Tape has robot pitchy sound, static - salvageable?
 

Hi,

I've been trying to digitize my old family tapes and ran into one that seems particularly "damaged".
Having read the forums, I got my hands on a working Panasonic AG-1980P, a Panasonic DMR-ES15 and a ATI TV Wonder 600 capture card.

However, after connecting them all, I don't see a huge difference in the output.
Both the Panasonic AG-1980 and Panasonic DMR-ES15 have been tested with other tapes and work fine. (Although other tapes were working on other VHS without the Panasonic's "TBC", so I can't really tell if the TBC of 1980 is working or not)

Here is my current connection setup:

Panasonic AG-1980 -> s-video -> Panasonic DMR-ES15 -> Composite Generic Capture Card from Amazon. (At the moment, i stopped connecting to the TV Wonder 600 since my Windows 7 system is very laggy and I need to reinstall Windows on it.)

However, before getting the Windows 7 system back up and running and searching for further equipment to buy that might help, I thought I might ask for your opinions.

Is this tape salvageable? I'm unsure if the lack of quality is due to my capture setup or "damage" to the tape.

Asthetically, the tape looks pristine and has no signs of mold or scratches, and such.

Here you can see what I'm trying to address in the tape:

- Robot / Pitchy sound
- Static and grey lines

https://youtu.be/kzITVjckKI8

The recording is from the first few minutes of the tape.
After about 10 minutes of video, the tape has much higher quality and has scarcely noticeable issues.
However, after those initial 10 minutes, the content is from a distinct recording.
Ex: The first 10 minutes are from a family trip to Disney, and the latter part of the tape is from recordings at home with the family. So the tape was used for multiple recordings, which makes me wonder if perhaps the camera used for the first 10 minutes is maybe the issue?

Any help or insight into what might be causing this, or proper terminology regarding the issues I am seeing, and/or if it's fixable, would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

Welcome. :)

This is complete overlap, and may actually make quality worse. AG-1980 has field TBC (multi-line), while ES15 has line with non-TBC frame sync. What you lack is an actual frame TBC. The ES15 is not a frame TBC, it's 100% redundant here.

A DVD recorder is not a TBC.

You have one of the best VCRs (was it recapped?) into one of the worst capture cards. Whatever benefit you got from that VCR was destroyed by a junk card. It's like having a brand new car, then you put whiskey in the gas tank.

That can mean nothing for certain issues.

If it the VCR, or is it the tape content?
Is the tape recorded misaligned?

I do think you're getting feedback from AG1980+ES15 together. That doesn't explain everything here, but some % of it.

Tape content more likely. Maybe alignment.

Maybe, but not likely, especially after a few minutes (and that assumes SP mode camera, reusing EP mode VCR-recorded tape).

Not likely, but not impossible. For certain not easy.

Thanks for the super quick and helpful reply. :)

I see. I got confused as to the use of the ES15, then haha. Thank you.
I'll take it out of the setup for now.


Yep, I thought about getting a frame TBC, such as the DataVideo - 1000 or others mentioned in the forums, but before going that route, I decided to do a check-in and see if it would help with the issues I am seeing.

I don't believe the 1980 has been recapped, although the picture quality looks good. The TBC board may need to be recapped or all of it altogether. I'll have to inspect it. :)

I'll get my Windows 7 system back up and running and use the TV Wonder 600 to capture. :)

---
I see you mentioned it is not likely it is salvageable.

Would you say, even if the Panasonic were recapped and fed to a full TBC such as the DataVideo 1000 and then straight to the TV Wonder 600, do you think the issues I am seeing would still be present? (Given that it might be the tape's content that is the issue)


Finally, if I might be so bold as to ask: Any specific WonderDub capture settings you recommend?
Current settings:

- Color Space YUY2
- Output Size - 640 x 480
Video Source - S-video (Once I connect to Wonder 600)

For whatever reason(s) the playback machine is (or was) losing synchronisation with the tape. Picture tracking is unstable. Pitch is also unstable. Assuming no tape damage, perhaps the recording device was faulty or misaligned at time of recording. Could this recording be a copy of a previously faulty playback?

Just here to agree on the sense that the ES15 might not being helping at all since the Panasonic 1980 is different than a JVC.

For example, I've dealt with some tapes that jitter a lot or preset distracting wiggling with the JVC's line TBC turned on, meaning I'd have to capture the tape with it turned off and use a ES15 in between it and my external TBC.

Whereas the Panasonic AG-1980 with it's field TBC turned on does not produce such issues, meaning I don't need to use an ES15 at all.

About OP's tape, maybe it is a poorly made copy, meaning such errors are baked in and there is nothing that can really be done..