Tape Cleaning Machines

[IJM]

Hi,

I want to clean my VHS tapes. These are old tapes on which don't play as well as they used to. My research indicates that physically cleaning the tapes to remove the loose oxides and dust should clean up the signal prior to capture.

I've done some extensive searches on Google. I've found only one cleaning device (the PF740) which seems to be aimed at the consumer market. Does anyone have one of these? Is it any good?

The only other tape cleaning machines that I've found are professional versions (Tapechek brand) aimed at the video rental, archive and library industries. These seem to have fairly hefty price tags.

However, all these I've found are in the U.S. When I ask Google to do a U.K. only search, I get absolutely nothing.

Now I could import one of these PF740's. It's fed by an external power supply, but I can't find any information about what power it runs on. If it uses a 3, 4.5, 6 or 9volt DC supply, I should be able to find a UK power supply to run it.

Alternatively, does anyone know of any companies in the U.K. that deal with tape cleaning machines. Taking a professional machine for a few days or a week's hire might well be worth the money.

Any help at all would be most gratefully accepted.

Many Thanks.

Ian.

[IJM]

Please forgive me for giving my thread a little BUMP!

[IJM]

Okay, I know this is a really obscure subject. So I'm going to give this a second BUMP to put it at the top of the list during what seems to be peak time.

Ian.

[IJM]

Okay. This is the last time I'm going to BUMP this thread at yet another time of day in the hope of letting a slightly different audience see it.

Thank you for your patience.

Ian.

[BKL]

Don't know anything about cleaning video tapes, but have a few questions. Are you wanting to clean them to get a good signal for capture or just cleaning them as a matter of practice? If your goal is to improve the video signal fro capture, I would suggest looking for a video enhancer to clean up the signal electronically. Here in the U.S., Sima offers a unit which will clean up VHS NTSC signals. You might check to see if there is a PAL equivalent. Good luck

[BKL]

Just took a look at the PF740 at http://www.datadev.com/easycdduplication/p4790.html

Looking at the external power brick, while I couldn't make out any details, I would be comfortable assuming that it is nothing more than a common wallmount converter and that you should be able to find one of the correct voltage where you are.

I noticed that the unit only comes with a relatively small amount of cleaning fluid. I would be more concerned about extra fluid and cleanig pads than the powerbrick. Again, good luck.

[IJM]

I have some degraded tapes that I want to capture, restore and preserve. A couple of years ago these tapes played fine, but now the image is quite smeared, oversaturated with unstable colour in places.

I already have a Timebase Corrector (an ACE Convertor for those that are interested), which also has some colour correction features. This goes some way to stabilizing the image and sorting out some of the saturation. But not all of it.

Doing some reading around on the internet about video restoration and recovery techniques, it has become apparent that an important first step is to clean up the physical medium itself. This removes the loose oxides and any contaminants because these interfere with the playback. This has the effect of cleaning up some of the signal.

Its this that I want to do.

Thanks.

Ian.

[txpharoah]

You can't really clean tapes.
Unless it has lots of mud or goo on them, don't bother.

[The village idiot]

Mostly he wants to clean the loose oxide off the tape to keep it from clogging the heads. It might be cheaper to send the tapes out for this service. I've done it for Umatic tapes years ago, works well at the non clogging part, won't do a damn thing for the quality of the video that is left on the tape. The price was pretty cheap. Only like $20 each, less with many tapes.

You might be able to make one out of a VHS tape winder. If you find one that has multiple speeds, or you can slow it down after you get it. Next find some dense felt pads. Glue them to something that can then be attached to a spring, and maybe a tension setting device (a screw of somekind). The cleaning fluid is an unknown! Maybe 99% isopropyl alcohol? Nothing less than 99% or the water could cause damage! Maybe a small fan to help the alcohol evaporate. It would need to evap. before the tape is wound into the cassette shell.

You only need to "clean" the side that rides over the heads. Which is the side you can see when looking at the cassette "door" and then flip the "door" up out of the way. I would try this on some throw-away tapes, as you will most likely be throwing them away before getting things close to right.

This is of course not guaranteed to work! Use at your own risk!

Also, you might try playing the tapes first too see if it will clog the heads!

[dcsos]

The cleaning fluid is an unknown!

I find this remark humorous but your general idea brilliant.
Now DON'T USE ANY ALOCOHOL or SOLVENT
please at the worst use mild soap with warmish H20

[The village idiot]

NO! ABSOLUTELY NOT SOAP! It will leave a residue on the tape, which will then be left on the heads! A head clog will be next! The fluid MUST completely evaporate! The best thing would be to use a solvent like R-11 refridgerant (like in the old days). Since it is hard to get that product, alcohol would be the next best thing. But definately not any kind of soap! Even water would be bad. The leftover moisture would cause the tape to stick to itself, and to the head drum. This will cause a tape problem. Most likely a broken tape, and maybe a broken machine.

[dcsos]

Well then talk to these guys who use a SOAP no ALCOHOL formulation
http://www.rtico.com/cleans1.html
THIS is to insure NO TAPE DAMAGE

like I said..
YOU RISK DAMAGING THE TAPE if you use SOLVENTS

Of course SOAP LEAVES RESIDUE!
but I thougt thats what you were designing.. A CLEANER
like the linked one above
that what it does, cleans with soap and then REMOVES this residue in one operation!

[hoyboy]

I purchased a tape cleaning machine through one of my suppliers a while back. It does not use any fluid, just runs over a fur-covered roller to get rid of any mold/oxides etc. I don't think fluid would help the tape at all

[pixel]

I would weigh up how much you want to keep the quality in the tapes to how much you would be willing to spend on a tape cleaner.

Think about it, the colours fading in your taping, that is irreversible, just a disadvantage in the VHS format, nothing is going to fix that.

I would suggest maybe cleaning the heads on your vcr, playing the tapes through it once or a few times through so that the contaminants are picked up by the vcr heads and then clean the vcr heads again (might want to use an old vcr for this) because, like txpharaoh said, there is no point in cleaning the tapes because the quality increase will be unnoticeable.

Just try messing around with filters on your PC and download filters for VD, after all why build expensive computers to make DVD's if we can't even remaster the captures on them, as we are basically all just trying to make remasters anyway by transferring them to the digital format.

[cooel]

Do not waist money on trying to clean video tapes. Anything you touch the tape surface with will scratch it and this will result in more dropouts and noise. Recordings on magnetic tape will go off as years pass, even if stored in the correct mannor. The quality you get just now is the best it will be.

[The village idiot]

Well do whatever you want.

I have and will continue to use alcohol at work to spot clean tapes after splicing to remove fingerprints. Those "professional" cleaners don't use any liquids. They just have a drum that rotates against the tape, and abraids the surface to loosen any particles. Then it wipes them away with a dry pad. You could do similar with what I suggest, just leaving out the alcohol. But you might also destroy the tape from friction heat, or static charges.

Think about what the tape is made from. A thin plastic with a metal layer deposited on it. Alcohol will do nothing to remove or dissolve either of those 2 materials. It mearly provides some lubrication and cooling for the pads. Maybe you should just try it and find out for yourself and find a combination that works for you!

Use alcohol, use soap, buy expensive cleaning fluid. Whatever the hell you want to do, just don't ask for my help since I must be to stupid to know what I'm doing.

[spiderman2k1]

IF I was you get a ATI AIW it has filter to clean up old tape's it does it in software you can get one for $50.00 dollars at www.pricewatch.com only thing some old tape have a display problem on the ATI AIW the fix is to use a world side VCR send it out PAL-N and set the ATI AIW capture at PAL-N also use a SIME Copymaster and patch the microvision with a patch at www.doom9.org also read this poast i made

https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=168559

[txpharoah]

IF I was you get a ATI AIW it has filter to clean up old tape's it does it in software you can get one for $50.00 dollars at www.pricewatch.com only thing some old tape have a display problem on the ATI AIW the fix is to use a world side VCR send it out PAL-N and set the ATI AIW capture at PAL-N also use a SIME Copymaster and patch the microvision with a patch at www.doom9.org also read this poast i made

https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=168559

I have never seen or heard of this PAL-N problem outside of your situation. Not saying it's not a fix, but I still think we're both missing something here. I'd love to help you figure that thing out, as it just doesn't make any sense.

And about the $50 non-Radeon ATI AIW cards, I didn't think they functioned with MMC 8.x (Video Soap editions), only the RADEON cards could use it. Or are you referring to a hack that allows usage?