Dirty heads?

[Don James]

I have two similar machines, JVC S7600 and S8900. On the S7600, the image is fine,
but there are occaisional black horizontal lines viewing the same video (and other videos)
with the S8900. See clip link below. Is this a symptom of dirty heads or worse?

http://www.kozenrufu.com/9800U.wmv

[davideck]

It might be a dirty control track head. A good cleaning of all the heads and guides would be a good place to start.

[edDV]

Dirty heads would be continuous. That clip shows begining of tape issues that settle down.

What is the problem again?

[davideck]

I'm assuming that Don James is more interested in what is happening after the beginning settles down.

[edDV]

I didn't see much after 10 sec other than some dropouts at the bottom in the head switching area. A frame number might help.

[Don James]

I'm assuming that Don James is more interested in what is happening after the beginning settles down.

I'm also very concerned about how bad the beggining is. It's not like that with my S7600, it's a little jittery but not all those black horizontal lines. EdDV, you have to watch it verrrryyy carefully. I know it looks basically like a good image, but there are intermittent black horizontal lines coming and going in the image. Look again. At 14 seconds in the upper left corner. At 19 seconds in the bottom left. At 22 seconds just below that 3rd (from left) black silo looking thing. At 53 seconds below the y. I bought professional cleaning supplies and will give it a thorough cleaning of the tape path on saturday

[The_Doman]

I have two similar machines, JVC S7600 and S8900. On the S7600, the image is fine,
but there are occaisional black horizontal lines viewing the same video (and other videos)
with the S8900. See clip link below. Is this a symptom of dirty heads or worse?

I have here also a JVCS7600 (PAL) which has EXACT the same problems!!
With almost all tapes I play in that machine I get those black stripes, only when I use brand new tapes the picture is without black lines (for a while).

I returned the machine for service because of this but they said it was normal: "use better tapes"
Something really must be wrong with that model series because the tapes play normal (without black lines) in all other VCR's I have here, including other JVC VCR's.

Ofcourse this makes the machine useless for serious use, that' why I only use it as tuner for my capture cards.

[Don James]

I have two similar machines, JVC S7600 and S8900. On the S7600, the image is fine,
but there are occaisional black horizontal lines viewing the same video (and other videos)
with the S8900. See clip link below. Is this a symptom of dirty heads or worse?

I have here also a JVCS7600 (PAL) which has EXACT the same problems!!
With almost all tapes I play in that machine I get those black stripes, only when I use brand new tapes the picture is without black lines (for a while).

I returned the machine for service because of this but they said it was normal: "use better tapes"
Something really must be wrong with that model series because the tapes play normal (without black lines) in all other VCR's I have here, including other JVC VCR's.

Ofcourse this makes the machine useless for serious use, that' why I only use it as tuner for my capture cards.

Sounds like your service person wasn't very good Black lines in an image is never "normal". Something is wrong, I suspect either there is dirt in the tape path or the heads are worn out or damaged. Anyone know what a head replacement (for my VCR ) might run?

[The_Doman]

Sounds like your service person wasn't very good Black lines in an image is never "normal". Something is wrong, I suspect either there is dirt in the tape path or the heads are worn out or damaged.

It was serviced by JVC officially and the machine had this "defect" direct from the begin.
Really the worst VCR I have ever had.
And really I think there is a problem with the so called "drop out compensation" circuit of the machine. Tapes from which I know that have (little) damage play much much worse (full with those heavy dark lines) then on all my other VCR's..

[Don James]

It might be a dirty control track head. A good cleaning of all the heads and guides would be a good place to start.

Thanks, David, I'm really pulling for something like that to be the problem, I really want to keep the machine.

[Don James]

It might be a dirty control track head. A good cleaning of all the heads and guides would be a good place to start.

Thanks, David, I'm really pulling for something like that to be the problem, I really want to keep the machine.

The end of this story is I bought professional cleaning supplies and took the cover off and cleaned all the heads and the rest of the parts in the tape path. It made no difference whatsoever in the quality of the video, it still had those intermittent horizontal black bars in the image. I returned it for a refund.

[The_Doman]

The end of this story is I bought professional cleaning supplies and took the cover off and cleaned all the heads and the rest of the parts in the tape path. It made no difference whatsoever in the quality of the video, it still had those intermittent horizontal black bars in the image. I returned it for a refund.

Yes , exactly the same experience I had with my JVCS7600 as you could read.
It must be something with the electronics..