Betacam color artifacts?

[CHOXUWU]

Ever since I got a hold of my first Betacam player I've been having trouble with the color on the video signal. When ever there is a picture with all RGB colors (if that makes sense) this color artifacting will pop up in and out at the top and bottom of the picture.

Some screengrabs of what this looks like.

TESTTTTTTTT.avi_20250306_220035.937.jpg

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And for anyone wanting to see what this looks like as video here is a test capture. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZuU...ew?usp=sharing

Is this something that can be fixed with a potentiometer adjustment?

Any feedback is welcome. :3

[aramkolt]

What player are you using and is that PAL or NTSC? I have a variety of players that I could try it on and let you know what works and what doesn't if you send me a tape, though most of mine are NTSC only. I doubt that's something you can fix in post processing though.

Also, is the tape betacam or betacam SP? Never tried it, but a betacam-only player playing a betacam SP tape might do something like that as my understanding is that it'll play, but there will be image problems, possibly like that.... maybe.

[latreche34]

It looks like tracking issues to me.

[CHOXUWU]

The Betacam model is a "BVW-25" and yes it is a betacam only machine. From what I understood online was that Betacam SP tapes can be played back on regular Betacam machines via quasi playback. Of the four Betacam tapes I have only one is non sp, and that tape plays much much worse, barely an intelligible picture. I can send a capture of what that looks like if anyone wishes to see.

Also this is an NTSC machine. I'm not too comfortable with the idea of sending the tapes to someone else. But I can assure everyone this happens with every SP tape, not just the one. And the none SP tape is much worse in picture stability.

As for it being potentially a tracking issue can that be manually adjusted?

[latreche34]

You will have to address the issue caused it in the first place, Tape players don't go out of alignement on their own, Something must have happened, Look for loose, broken, cracked, gummed up, ceized, dirty components, Make sure the tape path is clean and inspect it while the tape is playing to see if there is any creasing or tape playback abnormalities, It is a repair skill that cannot be tought over a forum, You have to know what you're looking for.

[aramkolt]

Hmm. those portable players like the BVW-25 probably aren't exactly ideal for modern transfers, their mechanisms aren't nearly as robust as a full size player. However, my guess is capacitors somewhere (which could even potentially cause tracking issues), would suspect surface mount capacitors first, then anything ELNA branded which Sony loved to use for some reason. Elna and TOSIN seem to be the main capacitor brands that were actually made in Japan that did not age well in my experience. Any capacitor can fail in high heat areas, but those seem to fail quite often in low or no heat areas. Would test ESR of any suspect caps in circuit as more of a screening first. Or, if I were you, I'd grab a different full size player, basic ones are pretty inexpensive these days though shipping costs can be the biggest hurdle, and there's probably no guarantee that most of them are actually tested working. I will say on the BVW-65, there are no SMT caps other than a single audio board, I did have to replace those, see below for the board after SMT recap, so *only* 32 of them to change if you get one of those:

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