How to determine Picture slider location on AG-1980?
 

Hello everyone. I'm having a little trouble figuring out where the PICTURE slider should be set at on my Panasonic AG-1980. Lordsmurf has said that artificial sharpness is still achieved even when the slider should be set at the middle, so it should be a little to the left, about 1 to 2 mm. With every AG-1980 VCR the resulting image is different, so the exact location changes. The more to the left the setting goes, the more blurry the video gets. I don't know how blurry the video should get to achieve normal video playback (no artificial sharpening). I've included examples with this post. Thanks in advance.

The main tell-tale is when the image starts to develop oversharpening halos. Push it to the extreme, then pull back until those disappear entirely. It should be left of center. (If anybody thinks it's center, or right of center, you need to learn what halos are. Panasonic oversharpens, the end.) Use some sort of large preview, not a tiny 720x480/576 capture preview window in a small monitor.

1mm to 2mm left usually resolves it.

With that exact sample, it's not easy to tell. But there is noticeable improvement just going from middle to 1mm, not sure it 2mm helps it more.

Well I think I found the halos you were talking about, but to get rid of them I have to go way beyond -2 mm on the picture slider. I have to go to at least -6 mm on my unit. :eek: Often (I think) that doesn't even fix it all the way. I can go all the way to the left and there will still be some traces. The picture can get quite blurry at these levels. Maybe my VCR needs a trip to TGrant, which I am planning to do anyways. The VCR has been tested a lot and has been unused a long time.

Included are a couple of samples, one taken at midpoint on the slider and the other at 6 mm to the left of it.

Here's what the image looks like at 2 mm left of center (The halo is bordering the picture frame on the right-hand side).

I no longer need help on this one. I discovered that the halos are much more apparent on tapes recorded in EP mode. These images came from a tape recorded in that mode. There's not much that can be done. Thank you for all the help.

I've previously found the same as you.

I recorded AVIA's Sharpness and Multiburst patterns to VHS SP & EP and played them back on the AG-1980. These being still test patterns, the switch from SP to EP was extremely obvious -- extra halos with EP even while the Sharpness slider position remains in the same spot.

I was also unable to find a slider position for EP that produced a neutral image without added halos or blur. Some other VCRs manage better.