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  1. Hello,

    I'm fairly new with this VCR. It appears to be functioning perfectly, the picture looks great, but when I enable TBC the picture scrolls left to right pretty quickly. Probably about 4-5 times per second. When disabled the picture is rock solid.

    Is there a way to adjust this?

    Thanks,

    Matt
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  2. Member PuzZLeR's Avatar
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    Be grateful it's working at all, especially after the abuse these machines have gotten over the years!

    It can be "fixed", but such services are in short and expensive supply today.

    If you're getting a good picture without the TBC feature, don't bother with it. It wouldn't do much anyway even if working. In fact, it can jumble field order, and can even make things worse on some tapes.

    In fact, all it really is is a full-field TBC, or multi-line TBC, and not a very good one. If you really would like to have that extra correction, just get an external unit, such as the TBC in the Panasonic ES10/ES15 DVR which provides line correction in pass-through.

    You should have such a unit, or even a full-frame TBC like the AVT-8710, in your chain anyway.

    Mind you, this is from my experience with two AG-1980s, but I doubt your machine's quirks would be much different since the AG-5710 is exactly the same model as the AG-1980 without the tuner (a feature nobody here cares for anyway).
    I hate VHS. I always did.
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  3. I do have the signal running through an external Datavideo TBC-4000 and it looks great. The scrolling will happen whether it's going directly to the monitor or through the external TBC.

    Has anyone else seen an issue like this with an internal TBC?
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  4. Despite the hype for its TBC, the most useful feature of the AG1980 (and its AG5710 twin) isn't the TBC but the DNR. It is almost impossible in 2014 to find one of these vcrs in anything close to usable condition, and as PuzZLeR mentioned repairs are neither easy nor cheap. So if your 5710 is working well aside from the TBC, count yourself as blessed, and dub your VHS to digital 24/7 before it inevitably dies on you. The fact that the TBC section is borked is a sure sign its circuit boards are deteriorating: you may have anywhere from a few weeks to perhaps a year or two before the main video and/or DNR rots away. The historical track record for these VCRs is not encouraging.

    I have five AG1980s and four AG5710s acquired over the past eight years. Not one of them was 100% functional when purchased, and most of them remain that way because I refuse to spend $300 apiece to have them repaired with no guarantee they won't die again within a year (they were designed by Panasonic to burn themselves out repeatedly). A couple of my units have the same TBC issue as yours, along with worse problems. Of my nine, only one really works normally, and that one has loading issues as well as increasingly frequent color issues. The TBC works as expected when I activate it, but usually does more harm than good as PuzZLeR noted (it kinda helps some tapes but introduces alternative problems in the process).

    Since you have a good-working DataVideo TBC-4000, you can survive just fine without using the 5710 built-in TBC. The TBC-4000 is yet another dodgy device with a spotty reputation for long-term durability, so here again if you have a good one consider yourself most fortunate and get your dubbing project finished ASAP before it croaks. In a pinch, the oft-recommended second-hand Panasonic DMR-ES10 DVD recorder can be used as a pass-through TBC that is highly effective with VHS signals. I regret selling mine: used in tandem with any random VCR, it provides a rough approximation of the results from a functional AG1980 or AG5710 vcr (without the unreliability and unpredictability).
    Last edited by orsetto; 22nd Jul 2014 at 18:38.
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