Static lines throughout VHS capture?
 

Hello all, I am trying to capture a few VHS tapes that seem to have this same set of static lines throughout. The lines never move and are always in the same spots. I have attached just a screenshot as the video would just show those same lines. They can be moved slightly by adjusting the tracking but lots of times that just makes it worse.

Can someone tell me if this is something that can be fixed by using better equipment or something a pro could fix? Is this tape damage or something else?

I am just using a Canopus ADVC110 and some cheap VCR's which have been fine for my needs as I am not looking for perfect recapture quality but the issues on these few tapes are too much. These lines seem to be in the same place in the 5 or 6 VCR's I have used. Again, not good VCR's but they do fine with other tapes.

Thanks for any help.

Based on the image and that it changes with tracking it looks likely that the tape in question was recorded in a VCR where the tape guides were out of alignment. If the tapes are important, you can "misalign" a VCR to match the tapes (don't do it on a good VCR you care about as getting it back to proper alignment can be hard). This video shows how it's done (though rather than aligning to a known good tape you would be aligning to the "bad" tapes

Thanks for that. I have been wondering if that could be the issue but I am almost certain this was not recorded on a VCR but through a camcorder.

While it does change "some" when changing the tracking, its not like it goes from the bottom to the top.

A camcorder is still a VCR, and that would make even more sense if it was recorded on one as those were thrown around and extra prone to go out of alignment.

Gotcha.

I have been playing around with another VCR and have been able to get all those static lines pushed down to the bottom and other pushed up to the top. I have moved those spots where away from the game. They do seem to move some through out the film so one minute I have them pushed away and then a few minutes later it has changed. Looks decent enough now (again, i am just going for watchable). Ill update with a screenshot later. Thanks.

What is the signal chain involved here?

Here is a screenshot of the video after I played with the tracking on another VCR. The best I could do was move the lines to the top and bottom and then crop the video to 16:9. It seems to have worked out well enough for me as the game is in the part that is not getting distorted. its the crowd at the top that looks bad.

The other 2 tapes I have though I am not having much luck as I can never get the lines away from the action. Are there people on this board who do this type of restore?


I don't know what that means? Are you talking about how the video gets into the computer? I am using a Macbook with Canopus ADVC110. I know its not what you all would recommend but I get these tracking lines the same even if it is hooked into the TV.

Your VCR is still severly miss aligned, to re-align it you have to understand how helical scan works, you can't just turn screws and hope you'll magically get a perfect picture, If you can't do it yourself have someone do it for you or just be happy with what you got, Forum postes cannot walk you through such a complicated technical repair that requires an oscilloscope if the guides are way out of adjustement.

As someone earlier mentioned, I don't think the VCR i was using to do the digital captures is misaligned, it was the VCR (camcorder) that did the original VHS recordings that was misaligned. I was able to find another VCR and play with the alignment and was able to get a decent enough picture that I am happy with. I was not able to do it for 2 of the other tapes I have though because, as you mentioned, I am not a pro and I was just turning screws.

I would be interested in getting in touch with someone who could do this for the other 2 tapes.

Miss aligning the VCR requires the exact same process, You would have to understand the enternace and exit guides and what's their relationship to the first and last fields in the raster, Again this is better done with the oscilloscope to get the exact position of the miss aligned camcorder.