VHS tape warped?

[Slowburn]

I have a 10 year old tape I used to make VCD's with about a year ago and the process went smoothly. Finished quality was as expected.

Now, with a new DVD burner, I'm trying to recapture in mpeg2, but the tape seems to have become warped or something. I've tried tracking adjust on this rather inexpensive VCR (Panasonic) and it is the same player I used to make the VCD's. I even set all the VCR settings back to their default settings, but no go. The tape being played back appears like the top portion is not contacting the playback heads for a bit, then the whole picture turnsover and back to normal for a few seconds. I can't use it like this.

So, lacking another player to test it in, would you suspect that the tape might have become stretched or something or do you think it is the player? Some recent tapes seem to play fine, as far along as I watch them.

Another old tape I used to make the VCD's with a year ago, shows the same symptoms, broken picture, especially near the top.

I'm trying to get this to play back properly so I can re-capture it and it is an original tape I shot in '93.

Any suggestions or advise appreciated.

[edsmith77]

Slowburn,
Not sure how much use your VCR got in between now and when you were making your VCDs. But, I would start by retensioning your VHS tapes. This can be as simple as fastforwarding the tape to the END then rewinding. May have to do this twice. Failing in that I would, suspect head alignment and possibly but not overly likely dust. A repair shop could help there for a nominal fee, of course.
Tapes do not ususally shrink on their own unless they have been stored in an environment where there were huge temperature changes. Like in a box that sat under a window or on a shelf that was exposed to the sunlight from a window.
I sympathize with your dilemma, cause I have alot of the same issues. Only I am using a new VCR and these new ones do not normally come with a manual tracking mechanism. I have just resigned myself to accepting the fact that any backup is better than none at all. Thus, in that light you could, if all else fails, convert your VCDs into DVDs. Better than nothing.

Ed.

[Slowburn]

edsmith77:

The VCR hasn't had much use at all. I only bought it as a replacement when my old Panasonic SVCR died on me. It has been used mostly to play tapes that I am capturing, but I have not overused it at all. I haven't moved it or done anything to it since I made the VCD's, so I'm stumped.

I store my old tapes in a good location, tails out, and I do rewind and FF them prior to playing them. They should be snug once rewound.

I am resorting to using a copy tape I made of the original and edited ten years ago, but as you know, a copy of a copy of a copy, etc....

Last resort is to try the tape(s) on another machine or two, otherwise I guess I'm out of luck.

My old Panasonic was given to my son to see if he could fix it and the little bugger fixed it for $15. I had told him to keep the damned thing. Might have to 'borrow' it back, though.

[wulf109]

Video tape can shrink over time and make tracking poor. If the tape was recorded at SLP rather then SP the effect will occur sooner.

[edsmith77]

Slowburn,
Well, sorry I could not give you more help. But VCRs are a funny thing. Maybe it is a loose cable or not a solid connection and what is being seen is noise as opposed to a missing signal from the tape player.
Like you I gave my older tape player to my son for his enjoyment and use. Well it got used alright to the point where you could not put a tape in. The only option then was to junk it. So now all of my old VHS tapes that used to play very nicely now have noise bands at the top and bottom and no way to adjust the tracking to get those off the screen. argh....

[au7usa]

I've noticed something about 10 to 15 year old VCR tapes........Wrinkles!
If you look at the spooled tape can you see wrinkles? Is the spooled tape a round shape, or can you see bumps around the outside?

Thats the problem a year ago and figured out that if you fast forward all the way to the end, and then let the tape rest for a week, that the wrinkles will relax a bit.

The reasoning for this is that the wrinkles are at different intervals in the beginning of the tape as compared to the end. The diameter of the wound tape increases slightly with every revolution. The area of the tape with the wrinkles were pressed flat between the unwrinkled areas.

If you let the tape rest for a few days you should get a better source.
This is only temporary though! As soon as the VCR warms up, the tape relaxes back to its wrinkled state. I had to do this 4 times before i could capture the whole tape.

[qlizard]

I have a problem which may be related. I bought a new "professional" quality SVHS VCR (a JVC SV10U) that has 2 mb TBC soley for video capture. I have a couple of 22 year old tapes, where the first couple of times I have played a tape for capturing, the quality was excellent. However, I ended up not being happy with some aspect of it (too dark), so I went back to re-capture, and inexplicably the top of the screen started to flicker and the capture is very jerky. It goes away when I turn off the TBC, but then the quality sucks. It gets worse now every time I play it. Does this sound similar to what you are experiencing?
Obviously, I've stopped playing it in the VCR, but now I don't know what to do. I've tried playing in a regular VCR, and it doesn't do it, but of course the picture looks terrible in comparison. I wonder if it has to do with this "tension". I'm going to try the fast forward and rewind suggestion to see if that helps.
Also, I assume storing "tails-out" means at the end of the tape?

[edsmith77]

au7usa,
Wrinkles, I can sympathize with that. That can be expected when the tape is stored and is not wound up tightly such that each successive layer is allowed to expand and contract by heat, humidity, etc. The edges will show the effects first, wavy, wrinkles, etc.

In experience the only way to cure that is to remove the entire tape buy yourself a tape presser and iron out those pesky wrinkles and reinstall being carefule to start with the end of the tape. Just kidding of course. When the tape starts to physically deform, there aint much you can do to remove that except to speed up "getting the data off."

[babyboo]

I am not sure if this has anything to do with what you are experiencing, however, I will throw in my 2 cents worth. Audio tapes, cassettes in particular will demagnetize if left on top of or too close to speakers for any length of time. I lost far too many cassettes before I realized what was going on. I had placed a small box that had some old scoped radio programs on it on top of my speakers in my den expecting to get around to digitizing them. Well I dodn't 'get around' to it for quite some time and when I did the magnetic field of the speakers had demagnetized portions of the cassettes. When they played back they would cycle between normal volume and somewhat muffled distant sounding audio every time the hub would rotate. Since video tapes work on the same principle I would imagine that the same thing could happen to a video tape if stored on or near a speaker. As I said...it's just my 2 cents worth!

[davideck]

Slowburn -

The VCR in question might be damaging the top or bottom edge of the tape. This is often due to a pinch roller that no longer provides uniform pressure across the tape.

You can inspect a tape by lifting the front shell of the cassette. There is a small locking tab on the right side of the cassette that has to be pushed in to unlock the front shell.

Look for creases along the top and/or bottom edge of the tape. The VCR might be permanently creasing the tape as it goes back on to the take up reel. This provides one good playback that creases the tape, after which additional playback passes are not as good.

[Slowburn]

Thanks for all the replies, guys. I have two things left to try to salvage this tape: try playing it on other players and try to see if I can adjust the tension manually once the tape is in fully rewound position.

Davideck reminded me about having a look at the tape by lifting the front gate, so I'll do that too.

Thanks, again!

Can you image when they tried to remaster "Gone With the Wind' and the film had deteriorated? "I'll get the film C.B., I left it over there on the radiator, next to the TV."

[racerxnet]

Tape tension is set with the band around the spindle drum. To accurately set this one uses a Tentel spindle guage. A crinkled edge is a tape path problem from a guide out of adjustment. I'm wondering how you will manually tension the tape? Hope you have good luck.

[Slowburn]

Well, so much for that!

Had a look at the tape and see a crinkled edge as racerxnet mentions.
I had hoped to snug up portions of the tape by hand, just by turning the sprockets at the start of each clip. I did this once before, just to save about one half second of a tape clip.

But, it looks like I'm hosed, unless there is a player that plays crimped edges. The deformities are very small, but do BIG damage. They remind me of the crimped edge of an apple pie.

[racerxnet]

If the tape is not to bad most high end VCR's will play the tape with little to no problems. Fast forward and rewinding also sets the tape height based your machines spindle height. If it is not set accurately, or the guide is out of adjustment you end up with wrinkled edges as the tape is pulled thru the path. I'd say that 99% of the wrinkles are on the bottom edge of the tape. The heillical wrap of the tape around the head is forgiving of minor glitches in the tape. Good Luck.