Bouncing, scan lines, video at bottom during VHS playback?

[ProbablyNotAProblem]

I would just like to preface this by saying how thankful I am to the VHS / restoration forums and community (many from DigitalFAQ!), for the level of diligence and extensive details which have greatly eased me into the shallow end of what could otherwise have been a misstep into deep water.

For better or worse, I've roped myself into the process of archiving the family tapes, and whilst I have managed to get several results that I'm happy with so far, there are a few issues across some recordings that I would be grateful to check to see if anything can be done to rectify, or at least somewhat improve, on the digitising process going forward.

Please see below for the attached video samples and a brief description of the issues in each clip. They have been compressed in order to be uploaded, so excuse any blocky image quality as the problems should still be identifiable.

1. Example 1: Green + purple bar lines that scroll up and down across the screen. This is made less apparent when switching the TBC of the VHS player off (I recall reading that this is the TBC trying to account for the bad footage), but does still happen at times even with no TBC. There is also a fuzzy bar at the top of this clip, which at times randomly swaps to the bottom.
   
2. Example 2: The most common issue I'm currently seeing from the problem tapes is that the whole video inside the black boundary frame "bounces" slightly up and down at times. It happens even if TBC is turned on (TBC seems to be off for the example clip, but it is happening with it enabled as well), and changing the tracking doesn't seem to affect it.
   
3. Example 3: Probably the worst problem tape I've come across, with the whole top section of the picture wobbling about, and very frequently the top of the picture ends up re-appearing at the bottom below a fuzzy line! Again, happens with or without the VHS TBC.

(As another note, I have tried these problem tapes in another person's VCR, a basic Sharp model of some sort and on their Sony WEGA TV over SCART, and although I don't see the exact same issues as the examples through my computer, the tapes do seem to skip or repeat back on itself, so it might just be some very bad tapes beyond recovery which I will have to accept.)

Below is the equipment currently in use:

• VHS Player: Panasonic NV-HS1000 (Inherited from family funnily enough, not sure how much usage it's had over the years, and I dare not take it apart to inspect lest I turn it into a VHS jigsaw puzzle)
• External TBC: None (Only using the built-in one from the Panasonic due to my budget)
• Capture Device: Hauppauge 1341 USB-Live2 (Was seemingly the best for me that would work within my equipment and budget)
• Capture Software: VirtualDub 1.19 (Encoding to HuffYUV as per the general consensus across many forums)
• OS: Windows 10 (A cardinal sin with VHS from reading many posts, forgive me, but I am reliant on the computer setup I have for many other things)

When viewing a newer or high quality tape recording in the Panasonic, either commercial or home-recorded and either through a TV or via USB capture, the results are very satisfactory with only minimal line interlacing and certainly acceptable quality for what is to be expected with the nature of VHS. Whilst these example clip issues are not occurring all the time, if any of them can be mitigated to a degree on the problem tapes then I would be grateful to the process for this, or what equipment may help.

I did dabbled a bit with the 'AviSynth' software trying to remedy these issues, but I currently lack the knowledge of what filters to use as have only managed to make each example clip look worse.

Unfortunately, my budget and access to purchase more optimal hardware / software will likely be somewhat limited (I probably could, at most for now, spend a hundred or so extra for this task if it would lead to an improved outcome). I would probably just be satisfied to know if any of these elements are in my control or not, as most of these tapes are 20+- years of age and weren't in the best physical condition when they were passed onto me. Pointers to any equipment in different price ranges would be much appreciated, if extra equipment is needed.

So whilst I am prepared to be advised that a new VHS player or full field TBC will solve most of these issues, and would appreciate this as 'peace-of-mind' confirmation, for me personally doing this as a personal family project, I am unlikely to actually spend high-hundreds or thousands for a fabled high-end TBC or VHS, and would accept some problematic clips over a financial decision that could take a few years off my life expectancy!

Apologies if this is a bit of an essay, and thank you in advance for any suggestions.

[hodgey]

Example 1 and 3 looks like they were either recorded on a misaligned vcr or the HS1000 is misaligned (but in that case the tapes should play fine in another vcr and even commercial recordings could have issues.) 2 might be too but maybe a bit less. If there is something important on the tapes, and it's the recording that is misaligned rather than the NV-HS1000 the "optimal" solution is to intentionally misalign a vcr to match them and use something like a panasonic dvd-recorder for stabilization (unless you want to screw with alignment and risk breaking a very expensive vcr.)

[traal]

A good external TBC will improve the green/purple line issue in Example 1.

The wobbling in Example 3 is fixed by turning the VCR's TBC off and using a Panasonic ES-10 or ES-15 as an external TBC.

[lordsmurf]

Cannot look at sample now, but the title describes format mismatch as well (ie, PAL input, trying to record NTSC, etc)

[ProbablyNotAProblem]

Thank you all for your responses so far, please see for added information below:

Quote:

Originally Posted by hodgey

Example 1 and 3 looks like they were either recorded on a misaligned vcr or the HS1000 is misaligned...

..If there is something important on the tapes, and it's the recording that is misaligned rather than the NV-HS1000 the "optimal" solution is to intentionally misalign a vcr to match them and use something like a panasonic dvd-recorder for stabilization (unless you want to screw with alignment and risk breaking a very expensive vcr.)...

This could very well be the case, the tapes have been given to me by different people and they all could have come from a variety of VCRs with potential different alignments and irregular setups. Most tapes are playing with minimal issues, just a few sections on some tapes have quite noticeable issues. Whilst personally not too keen on taking any players apart to mis-align them to re-align with the bad tapes (I have a habit of making lemons out of lemonade!), but knowing that it could resolve the issues if I or someone else could adjust another player in the future is good knowledge to have.

Quote:

Originally Posted by traal

...The wobbling in Example 3 is fixed by turning the VCR's TBC off and using a Panasonic ES-10 or ES-15 as an external TBC.

Whilst looking into this VHS restoration process and reading about TBCs and what they do, I have heard mention of these 'ES-10'/'ES-15' units a few times. I understand they are by no means a flat-out replacement for a proper external TBC, but it does look like it can possibly help "clean up" the recording process to a degree by acting as some form of stability throughput. I may have to purchase one and see how it affects the tapes, as for myself it will likely be this or nothing in regards to any form of TBC, given both my budget for this project and rare availability of good quality hardware TBC devices.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lordsmurf

Cannot look at sample now, but the title describes format mismatch as well (ie, PAL input, trying to record NTSC, etc)

Just to advise that from checking the front of the Panasonic player, it is labelled as a 'PAL' unit and this matches up with the labels on the tapes I've been working on (both commercial and home-recorded), so hopefully the recording format is not the issue, else I may need to travel abroad and back in time to try and find an NTSC player! Interesting to know that potentially good quality tapes in a different format device could display similar issues to bad quality tapes in the same format as the player.

If I make any further progress, either by finding another player for me to play around with or purchasing an ES-10, I shall try to remember to post back here with some more example clips and any differences or (hopefully) improvements that the extra equipment has made. Thanks again!

[latreche34]

Samples 1 & 3 are most likely miss aligned recordings, you can get a cheap VCR and miss align it, Sample 2 is timing issue, a DVD recorder like the ES10/15 should be able to stablize it.