Audio hum during video capture...help.

[daysaf00]

I'm working on transferring about 200-300 VHS tapes I have. All are recordings of shows I taped in the 90s. I wouldn't be bothering if these were available for purchase.

Anyway, about half I get the best PICTURE from playback ona crummy GE, Sony and Magnavox vcr's. Others play better in my nicer panasonic and JVC units.

My question is in regards to the audio output. When dubbing the VHS to DVD I hear a constant humming sound underscoring the audio....like the sound you hear when in a car or plane. It's almost as if the audio levels on the playback vcr are too high or something. Is there anyway to adjust this?

I'm using the Magnavox DV225MG9 for the vcr (I know, it's a cheap vcr but surprisingly gives a good image for these tapes with little jumpiness I'm experience on other machines).

When I playback the DVD after recording I hear a hum in the audio too. You can still hear the talking and show audio, but the background noise can be distracting. It doesn't need to be perfect, but would definitely like to reduce the volume of the hum somehow.

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Hopefully my descriptions made sense. Thanks

[edDV]

I'm working on transferring about 200-300 VHS tapes I have. All are recordings of shows I taped in the 90s. I wouldn't be bothering if these were available for purchase.

Anyway, about half I get the best PICTURE from playback ona crummy GE, Sony and Magnavox vcr's. Others play better in my nicer panasonic and JVC units.

My question is in regards to the audio output. When dubbing the VHS to DVD I hear a constant humming sound underscoring the audio....like the sound you hear when in a car or plane. It's almost as if the audio levels on the playback vcr are too high or something. Is there anyway to adjust this?

I'm using the Magnavox DV225MG9 for the vcr (I know, it's a cheap vcr but surprisingly gives a good image for these tapes with little jumpiness I'm experience on other machines).

When I playback the DVD after recording I hear a hum in the audio too. You can still hear the talking and show audio, but the background noise can be distracting. It doesn't need to be perfect, but would definitely like to reduce the volume of the hum somehow.

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Hopefully my descriptions made sense. Thanks

Could you post a short clip that contains the hum?

[aedipuss]

ground hum maybe? a low 60 cycle constant noise? that can usually be taken care of by a ground wire from the center screw of an outlet to the chassis of the vcr or sometimes by just plugging the cord into the outlet turned 180 degrees.

[daysaf00]

Yes, I have uploaded a small clip. You'll notice it's just a constant hissing hum. The VHS were originally recorded in mono, but I don't heard this sound on other VCR's like my panasonic units. However the Panasonic doesn't give the best picture on these tapes.

I'm hoping there's a smiple solution to at least reduce the noise to a tolerable level.

I'm also capturing this through recorders and players, not my PC...so editing in a software program like Audition isn't what I'm looking to do...too much time for this many tapes.

Here's the clip: http://www.mediafire.com/?j00nt224m7s8noj

Thanks.

[davexnet]

That is terrible quality audio. Is is from a tape containing only the mono signal (no HIFI audio) ?
One of the best ways to deal with it would be to find a section containing only the noise. NO voices, no background
music, etc,etc. Then you can use Audacity NR tools.

[JudgeGarth]

FWIW, I've got a Magnavox DV220MW9 VCR that I was using for playback and I was getting a hum. I had my telephone sitting on top of the unit, and that was what was causing the problem. I moved the telephone and that fixed it. I didn't have that problem with other VCRs.

[daysaf00]

Well it's only on some vcr's. Like I said above, some machines don't have the audio issue and play it just fine. Yes it was recorded in mono back in the 90s, but the tapes are my originals and play fine (without the hum/hiss) on my panasonic and jvc units - great sound...so it's obviously not the tape.

I've noticed my Sony vcr has a slight hum, but not as bad as this magnavox vcr. The problem is that this magnavox tracks well (surprisingly) and gives a better picture than the other machines....but the sound is crap.

I'm not looking to capture to my PC and edit. I really just want to run directly from the dvd recorder to my PC. Considering I have a couple hundred tapes to do, I don't have enough time to adjust audio setting manually with software.

I was hoping there was something simple to at least lessen the noise.

I just tried the radio shack ground loop with little success. It seems to be that the machine just puts out noise on home recorded tapes, but I can't seem to adjust it.

[aedipuss]

have you tried a head cleaning? i'd do all the units then choose the best compromise and get it over with, unless you want to pay someone else to do it. there's nothing you can stick between a vcr and a dvd recorder that's going to help.

[daysaf00]

Yeah I may just have to settle for one of the two. Was hoping there was a way to tweak the audio maybe internally somehow.

[edDV]

That noise is not normal "hum" it is interference probably RF.

The VHS linear mono tracks had very poor signal to noise to start. Much less than audio cassette. Some had Dolby B or C to lower tape hiss but your sample was more serious interference. Are you sure there isn't a "HiFi" track?

In contrast the "HiFi" stereo tracks were near CD quality and modulated FM along with the video. The issue with "HiFi" tracks is they were highly sensitive to tracking error. So sensitive that mis-tracking was noticed first in the audio before video. Best way to set tracking is by ear.

[daysaf00]

The vcr is hi-fi if that's what you're asking, but the tapes are in mono. I've tried switching the audio, but it only recognizes mono sound which makes sense since they weren't recorded in h-fi stereo.

You barely notice the hum on other vcr's, but on some it's really noticeable like the sample. Older vcr's tend to provide a better (less noisy) sound from what I can tell.

[edDV]

The vcr is hi-fi if that's what you're asking, but the tapes are in mono. I've tried switching the audio, but it only recognizes mono sound which makes sense since they weren't recorded in h-fi stereo.

You barely notice the hum on other vcr's, but on some it's really noticeable like the sample. Older vcr's tend to provide a better (less noisy) sound from what I can tell.

A typical HiFi VCR will allow selection of HiFi Stereo, HiFi Left, HiFi Right or linear mono. If the tape was recorded only with linear mono then that is all you have to work with.

[robjv1]

It definitely sounds like equipment interference to me. A lot of VCRs have some faint noise like this no matter what you do in the linear audio track, but this is VERY loud in comparison to the VHS audio. Do you have other linear/mono tapes that you can test to isolate whether it is just these tapes or all linear audio tapes?

Try playing a tape with nothing but this static noise and turn your speakers up. Then make sure your connectors are all tight and in place. Pick up the audio cord off of whatever it is touching. If the VCR is on top of something else, try moving it to another surface. Listen closely the whole time and note if the level of static changes -- if so then you have your answer.

If not -- I've noticed that there is a tremendous variance in the quality of the linear audio from deck to deck. I have three decks I regularly use -- one of them produces really muddy linear audio, another produces much better sounding audio but with added hiss, and the third produces even better audio with less hiss. Some of that stuff can be recovered or tweaked with filtering, but some decks (cheap? broken?) produce great hi-fi audio but crummy linear audio out of the box and it becomes a garbage in, garbage out kind of situation. You can always record the audio from another deck and the video with your main deck (I do it all the time with a certain run of early 1990s tapes that just don't sound good outside of one VCR, but play wonderfully in another). Although that might end up being just as much work as the filtering, depending on your perspective.

Another option would be just to use a playback device that can do some on the fly EQ'ing. I have some tapes that I don't bother removing the hiss from, because it is slight and a little bit of adjusting to my TV settings or on my Oppo 980H DVD player on the 'Pop' setting removes it well enough that it isn't distracting. That may be the easiest solution -- although in your case it is so loud relative to the other audio that it may not be effective.

You could also put a hardware EQ device inline between the VCR and your DVD recorder, so that you can do it in real time -- although pick a good one and be gentle with the adjustments if you go that route. Perhaps that way you could at least make the problem less noticeable without too much of a fuss.

[daysaf00]

Thanks for your input. I've tried many tapes, and it seems to be a recurring issue in this particular machine. Other machines the linear audio sounds a TON better...I mean it's not perfect, but at least you barely notice the hum. With this machine, it's almost not tolerable after a few minutes because my ears are ringing.

I guess I'll just have to look around for other machines and see if I can find something that plays and tracks well but also has decent audio output. This Magnavox I was using is only a couple years old, and I feel it's just really cheaply made. I'm probably better off with a VCR from the 90s.

If anyone has suggestions on what brands/models have worked for them that would be appreciated.

Thanks again for the help.

[robjv1]

Yeah, I doubt much attention is paid to enhancing the linear audio tracks in VCRs made in the past few years. In my experience, mid to late 1990s Panasonic decks seem to have the best linear audio of the regular run of the mill VCRs and they usually had decent picture quality for consumer level units. That would probably be your best bet, especially if they are LP speed tapes.

[sanlyn]

Off and on, you can find many listings of 1990's Panasonics on eBay. Expect to pay a little more for any used VCR that's in decent shape and sellers with good ratings and a return policy of some kind. Models that seem to hold up well are PV866x series and PV-466x series from 1996 thru 1998, and many of the higher-numbered PV-966x series from about 2000. After that, Panasonic models numbers went back to a "4500" number series that were real junk (like most other VCR's from 2000 or later). You can Google the Panasonic model numbers to check them out. Watch out for very low-priced listings of Panasonics that had "Dynamorphous" metal heads; these were fine in their day, but they were soft metal with barely half the useable life of lesser video heads. Also watch out for the "AG" series. These were excellent semi-pro machines costing $1000 and up, but many are so old that they won't even power on. You'll see listings for the later of this series -- AG1970, AG-1980 -- be aware that replacement heads alone will cost $400 or more for AG's.

If it's any help, I've seen brand-new AG-1980's selling for their regular price ($1500 USD ).

Listings for these Panasonics and their other-name Mitsubishi 480 series tend to come and go on auction sites. Since about 2004 I managed to find two good used Panasonics (a PV-4661 and a PV-8661) that I still use today. I even found a 1991 SONY SLV-595HF that was meticulously clean but which still cost almost $250 to rebuild its tracking mechanism. I found two JVC 7600's that died after only four or five tapes, a JVC 9900 with severe image problems (and no parts available), a Panny with bad heads that no one wanted to replace, a Sharp with output so dim that it had no shadow detail at all, and another SONY with its metal alignment posts and a drive belt missing (!). Fortunately PayPal helped me with those purchases, but it was a hassle. A couple of them cost so little that I just tossed them.

[wingnut2003]

you could try a ground loop isolator, they are cheap and it may work for your issue. http://www.radioshack.com/search/index.jsp?kw=ground+isolators