VHS glitch on playback, static gone after rewind?

[vhsrestoorer]

I’m restoring and digitizing old VHS tapes and I’m seeing a strange issue.

See this video: http://youtube.com/watch?v=Is5qC5le3TQ

Regularely like every 10 seconds or so , the picture breaks into static like about 00:06–00:13 for aroudn 5 seconds on the video during normal playback. However, when I rewind past the same section (around 00:18), the image looks completely fine.

I’m using the following VCRs:

- JVC HR-S6950 (Super VHS)
- Sony SLV-SE620B
- JVC HR-J580EU

Capture setup is Dazzle USB → OBS.

These tapes are personal recordings I am trying to preserve after my parents house burned down, so I really want to recover as much as possible.

What could cause playback-only static that disappears on rewind, and what can I try to fix or minimize it?

[lordsmurf]

Hello, welcome.

What does this mean?

Quote:

However, when I rewind past the same section

Are you REW while playing, and you see the image?
Or did you rewind, and the 2nd play is better? (And if this is the case, it's filth on the tape. Open the deck, clean your heads. NOT Q-TIPS! I bet it's caked in yuck now.)

That visual noise is often due to misaligned recording, or head damage, or filth on the tape.

Important:
- Dazzle is a terrible card to use. Your video is too bright, soft focus, and washed out. That's not from the tape. That lousy Dazzle is doing that to your video.
- OBS is the wrong tool to use. It does not capture video. Instead, it "captures" from within display layers. It was made as a digital screen recorder, and it's re-recording your capture card preview.

You will be 100% unable to "restore" anything with a Dazzle/OBS combo. All you need is a better capture card, and to use VrtualDub.

[vhsrestoorer]

Hi.

1. Yes when REW the image are there in full. No static, but when playing back it becomes static. This leads me to believe the data is there. Also when static appears the audio is perfect! So I'm not giving up on the tape yet! hehe.

2. Dazzle was a cheap alternative, what would make it better and give it better quality without breaking the bank and possible to get quite fast?

Update: this happens on all 3 VCR's and I've done head cleaning with alcohol and A4 paper. I got other VHS's (children animation films) which does not do this. Only family movies.

[lordsmurf]

The data probably is not entirely there. When a tape is played on REW/FF, only small portions of the image are shown. The FF/REW always operates in a quasi-tracking state. When the tape is actually played back, realtime, in its entirety, the signal is too fragmented and non-standard to form a cohesive signal.

I've actually had to restore videos in FF-play in the past. On the JVC 9800, the image can disable with less noise that a typical VCR. But what I'd run into was the playback was still imperfect at the slower less-fps speeds. You could see the bad frames of data.

This is one area where, theoretically, vhs-decode could reconstruct the unplayable data in non-realtime. However, in reality, it cannot, as that method is confined to the quality of the deck/playback heads, which is a major contributor to this issue. Special hardware would need to exist, but it does not, and likely never will (due to the immature "leadership" of that project).

Relatively speaking, most capture cards are now cheap. Quality capture capture used to cost $500+, but a now under $200. The problem comes where budget get unrealistic, expecting quality for under $100, especially the eBay/Amazon "Chinese specials" (which includes Dazzles). I have a few quality capture cards in the marketplace subforum, specifically to help folks like you get onto a better capture track. A new capture card will do nothing for this exact error, but it will vastly improve the quality of the other captures. As it standard right now, the digital video you're making with that Dazzle looks worse than the tape actually is.

[vhsrestoorer]

Thanks again! (And merry christmas!)

Its so weird, because as you see there is like 10 seconds of normal play then 6-7 seconds of static like religously on the tape. But rewind over those 6-7 seconds i see many frames fully there as good as day. But those 6-7 with 100% pure static has _zero_ data?

Are this a known issue? It seems to only be a problem with home videos. Bought VHS's works pretty much perfectly. Also I'm not sure it is 100% the same place every time.

I'll pm you later on for a better capture card. I bought this from a buddy, the same version as from this link:
https://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vid...-pinnacle.html
Therefor I think it should be good enough, or atleast until I get the signal perfect! It's not worth investing until I get a stable signal.

[Aya_Rei]

Since you're saying retail tapes work perfectly fine then it's probably not VCR head damage as that would affect every tape you put into the machine. I know dirty heads result in visible damage but can these defects also emit strange sounds? I'm quite use to how my VCRs are suppose to sound like when playing back a tape so any loud screech or something what be a cause of concern to me.

I'm more likely the believe the cause being misaligned recordings, meaning the home movies were shot on a defective camera and are therefore harder to get playing correctly. This is why pros tend to have multiple different VCRs.

One tape can be completely unplayable in a JVC but perfectly playable in a Panasonic. But if the majority of tapes (98%+) playback perfectly fine in both machines then I don't think head wear would be a cause of concern

I've only had one tape not playback at all in either of my JVC machines from the probably 200+ tapes I've ran which are mixes of home movies, TV recordings and some retail tapes.

That one tape turned out to be an EP mode copy of a camera shot recording, so I suspect whatever VCR was used to make the copy sucked, with it being EP mode not helping matters.

[latreche34]

That kind of noise looks like temporary head clog, Open the VCR and try to carefully clean the tape while still playing if it clears your tapes may have the SSS, try baking them or send them to someone who knows how to handle these situations.

[lordsmurf]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aya_Rei

Since you're saying retail tapes work perfectly fine then it's probably not VCR head damage as that would affect every tape you put into the machine.

As it pertains to SLP/EP mode, this is not necessary true. Most 4-head VCRs have two SP heads and two EP heads. Meaning that you can have damaged playback in one mode, but not the other. So this conversation still has variables on mode.

"Retail tape" actually means nothing, beyond possibility of anti-copy/Macrovision and contact method "recording" (not actually recorded). There is assumption of good SP mode quality, because that's generally true, but it can be very wrong (bad assumption).

Quote:

I know dirty heads result in visible damage but can these defects also emit strange sounds? I'm quite use to how my VCRs are suppose to sound like when playing back a tape so any loud screech or something what be a cause of concern to me.

It's good that you're paying attention to this.
Odd noises can lead to VCR damage!

Quote:

One tape can be completely unplayable in a JVC but perfectly playable in a Panasonic.

I've literally never seen that happen (not that I recall), not in 20+ years of using AG-1980P, unless that deck was damaged. What does happen is playback quality can be poorer on either VCR, but much better on the other. That's generally only true of tracking, though sometimes audio or sharpness. It depends on many factors, most of them to do with the tape itself.

Quote:

Originally Posted by latreche34

That kind of noise looks like temporary head clog, Open the VCR and try to carefully clean the tape while still playing if it clears your tapes may have the SSS, try baking them or send them to someone who knows how to handle these situations.

Oxide shed in the deck, or dirt immediately on the play cylinder, would reveal this. But if he claims that A4 + alcohol shows no such muck, then it has to be recording damage. That sort of cyclical damage suggests that the recording deck had a damaged head. That was the situation I've dealt with before.

Although we can believe this person, further "proof" would be photos of the deck insides, as well as the outcome of the used head cleaning paper. Not that I disbelieve this person, but it would easily verify that's not the problem.

I'd enjoy being wrong here, but I think he's screwed, that tape will never play.

Quote:

Originally Posted by vhsrestoorer

...

More than once, I've had to take good audio, and reconstruct tapes with stills where the video did not exist. That was always a huge Premiere project. (You said A4, so perhaps UK? Have you ever seen classic Doctor Who recons? That's essentially what I've had to do, mix of all available good video clips, still, with the good audio. It turned out quite well.)

[latreche34]

I meant clean the heads not the tape, It's worth trying, Some types of sticky shed does not leave a lot of junk on the heads as it flies off as soon as the tape is removed but enough to cause a temporary head clog.

[lordsmurf]

Quote:

Originally Posted by latreche34

I meant clean the heads not the tape, It's worth trying, Some types of sticky shed does not leave a lot of junk on the heads as it flies off as soon as the tape is removed but enough to cause a temporary head clog.

Hmm, interesting. I've never seen (or heard of) a "temporary head clog" before.
I guess it's possible.

But any debris flung off would still be in the transport, yes? So visual inspection would still give clues to problem origin, if oxide/"dirt"-based.

In my experience, the transport is either
- spotless
- or has looks like a miniature termite mound with black dirt

Very binary.