Problem Transferring Long Play Videotapes......

[TheGMan]

I have dozens of videotapes recorded in long play format on an old Sharp 4 head Hifi Stereo VCR I had. The VCR was purchased from new however the heads went on it after a few years and I got rid. I've now got two DVD recorders. On one I've hooked up a JVC VCR (model: HR-S6965) It gives brilliant playback of standard play tapes but when I try to play the long play tapes the sound is poor (noise on the hi-fi stereo sound) or the picture is poor (or both) Have tried the manual tracking but there appears to be no decent setting that I can achieve to record from.

Have tried a second VCR with the same results - even gone as far as adjusting the tape path on that one to see if I can improve things. This has helped but the sound still jumps between hi-fi stereo and mono as I can't seem to line up the best picture with the best sound.

Why is there such a problem when it comes to playing long play videos on a VCR that they were not recorded on? Are there any VCR's out there that overcome this problem?

TIA

[themaster1]

Well if u have recorded in LP 4 speed the results are not good at all generally.
They are ok at first but rapidly decrease as time pass by.

On the manual of my s-vhs vcr it is advised to record in LP 2

Try a higher end vcr (s-vhs) you should be able to get the best of your tapes

[guns1inger]

LP was a bit of a kludge and has a much wider margin for error. Playing back LP tapes on machines other than the source machine has always been an issue. For me, the quality drop and the playback issues always made LP recording a false economy and something to be avoided.

[robjv1]

I have had this same problem. The workaround I use is to switch my JVC VCR to mono instead of hi-fi (doing this seems to make tape track better, even in a manual setting) and record the first one to DVD-RW. Then I go back and re-record it with hi-fi on, not caring how the picture looks since I won't be using the video. Then I use MPEG Video Wizard and sync the video with the first file with the sound from the second. This works flawlessly most of the time, except for tapes where the hi-fi audio is still noisy. In that case I'd just do it in mono or try another VCR. Hi-Fi audio is a slippery slope for sure though -- if you notice it on a lot of tapes I would reccomend getting your VCR heads cleaned.

[victoriabears]

Playing any tapes, least of all LP or SLP on another vcr is asking for problems, JVC most of all. follows are good options:- Which dvd recorder models are you using? Send me one of the tapes and I'll see what I can do if you like.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Panasonic-S-VHS-NV-HS825-VCR-Super-VHS-SVHS-recorder_W0QQitemZ35...3286.m14.l1318


http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Sharp-VC-MH715HM-VCR-with-manual-and-remote_W0QQitemZ15026845129...3286.m14.l1318

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Sharp-VC-MH815LM-VHS-VCR_W0QQitemZ280244061562QQcmdZViewItem?has...3286.m14.l1318

The sharp machines are good for LP tapes, I also do not know if using a panasonic ES10 dvd recorder as a pass through would help.