Are these VHS tapes fixable? youtube sample included.

[kcr]

Hello, I am trying to convert 10+ yr old VHS tapes to digital format.

Can you tell by looking, if these issues are correctable? I am hoping the flickering is a fixable hardware issue. ... I have 4 samples included

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LxVsCFrUfo

Thanks in advance

kcr

[victoriabears]

sorry if I am insulting your intelligence, I am not gifted in the techno language others will offfer but I have known playback problems being fixed as follows:-

tap the tape quite hard on a firm surface, ensure the tape is fast forwarded and rewound a few time and / or try a different vcr.

If the errors are actually recorded on the tape by a faulty vcr-thats very very hard to fix.

[themaster1]

What kind of vcr you have brand/model

[jagabo]

I suspect a good S-VHS deck with line TBC would handle both of those tapes.

[kcr]

This was taken off of a panasonic pv-9662 . What does "line TBC" stand for, so I can look it up?

re: tapping the tapes - I have rewound and ffwd the tapes to pick up any slack.

Thanks for your help

[kcr]

Are any these corrections possible after digitization via software? That might be easier than tracking down various VCRs.

[jman98]

This was taken off of a panasonic pv-9662 . What does "line TBC" stand for, so I can look it up?

TBC definition - https://www.videohelp.com/glossary?T#Time%20Base%20Corrector,%20TBC

My guess is that "line TBC" means to use a TBC placed inline in the signal path and not relying on one on a VCR (some VCRs have a TBC). I would expect an inline TBC to be somewhat expensive so you're going to really want to save these tapes to do this.

[jagabo]

A Line time base corrector is commonly found inside good S-VHS decks. The deck doesn't have full frame buffer, hence it can only adjust the horizontal timing of individual scan lines. A line TBC can do a good job of fixing horizontal time base errors like those in the sample videos. But it can't provide consistent vertical refresh like a full frame TBC.

I'm not an expert on VCRs but that may also be a head alignment problem.

Do you have the same problem when watching the tapes on TV? Or is it just while capturing?

[lordsmurf]

That's a serious VCR error. A Panasonic PV-9662 is a marginal consumer VCR anyway.
Use another one. A good VCR + TBC will be what you need.

No, this can never be fixed in software. Why would you? Get a better VCR.

[jagabo]

Looking again at the samples, it may be that only one of the fields is corrupt. If that's the case you could throw out the bad field in software. That would leave you with half the vertical resolution but would give a watchable picture. You should provide a short sample of the interlaced capture.

[lordsmurf]

It's not corrupt.
The VCR simply isn't working right.

[jagabo]

Of course the VCR (either when recorded or during playback), or maybe the capture card, isn't working right.