Can you help me identify this distortion?

[999chris]

Hello All,

I've been helping out a family friend digitize some PAL VHS & VHS-C tapes over a consumer Panasonic VHS Player -> SCART -> Dazzle DVD Recorder -> MPEG.

Out of the 49 tapes, 4 of them have this weird distortion/smearing affect that travels left to right around the edges of objects (and often faces, or facial features). It's also strangely evident on the watermark of the date/timestamp.

Is this a knackered VHS tape (i.e can I do nothing about this) or can it be fixed somehow? What causes it?


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[themaster1]

perhaps you're a client for the multiple capture technique: https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/340963-Best-quality-and-speed-video-denoisers-2011?...=1#post2122313

[betwixt]

My guess: the tapes are SVHS (or recorded as SVHS when they weren't) and the pre-emphasis is causing overload on lightest parts. The trail is the overload recovery time.

Brian.

[dellsam34]

Yes those are S-VHS or S-VHS-C tapes, Can you post pictures of those tapes on the holes side?

[999chris]

Hi All,

No need to post photos. I can see the markings on the "bad" tapes being S-VHS-C.

Now I'm guessing my Panasonic NV-SD230 will not cut it?.. silly question.


My options are... get a better deck?

[Cornucopia]

Not just "better deck" but "better, SVHS deck".


Scott

[nicholasserra]

Didn't specify whether you see this issue on normal playback with a tv or not. If you see it on the TV, it's the tape/VCR. If you don't, it's your capture setup.