Static noise on a couple of tapes
 

Hi,

My capture chain (for PAL):
JVC-S7611 --> TBC-1000 --> ATI AIW 9600 --> Turtle Beach for audio
-- Connection between AIW and Turtle Beach card is the internal AUX connection.

Software: VirtualDub on a Windows XP.

I have captured a lot of VHS tapes by now - mostly without issues. I recently got a bunch of PAL VHS tapes from a friend. Family tapes. For the most part the capture has gone great but a couple of tapes have sporadic static noise on the AVI recordings. I was thinking of doing a new test capture around exactly the time where I hear static noise, hoping that that would tell me if it is the tape or some of my machinery that has gone bad perhaps.

I am attaching an audio sample in the hope that someone can tell me if this is classic tape noise or if it comes from the machinery or something else.


Best and happy new year,
Chanuka

Hi, this sounds like classic mistracking noise on a HiFi Stereo audio soundtrack. But I'm not sure what's happening in the relatively noise free sections in between. It could be the HiFi noise temporarily stops, and we are hearing the HiFi as it should sound. Or it could be the VCR is defaulting to the linear audio track. Does your VCR have an indicator on the front panel which tells you when the HiFi track is switched in at any given moment? Are you able to switch the audio output at the remote control from normal to HiFi and back?

Thanks for the answer :). I do see something on the left hand side with dB going from +8 to -15 and it usually says 'NORM' but once in a while it switches to something else which I can't quite work out what is. I have a button the remote that says AUDIO. I will try to play around with it a bit. I also guess that if I capture the exact same tape at the same point where the noise occurred the first time, I should be able to definitively know if it's the tape or not.

Also, other tapes capture fine without issues and I believe it is the same cam corder that was used.