mentioned it. I do not want to ask him either as he takes a while to respond which I understand. Deter did say he would do this method if it was up to him:

Quote:

Originally Posted by deter

If it was me doing VHS adaptor tapes, I would pull out the load mechanism and manually load the tapes.

Quote:

Originally Posted by deter

When I say pulling out the loading mechanism it can not load or eject a tape ever.

VHS-C does not work with these units at all this unit is not for you. Because once you load the VHS-C tape in to the machine it will get jammed and more than likely fail to load and get stuck and once you break the VCR I am not fixing this self inflicted damage and [Removed for privacy]

I do not know what he means by "I would pull the load mechanism and manually load the tape," other then him manually loading the tapes by spinning the drive belt manually and then turning on the machine. To be honest, Deter doesn't communicate some things very well. For example, I told him that someone was going to pay for my VCR and I would pay him back he responded by saying along the lines of that I shouldn't be lazy or there is no excuse to not have a job. To which I told him that was a rude thing to say as I was barely on my vacation from medical school and the job that I was hired said I would start working on June 10th. That was 10 days after Deter gave me the deadline on holding a unit for me until he would find someone else. He then responded on how he worked for a pharmaceutical company and I don't know what. It was an odd exchange but who knows, that is why I am now going to ask here instead.

[aramkolt]

Interesting that he is not confident in the AG1980 to handle VHS-C with adapters. What is particularly odd is that Tgrantphoto (the other well known AG1980 refurbisher) has a whole section on his site about how to best use VHS-C adapters, presumably with the AG1980. I don't believe that Tgrantphoto recommends against VHS-C at all. Lord Smurf I believe prefers the AG1980 for VHS-C, probably because the transport mechanism is quite robust and more likely to keep things aligned properly than some others - maybe.

I thought it might be a one off from the other user who posted recently (Minotz) that recently interacted with Deter and posted about some sort of warning/warranty voiding if used (though there's no way to prove a VHS-C was used or not in something prior to it not working).

Minotz sent me Deter's refurbished AG1980 he bought and his VHS-C adapter to see if I could chase down the issue, since I've refurbished a fair amount of AG1980's myself (15-20 of them). I actually hadn't tried VHS-C with any VCR yet, but I ended up buying a few more adapters and some used VHS-C tapes to try it with his since his specific AG1980 had the issue.

Anyhow. I've attached a before and after with what his machine was doing when it came to me with the VHS-C adapter - basically a terrible grinding noise with poor tape movement through the mechanism. I haven't actually seen that issue described before with VHS-C. I tried it on one of my AG1980's and it didn't do that with his same adapter.

What it ended up being was that specific AG1980 didn't fully seat the tape in the down position, which you can correct by giving the tape a little down pressure with your hand right after you insert it. The mechanism was correctly timed, so I'm not sure why it was doing that. I exercised the mechanism several times with that tape and it seems to do it much less now, but again, giving slight downward pressure with your hand is enough to get it fully seated. The actual grinding heard is nothing to do with the VCR's mechanism gears, but rather an anti-slip mechanism on the large spool of the VHS-C tape that you can see ridges in a "spoke" pattern radiating from the center. So if the tape isn't fully down, you're fighting those ridges when the hub needs to spin, The mechanism does have to work a bit harder if that's happening to pull the tape out of the cassette in that state, so ideally you'd have already pressed down on the tape before the entry/exit guides start pulling the tape out of the cassette anyway. I tried some other VHS-C adapters with his and they all did it to different degrees initially, but less so after several insertions and removals.


I also found that the specific AG1980 in question had truly bare bones cap replacement- 6 on the front LCD board and only the surface mount caps on the TBC. That's it. Wurth Electronik caps were used which I believe are not made in Japan (may or may not matter) and are probably considered second tier. Wurth is a conglomerate that manufactures all over Asia I believe. I'll only use Panasonic, Nichicon, and Rubycon, though 90% of the caps that go back into my AG1980's are Panasonic and those are all made in Japan.

The caps that he changed do always need to be replaced, but what I do is much more extensive. I change ALL caps on both front boards, the TBC Card (both through hole and SMT), the head amp, the power supply, and usually the 3 caps below the video head as well as a few others. Could be that I'm "over-recapping" but I think those are the most likely areas to potentially affect video quality either immediately or down the road. Could be that he tests the other caps in-circuit and only replaces as needed and perhaps that was a low hour unit, but I personally swap all of them without even testing, even if the VCR looks brand new inside. To be fair, the mechanism also has to be serviced, so I'm not saying that the cap replacement is all that was done.

To be fair, most of the power supply caps typically test fine, but you can get some severe squealing and most likely introduction of image noise to the picture if you can hear that squealing. The squealing does correlate to voltage ripple on the power supply output on units that do eventually start squealing, and it is unlikely that the rest of the VCR likes that ripple.

[Glitchy Windows 3.1]

Quote:

Originally Posted by aramkolt

Interesting that he is not confident in the AG1980 to handle VHS-C with adapters. What is particularly odd is that Tgrantphoto (the other well known AG1980 refurbisher) has a whole section on his site about how to best use VHS-C adapters, presumably with the AG1980. I don't believe that Tgrantphoto recommends against VHS-C at all. Lord Smurf I believe prefers the AG1980 for VHS-C, probably because the transport mechanism is quite robust and more likely to keep things aligned properly than some others - maybe.

Yeah, that is the odd part, everyone but Deter says that the Panasonic AG-1980p is pretty good for VHS-C. Some say, in some posts, that it surpasses the typical JVC mechanism as they tend to eat the tape. With that said, not sure why Deter is against using VHS-C on the Panasonic AG-1980p

I thought it might be a one off from the other user who posted recently (Minotz) that recently interacted with Deter and posted about some sort of warning/warranty voiding if used (though there's no way to prove a VHS-C was used or not in something prior to it not working).

Quote:

Originally Posted by aramkolt

Minotz sent me Deter's refurbished AG1980 he bought and his VHS-C adapter to see if I could chase down the issue, since I've refurbished a fair amount of AG1980's myself (15-20 of them). I actually hadn't tried VHS-C with any VCR yet, but I ended up buying a few more adapters and some used VHS-C tapes to try it with his since his specific AG1980 had the issue.

Anyhow. I've attached a before and after with what his machine was doing when it came to me with the VHS-C adapter - basically a terrible grinding noise with poor tape movement through the mechanism. I haven't actually seen that issue described before with VHS-C. I tried it on one of my AG1980's and it didn't do that with his same adapter.

Yes, this was the one post that I saw that mentioned VHS-C and the Panasonic AG-1980p with the issue being that it might have caused damage to the machine. It is also the same post that mentioned that he bought it from Deter and that Deter gave him that warning.

Quote:

Originally Posted by aramkolt

What it ended up being was that specific AG1980 didn't fully seat the tape in the down position, which you can correct by giving the tape a little down pressure with your hand right after you insert it. The mechanism was correctly timed, so I'm not sure why it was doing that. I exercised the mechanism several times with that tape and it seems to do it much less now, but again, giving slight downward pressure with your hand is enough to get it fully seated. The actual grinding heard is nothing to do with the VCR's mechanism gears, but rather an anti-slip mechanism on the large spool of the VHS-C tape that you can see ridges in a "spoke" pattern radiating from the center. So if the tape isn't fully down, you're fighting those ridges when the hub needs to spin, The mechanism does have to work a bit harder if that's happening to pull the tape out of the cassette in that state, so ideally you'd have already pressed down on the tape before the entry/exit guides start pulling the tape out of the cassette anyway. I tried some other VHS-C adapters with his and they all did it to different degrees initially, but less so after several insertions and removals.

In my case, I have the JVC C-P7U, I heard good things about it, so I bought it. I am debating whether I should do what you mentioned, applying slight pressure as the adaptor is inserted into the machine. If something does end up breaking, do you have an idea how much something like that may cost? Assuming the part in question is replaceable, I would like to calculate to see if I should risk something like that. In the two videos you attached, what exactly did you fix in the machine to fix the grinding issue? Because it seems like you just inserted it as normal, without applying slight downward pressure.

[Glitchy Windows 3.1]

I should also mention, the Panasonic unit I have right now, doesn't always take a VHS tape to play. When I insert it, the mechanism takes the tape in, but doesn't lace up, it just spits it out. Not sure if that's the mechanism not fully going down as you mentioned, but I thought I would mention it as it would seem important to know before I use a VHS-C adaptor.

[lordsmurf]

VHS-C in Panasonic is not only fine, but suggested. In general, it's the deck that will play with best quality, and less "eats". That said, certain EOL JVCs are fine with -C as well. I use both.

The problem is bad adapters. There are many.