I was going to reply to chickensalad (great name :laugh:).

But sanlyn got to it first. Great reply. So I'll just reply to his, add a few more comments... :)

Clean = NR applied, less noise
Clear = what was seen on the tape, including undesirable image effects

Fair enough. :2cents:

No, no. There is a middle between your two descriptions, and I'd suggest it simply this:

1. Some NR during capture, maybe more post capture if needed.
2. All NR post capture.

I want a clean signal, but I'm also not willing to sacrifice lots of details for it to happen.

One of the primary problems with "no NR" is chroma errors. Those are not as easily fixed in software. Trying to correct chroma noise in software loses more details that fixing chroma noise in hardware. So it's a catch-22 at times. This must be remembered. If this was NOT the case, I'd probably opt for "NR off" more often than I do now.

Now then, yes, clearly there will be some people out there who approach video with your dreaded first description, with NR cranked to the hilt. But it happens both ways for them, software and/or hardware. We both see it. They've not learned "too much". To make matters worse, it's not even good NR in most cases.

The first group bought the hardware and wants to use it. :P

If good NR can be accomplished in hardware, to avoid more time-consuming software work, then do that. If more careful processing is needed in software, do that.
One should never be a purist, but rather cater to the needs of the tapes.

Yep. :thumb:

And you forgot another aspect: the Panasonic over-sharpening issue. By default, at least the AG-1980 is pumped too high, and results in false "details" (mosquito noise) and halos/ringing. You have to tune that down some, using the deck slider bar. The default/0/unity setting is too strong. It's doesn't go all the way left, but it probably needs to cover 25% of the distance between default and unsharp.

Apparently I'm part of both schools. I like my AG-1980s equally to my JVCs. I just think JVC is cleaner at times, so it's my first stop when playing a tape. If results are not satisfactory in the JVC, I try to 1980 next. Whatever is best is what gets used!

This may have just been worn heads. Those are some of the things that start to happen.

Yep, well known that AG-1980P usually tracks EP better than most JVCs. And especially those EOL units like the 9911 and SR-V101, which had weaker transports. Too loose, too much plastic, most did NOT age well after 10-15 years (~2003 model). The SR-V101 heads also seems to wear easier, and go software more frequently than any other JVC that I've ever seen.

Correct, not entirely NR...

But that's also not entirely it, either! :P

True, the transport and ability to retain full quality from the tape matters. And NR makes the video looks better than the original tape. So what did you forget?

The internal line/field TBC. ;)

VCRs are ranked on all the merits. I'm actually planning to grade that list soon, as it needs to be known that not every machine is an equal. For example, a D-VHS deck is no match for certain other JVCs, or Panasonic AG-1980s. It's not bad, but when given a choice between two decks, you may wish to choose the other instead. Hence my forthcoming list updates.

Yep. :congrats:

Interesting information, I'll keep it in mind.
Right now I am keeping my eye on a Panasonic AG-1970, any thing wrong with this model? I've seen reviews that say something critical, but what they are saying is hard to understand, something about not playing back original tape, which doesn't make sense given the context.

I don't know what to say about "not playing back original tape", nor would anyone understand the context. The critical eye toward the 1970 is usually a comparison between it and the 1980, but the two are different machines. The 1980 is great when it works well, but it's a maintenance nightmare and a black hole when it comes to upkeep cost. Really, a shop with a maintenance budget wouldn't mind the 1980, but for the average user expect a year to 18 months before it starts hungering for alignment tweaks and some specific precision replacement caps, which is what its maintenance manual calls for on a regular basis. And there's nothing like that 1980's finicky s-video and color boards, which are usually the first to start complaining. The 1970 has a similarly robust tracking mechanism but isn't nearly so picky about capacitors, which are mostly mainstream and will stay within tolerance far longer than you could expect from the 1980. The 1970's tbc isn't as powerful as the 1980's (which is why many people make up for it with an affordable pass-thru line tbc device, which has been recommended here and elsewhere many times over). Noise reduction is less than you'd get with a JVC or the 1980, but it's cleaner than your average VCR -- and anyone who tries to sell you on super-clean VHS capture without the need for post processing, regardless of the VCR used, is selling you a bill of goods.

Frankly, I'd prefer something that doesn't over-filter a tape playback and gives me what's on the tape, assuming other aspects of the player are working properly. And my own 1980 is starting to give me fits again, after only 200 hours of capture (which is one its maintenance-due intervals). My personal favorites are the 1996 PV-46xx line of rugged Panasonic Dynamorphous head players, which were ancestors of the pro "AG" series and can still generate images that look an awful lot like those from an "AG". They need some post-processing and color work, but what tape doesn't? I have two copies of Panasonic's 1996 PV-S4670 SVHS players that I've worked to death and they still perform like champs. Sometimes I think I'll just leave my AG-1980 out of the picture and stick with the 4670's. After a bit of cleanup, the results from both player models look pretty much alike.

The review I say was some sort of aggregated one, most were positive but there was a weird one that looked like a badly translated manual:

"This Equipment is a Commercial unit, but you cannot playback Original video tape on the AG-1970 vcr when playback a Original tape get bright and red and bright and red, not all Original tape have copy protection so look for the one ."

I figured I should double check in case anyone knew what it meant.

Which is another reason why I am glad
I am asking questions, I don't have the luxury of maintenance, don't have the space to do it or any place to have it done.

With my tapes my main concern is the ones that don't playback well, I have a gotten quite a few to play back cleanly with regular vcrs but I have no idea what the cut off point is for good quality.

The passage seems to mean that the player honors copy protection on retail tapes. Playback will display copy protection effects unless an external frame-level tbc is used, which is true of all VCRs.

Quality levels in many respects can be a personal matter. If you don't mind a lot of noise and other defects, those defects are signs of low quality work. Other than decent playback with a good VCR, the other factor that brings improvement in final quality is post-processing (filtering and cleanup). Most users learn to analyze and repair video problems by browsing restoration threads (there are thousands of them in this forum alone) and by submitting samples of captures for analysis by others who have solved the same or similar problems.