VHS Capture and tracking issues

[nonsuijuris]

I am trying to copy some family movies (VHS and VHS-C) from the cassettes onto my computer so that I can send them to my family members. I bought a new Philips DVP3345VB/F7 for this purposes. I have this hooked up to a honestech VHS to DVD 5.0 USB converter and am using the software that they include for the conversion.

I went through the cassettes to screen out the cassettes with old tv shows recorded on them so that I didn't waste my time converting these. I found one that was a family recording (based on the audio) but the picture quality was terrible. There picture was red, blue, and green without any discernible shapes while in normal play mode. However, when I pressed the fast-forward button, the picture shows up clearly. What caused this? Keep in mind this was a new VCR.

I assumed it was the tracking so I adjusted it up and down. Now it would seem that I have horribly screwed up the tracking setting that is used for all my tapes? I put a known good tape in the VCR and the picture is all hosed up. It's jittery, off-color, and occasionally changes to all white with little blocks of color sprinkled through the screen. I know the tape is good because I put it into another VCR I have that has a nasty habit of eating tapes.

Is there a guide for how to adjust tracking? For example, how to I know where to adjust the tracking up or down? If voice audio precedes the lips moving, do I adjust in a different direction than when voice audio comes after the lips move? Is there any way to automatically restore the tracking to the original manufacturer's condition?

[Deter]

It is hard to say from just reading this....

Macro Vision on tapes can cause weird colors aka copy protection......

my guess was your old tape had lose oxide which is now all over your video heads on the VCR. Would put that tape off to the side and not use it again, you could wreck the VCR.

The next thing you need to do is a massive, and I mean massive head cleaning, and this needs to be done over and over......Than try a store purchased tape....

If your other VCR has damaged or wrecked the old tapes causing random damage (tracking / scan line damage) to the tapes, at this point in time, have no freakin clue on how to fix that, would love to know the answer to that one.......

[edDV]

If a tape won't track over the normal tracking adjustment range, the recording camcorder was either warn to out of spec or damaged. Best way to recover the tape is play on original recording camcorder.

Otherwise you are going to need to tech up on guides and tension and buy an oscilloscope to maladjust a working VCR to the same state.
http://www.google.com/search?q=VCR+repair&btnG=Search+Books&tbm=bks&tbo=1

[nonsuijuris]

It is hard to say from just reading this....

Macro Vision on tapes can cause weird colors aka copy protection......

The video tape that I'm currently using is copy protected (a previously unopened copy of Field of Dreams). The video tape itself is working correctly in a much older VCR. The movies I want to copy are not copy protected.

my guess was your old tape had lose oxide which is now all over your video heads on the VCR. Would put that tape off to the side and not use it again, you could wreck the VCR.

The next thing you need to do is a massive, and I mean massive head cleaning, and this needs to be done over and over......Than try a store purchased tape....

If your other VCR has damaged or wrecked the old tapes causing random damage (tracking / scan line damage) to the tapes, at this point in time, have no freakin clue on how to fix that, would love to know the answer to that one.......

The VCR with the issue is new. It's been out of the box for less than two days and has less than two hours of total playing times. In terms of the tapes, I popped each one in for a few minutes to triage what tapes I wanted to copy. Once I ran into the tape with the color problems, I put in a copy of Austin Powers and this was playing back fine so I figured it wasn't the VCR. Then I put in the home tape with the problem and started messing with the tracking for about ten minutes before giving up. Could a bad tape have clogged the heads in that short amount of time?

I think that I screwed up this new VCR by pressing the tracking buttons too many time trying to get a non-functional tape to work. I only spent about ten minutes doing this with the potentially bad tape before giving it up. Is there some limit to the amount of times I should press the tracking buttons in each direction to verify that the heads are clogged verses me just having screwed up the tracking?

[creakndale]

While playing a tape, try pressing the up and down tracking buttons at the same time for 1 second, then release. On my VCR this returns tracking to automatic mode.

creakndale

[Deter]

The distorted color shifting in the picture is normally the macro vision copy protection coded in the tape. Yes it is possible to get around this. You need some other hardware....(That problem is tape specific not all tapes have macro vision)

Tracking on the tape, never wrecked a VCR by pressing the tracking buttons. It seems that the newer machines are harder to track tapes. Normally when you eject a tape and put in a new tape, the machine auto tracks the tape. (The tracking is normally reset)

As far as a complete white out picture with little to no sound. It can be tracking, or a few other things. But more than likely the tape has oxide shedding which will get all over the video heads, making other tapes and the machine not work correct. (Will that tape work again, yea it is possible, maybe tape baking)

That is why you need to clean the heads over and over, it is basically to try to remove the dirt or shedding in the machine itself. It doesn't matter if the machine is new or old, oxide shedding will clog or wreck any VCR.

Some machines do not play specific tapes well, or they play better on other VCR's.