VCR tracking lines on my captured video

[joeAgain------]

I've tried adjusting with my remote to get rid of those scrambled lines that appear when playing video tapes in a VCR and the tracking is off, but they always come back quickly on this Emerson 4 head VCR.

So, of course the lines show up on my captured video. I hate to burn VCDs and DVDs that will last forever with that stuff on there. But nothing I do gets rid of them for more that a minute or two.

Does anybody know why they happen and more importantly how I can keep it from happening? I've tried cleaning the heads, but no difference(I know it's not a cleaning issue, but thought I'd try it).

Even if I have to open up the VCR case, is there a way to keep it from happening?

thanks

[oldfart13]

Try another VCR. What do you expect for a low end deck? Take your tape down to a store that sells better equipment like one of the higher end Sony, Panasonic, Mitsubishi or JVC decks. And I'm not talking just the low end of those lines as well. For my cap/conversion needs, I have tried to stick to higher end VHS or SVHS decks rather than go with the low end stuff. Try the tape in one of those decks and buy the one that has the fastest response to the tracking problem you are having. There are many factors that contribute to tracking errors such as, tape speed (I tend to use VHS SP for all my recordings), head gap and inability to follow the tracks of tapes made on other decks. If it's a home recorded tape, try to play it back on the deck it was originally recorded on.

Good Luck!

[vhelp]

joeagain,

You didn't say if your VHS source is from a vhs-C/8mm source!!

If you still keep have ing tracking/head issues, consider the following:

Ok, lemy see if I can be more clearer.
Say you recorded from an old VCR 5 or 10+ years ago, and you want
to preserve what you have already now, before any more degration
take over. So, lets assume you know longer have THAT vcr, but that
you are using a newer brand of today. Your problem could be:
* the tracking, during your recording of those old tapes were off
to begin with, way back then. So, pretty much no amount of farting
around w/ current VCRs is going to make much difference!
* you still have the SAME vcr you used in those old tape. However,
the tracing or heads were loose or degraded or what-haveyou, that
even if you used the SAME vcr now, you would sitll suffer the tracking
issue because as you RECORDed to those old tapes, during those
tracking issues, while recording, you were recording those tracking
or head mislalignment to tape.

If the any of the above is true (even to a minor extent) your issues
are due this the above.

The reason I say all this above, is because I suffer a few of these on my
tapes as well, and NO amount of farting around w/ newer brand vcrs or
what-have-yous, has done anything to fix it on my tapes. They're permananet!
And, some of these tapes go back to 1984, during my Soap Opera days.
* All My Children
* One Life to Live
* General Hospital
Sound on these tapes is awful, ie hiss and low noise. But, that's due to ie,
head alignment, tracking, age of tape, and how/condition of my vcr I used
to record to these old tapes at the time.

If anyone is a fan (or WAS a fan) of OLTL, can you remember when, ah,
Lord Alfred was druged w/ poison?? .. .can you remember the performance
he gave as he DIED? ? ? Well, that was a looong time ago. I've long
since, stopped watching ANY soaps. But, onece in a while, I get to turn on
AMC. This, was and still is, my Favorite soap. Anyways. . .

That's about my experience w/ old tapes, from old VCRs, archieving them
onto CDRs or DVDrs. But, whatever condition they are in, it's worth putting
on a CD in any case, just to be able to pop it in, and watch it, but w/out
any further degrations.

The only tip I can offer in this project/endeavor, is:
* learn how to encode video as best as possible from VHS sources, BEFORE
you take on the endeavors on your prescious tapes.
* don't ff/ww constanly, else you'll strech an otherwise OLD tape to even
worse condition. Just let it play through completely.
* Get everything set and ready for video capturing.
* if you're not satisified with the capture/encoding you've done so far,
don't delete the AVI just yet. Practice on trying to eliminate noise, pixels
artificts, etc. on this AVI file till you get it as close to right as possible.
You saving ware'n tare on your tapes. Keeps playing around w/ what 'if's
etc. Then, when you feel you're ready, go for a better capture/encode.

That's about it for now.
Good luck.

-vhelp

[joeAgain------]

thanks for your thoughts, guys

I guess I'm just forced to get a new VCR.

All the tapes are family movies from camcorders(both Full-sized VHS from a big RCA camcorder, and also some VHS-C from a new compact Panasonic camcorder). The tracking problem doesn't happen when we play the tapes on relative's VCRs. So I knew it is our older(low end)VCR....but I had hoped for an adjustment fix because between all the many capture hardware and software, extra HDD, editing, encoding, authoring and burning software, CD-RW, DVD-R, black disks etc., etc. purchases I've made to preserve the aging tapes...I'm about tapped out for money.

But I guess I have no choice but buy another VCR. I can't borrow a relative's because I have about 150 hrs of tapes to capture and burn and would need it for weeks(if not months) to finish.

thanks

[teddymines]

Using the original VCR that recorded those tapes would pretty much guarantee head/tape alignment unless it was used a lot (all things eventually wear), but the age of the components and condition of the heads may not reproduce the signal very well. Cleaning will help to a point, but there is only so much performance you can get out of an old VCR.

A newer VCR would more likely return a cleaner signal, but if alignment was even just a little off, you will get tracking lines and/or a weak signal. Adjusting tracking will only go so far; there is only so much flexing the heads are capable of to read each stripe.

[joeAgain------]

I guess I need to respectfully say it again....all the videos were made on my camcorders (that aren't capable of capturing from)...not a VCR.

So I guess I need to get another VCR. Wow...I didn't need that "surprise" after spending all the money I have spent on capturing and burning stuff!