Severe drag or picture across top of VHS tape capture
 

I have a lot of VHS tapes I have been converting to digital off and on for several years, capturing them to my PC for conversion to DVD using ConvertXto DVD 4. Have had mostly with good results, not expecting miracles of quality, but still good viewing on DVD. Have used a number of different capture devices and software, some good, some unworkable.

But suddenly I'm getting a severe leftward drag across the top of the screen during capture, which still remains in the captured file. It is not the fairly common black lines, I can compensate for that with my software. It is approximately 1/16th of the top of the display.

I have tried 3 different VHS players, 2 different capture devices, and captured to both my PC and my laptop. But nothing has worked.

Does anyone out there know what the problem is? Do you have any suggestions? Is there some kind of hardware filter that I can put in the line between the VCR and the capture device that will filter out this distortion?

I would really appreciate any help/advice you can give me.

This is "tearing" of the video.

It's actually quite well document on this site. :)

Here's some links for you, for further reading:

• VHS tearing - hardware to fix it?
• VHS tearing even WITH TBC and JVC SVHS player
• Fixing VHS tearing during capture - JVC D-VHS VCR vs JVC S-VHS VCR

It's an issue with the signal, in conjunction with the recording VCR (and sometimes even the playback VCR, although not as common).

The links above explain it in quite a bit of detail, from the technical reasonings, down to the available fixes. Assuming these are not copies of copies of copies, the error is generally quite correctable.

Note that it does require more video hardware. Should you find the chore of buying/learning/using more video hardware undesirable, remember that The Digital FAQ also has video conversion and restoration services. Just wanted to mention that.