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  1. I'm in Canada trying to digitize my old home movies with a vcr and capture card.
    However, only a few movies actually play on the vcr. The rest are white noise, with a bit of distorted sound coming through.

    Background: The camcorder was bought in Asia before we immigrated to Canada, we have tapes from both Asia and Canada.

    -Is this a PAL/NTSC issue? Do I need to spend a couple hundred bucks for a PAL VCR on ebay?

    -what determines NTSC or PAL for camcorder tapes? Is it the brand of tape, or is it a filming mode on the camcorder?
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  2. mr. Eric-jan's Avatar
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    One way or the other, you minimal should see a black and white picture ! or it could be the recording speed of these tapes.
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  3. Capturing Memories dellsam34's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by feral107 View Post
    -Is this a PAL/NTSC issue? Do I need to spend a couple hundred bucks for a PAL VCR on ebay?

    -what determines NTSC or PAL for camcorder tapes? Is it the brand of tape, or is it a filming mode on the camcorder?
    It's more than just a PAL/NTSC issue, hope they are not recorded in MESECAM or some other pseudo NTSC/PAL variation because not all capture cards can capture those odd ball formats, So you most likely need a PAL camcorder/VCR and a capture device capable of capturing those variations but do start with a player first.

    No, the tape brand does not indicate/dictate the color standard, it's the camcorder that recorded it in the first place, although the labeling on the cassette could give a clue, for instance here in north America we use the letter T to indicate the recording capacity such as T-30 (30 min NTSC), in Europe and Asia they use E, E-30 (30 min PAL). That doesn't mean that the tape cannot be used/have not been used interchangeably for both formats.
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