wiggle amoeba effect on lp vhs tapes

[tesara]

Hi, I have a problem. I have a lot of VHS tapes with tennis matches recorded in LP mode. The tapes were recorded on a Panasonic nv sd20 vcr (so I think they are mono, as far as I know). The recordings have an effect that was described on the digitalfaq forum as the wiggle amoeba effect. The video seems to have a life of its own. I am attaching a link to an AVI file. The file was recorded using a Windows XP computer with a Pinnacle PCTV Hybrid Pro Stick 330e card and a JVC HR S7722 video recorder. I read a posts about passthrough using Panasonic DVD recorders. Could this help with this effect? In addition, the sound quality is poor. Would it be a good idea to use the same model of mono video recorder that was used to record the cassette, i.e. sd20? Thank you for any suggestions.

[dellsam34]

Ideally a line TBC in the VCR can help reduce the wiggle between scan lines, a DVD recorder may or may not fix it, people who use DVD recorders can answer that better than me, As far as audio, have you tried cleaning the audio heads? if that doesn't help you can get a cheap VCR that you can re-align the A/C head stack for better audio.

One thing you must know about linear audio, some VCRs are equipped with Dolby NR on the audio linear channel, so during playback Dolby has to be on to reduce some of that high pitch noise floor, Mis-alignment sometimes is also a problem between VCRs. Not implying this your problem but a general knowledge that you should be aware of.

[tesara]

Ideally a line TBC in the VCR can help reduce the wiggle between scan lines, a DVD recorder may or may not fix it, people who use DVD recorders can answer that better than me, As far as audio, have you tried cleaning the audio heads? if that doesn't help you can get a cheap VCR that you can re-align the A/C head stack for better audio.

One thing you must know about linear audio, some VCRs are equipped with Dolby NR on the audio linear channel, so during playback Dolby has to be on to reduce some of that high pitch noise floor, Mis-alignment sometimes is also a problem between VCRs. Not implying this your problem but a general knowledge that you should be aware of.

My vcr Jvc hr s7722 has tbc but it doesn’t removed the effect. My cassetes were recordered on misaligned vcr and I need to misalign my jvc to play them correctly.

[timtape]

The sample uploads from the FAQ forum looked pretty good to me. The Agassi was darker than I would capture it but otherwise OK IMO. Normally if the video tracks were misaligned on the tape we'd expect horizontal noise bands in the picture or worse. i dont see such problems in your uploads.

The linear audio may be misaligned. But as dellsam said, the audio/control head may need cleaning. I also asked you that on the other forum but you didnt respond.

At some point we have to go deeper. To clean the head and tape path we need to open up the machine. Although a good cleaning cassette used as per the instructions may help. To "misalign" the VCR for picture or sound we also open up the machine and make adjustments. Many people are not comfortable with that as it can be dangerous to the person and the machine unless we know what we are doing. So many people have to find a skilled person to do this work for them.

[dellsam34]

My vcr Jvc hr s7722 has tbc but it doesn’t removed the effect. My cassetes were recordered on misaligned vcr and I need to misalign my jvc to play them correctly.

Your capture looks fine, there is no tracking issues, I see some tape drop outs, that's about it. JVC machines are not equal when it comes to TBC functionality but don't expect miracles, it's the nature of interlaced formats, After de-interlacing most of those artifacts will be reduced, see attached sample.