Panasonic AG-1970 creates large static noise on screen

[ChibiBoi]

This doesn't happen with all my tapes on this VCR but this tape doesn't have the static on my other VCR either. Does anyone know what's causing this?

[hech54]

Aside from the heads being dirty, the heads being defective, or the tape being low quality....what else could it be?

[ChibiBoi]

Aside from the heads being dirty, the heads being defective, or the tape being low quality....what else could it be?

Well the thing is, on this VCR, it only happens with a few of my tapes. Some of my other tapes work just fine on the VCR (they actually look really good). So wouldn't bad heads make those other tapes look bad too?

And this particular tape looks just fine in another VCR as well. But that VCR doesn't have and internal TBC, so I'm thinking maybe that might be a part of the problem?

[hech54]

I've heard some people here say that even though these "pro" decks are the best to use overall....there ARE times when a simple, quality homeowner deck with TBC does a better job. I believe I've heard that it often times has to do with the speed at which the original tape was recorded(SL, LP, SLP etc etc).

[ronmaz]

Have you tried adjusting the tracking control. While most VCR's have auto-tracking (I remember the days when it was all manual tracking), sometimes you may need to fine tune the tracking manually.

[orsetto]

If this only happens on a few tapes, its usually a simple matter of those tapes just not being fully compatible with that particular VCR. Especially if the tapes are LP or SLP, and that goes double if the problem tapes are copies (not originals).

Your sample image looks like you're having a tracking issue with an LP or SLP recording. Try pressing the manual tracking buttons (inside the drop-front panel) and see if you can move the static bar off screen or reduce it. Tapping either button briefly makes a slight change, holding the button down makes bigger changes. If things get worse instead of better, you can revert to automatic tracking by pressing both buttons at the same time or ejecting/reinserting the tape.

The TBC in the AG1970 is very weak, so it rarely contributes to such issues, but you can try turning it off with the switch under the tape slot. Sometimes switching the Noise Reduction off can also help. The AG1970 is a rather old model, with a huge number of discrete electronics compared to later VCRs. As they age, some of these parts (like capacitors) can react unpredictably with signals on less-than-perfect tapes. The TBC/DNR features can offer usable improvements with 75% of tapes, but have the counter effect of making 25% of tapes look worse. Again, this negative mostly applies to slow-speed LP and SLP tapes and multi-generation copies of other tapes: these can't always be "improved" and sometimes play better on cheap VCRs without the TBC/DNR feature.

[ChibiBoi]

Thanks! by adjusting the tracking, i was able to shift the static to the bottom