No display nor sound while playing the VHS player

[TommyL]

Hello, folks at VideoHelp!

Recently I decided to buy a used VHS player, that is said to be working well, from a flee market. It's Phillips VR200/02 probably from the late 90's. It did and still does work fine in turns of handling the cassettes, but my plasma TV gives "no signal" message despite the fact that I chose the right input and that a blue screen with a time of the cassette does show up on the tv. I get no picture nor sound when I play any cassettes that work fine in a different player. During the first usage, the Philips player did work fine and did show them a signal on the screen, but now all it does is give a snowy picture and some sound from the movie probably in a half of a second, immediately turns off and then "no signal" sign appears.

In short, my TV sees the player, but I get no picture nor any sound from it after a second or less after I press the play button. I also did recently try to clean the heads, but the results are still the same. There's something that doesn't allow the signal to show up.


Sorry, if there are some grammatical mistakes in this post.
Sincerely: Tommy

[KarMa]

Maybe a dirty VCR head. Common when playing old VHS tapes, which can shed.

[aedipuss]

try a different vcr. your "flee market" player may have died.

[johnmeyer]

Dirty heads is a likely cause.

Before cleaning the heads, see if you can get a picture by first pressing play and then pressing FF, in order to get the video to play forward at high speed. You may have to press some other set of buttons to get it to play forward (or backward) at high speed, depending on how this VCR works. Also, some players let you increase or decrease the speed. Very often a clogged head will still give you an image when playing at high speed. If you do get an image when playing at high speed, then it probably is a dirty head issue.

The other thing to check is tracking. On most decks, auto-tracking is enabled by default, but on other decks it is a switch. If somehow you are on manual tracking, you might get the results you describe. Look at the manual for your VCR and turn off manual tracking. Another thing to try with manual tracking is to turn it on. Once on, change the tracking control from one extreme to the other while playing the tape. If it is a tracking issue, you should see the picture show on the screen at some point.

One last thing to try is to turn off the blue screen. On many VCRs, if the unit cannot display a perfectly clear picture, it will instead show a blue screen. Some units that have this "feature" (I don't like it, hence the quotes), have an option to turn it off. Once you turn it off, you should now get a picture of some sort while playing the tape. That picture may be nothing more than snow, but if the VCR is actually getting a little bit of video from the tape, you can look at what you see on the TV and write another post here and describe what you see. That may help people here determine what is going on.

[lordsmurf]

Recently I decided to buy a used VHS player, that is said to be working well, from a flee market. It's Phillips VR200/02 probably from the late 90's. It did and still does work fine in turns of handling the cassettes, but my plasma TV gives "no signal" message despite the fact that I chose the right input and that a blue screen with a time of the cassette does show up on the tv. I get no picture nor sound when I play any cassettes that work fine in a different player. During the first usage, the Philips player did work fine and did show them a signal on the screen, but now all it does is give a snowy picture and some sound from the movie probably in a half of a second, immediately turns off and then "no signal" sign appears.

It's probably damaged heads. The goober who owned it previously probably "cleaned it" (ruined it!) with a Q-tip. eBay is full of VCRs in that condition now, especially with all the morons on Youtube/blogs showing this horrible advice.

Damaged heads = pure snow on screen. Most players refuse to show snow, so you get blue/black/etc screens. The player is confused, and thinks the whole tape is essentially blank.

Maybe a dirty VCR head. Common when playing old VHS tapes, which can shed.

It's almost never dirty heads. Shedding oxide causes all sorts of on-screen noise issues, but not 100% missing video.

Furthermore, incomplete "clean your heads" advice to newbies has them look up bad advice on Youtube/blogs, that shows how to use Q-tips. So if it didn't have bad heads before, it definitely does now!

Dirty heads is a likely cause..

Again, never. In 25+ years of using VCRs seriously, often at a pro level, cleaning heads has never been a fix for anything other than simple image/audio imperfections. Not once. Dirty heads gives a bad/unstable image, maybe bad/no audio -- and that's it. (Note that most bad/unstable image issues are the tape, too, and not the VCR.)

It's not a fix for whatever ails a VCR.

If the image is 100% gone, it's almost never a head cleaning issue. For it to be that bad, where cleaning actually helps, it'd have to have obvious buildup and mess all inside the VCR.

[KarMa]

It's almost never dirty heads. Shedding oxide causes all sorts of on-screen noise issues, but not 100% missing video.

From my experience 100% missing video via noise or noise inducted blue screen is possible from dirty heads. 8 years ago, back before I got heavily invested in analog --> digital capturing, and before I had any real experience in this type of thing; I bought a Sony Video Walkman GVS50. When I got it, I played a home movie on it which probably had not been played in 15-20 years. It played perfectly fine for a few minutes before becoming a mess of noise. Then eventually it just went to blue screen. I tried playing other tapes which also came up with just blue screen. So either the tapes had nothing on them or there was a hardware issue. At the time I had little idea what the problem was but decided to buy a Sony Video8 cleaning tape on the chance it would do something. Otherwise I was pretty much stuck with broken equipment. After playing the cleaning tape it worked great.

I've also had problems years ago with VHS and noisy images or noise induced blue screens. So bad that I stupidly threw away a few tapes because I thought they were bad. Turned out to be my old machine's dirty head.

Analog video tape formats are dead and as time goes on this shedding issue is only going to worsen.

Furthermore, incomplete "clean your heads" advice to newbies has them look up bad advice on Youtube/blogs, that shows how to use Q-tips. So if it didn't have bad heads before, it definitely does now!

Well I don't know 100% that it's a dirty head but in the event it is, I was certain that other users would chime in on proper procedure. I've been burnt many times before on this site by going over every detail as a second responder and then OP either never coming back, OP bring up more details that invalidate my long post, me simply being wrong, or OP just wasting everyone's time in general. So if anything I was just getting the ball rolling on a discussion and don't expect anyone to screw up their machine over a 14 word post.

If I were OP, and did not care to open my machine and do everything needed for proper cleaning. Or buying chamois swabs which would probably cost more than the value of OP's machine. I'd first just try using a VCR cleaning tape and follow the directions on the cleaning tape. I normally come across VCR cleaning tapes at thrift stores, often not opened. Another simple method suggested on this forum is to just play a new blank tape from start to finish at normal speed (2hrs for T-120), with the hopes that any oxide will brush off onto the tape and leaving a cleaner VCR head.

It's probably damaged heads. The goober who owned it previously probably "cleaned it" (ruined it!) with a Q-tip. eBay is full of VCRs in that condition now, especially with all the morons on Youtube/blogs showing this horrible advice.

You don't seem to care that OP said it worked fine the first time he played the machine.


Edit: When I was complaining about "OP", I was not talking about this OP but just OPs in other threads.

[lordsmurf]

You don't seem to care that OP said it worked fine the first time he played the machine.

No, not at all.

And anyway, he said he already cleaned the heads -- and it did nothing.

That specific Philips looks an awful lot like the Sharp decks in the late 90s / early 2000s. I lost two Sharp decks in years past. Playback on those things was really nice for a consumer VHS players, probably some of the best I'd seen. They made great workhorse recorders. In each case -- pfft -- sudden power issue. One turned on, never played anything again. One was erratic power. This Philips could be a similar issue.

On some JVC decks, I've run into seized heads before, too. Tapes accepted, goes through motion of play, yet head not moving.

[johnmeyer]

[QUOTE=KarMa;2511215]

It's almost never dirty heads. <snip>

Furthermore, incomplete "clean your heads" advice to newbies has them look up bad advice on Youtube/blogs, that shows how to use Q-tips. So if it didn't have bad heads before, it definitely does now!

Well I don't know 100% that it's a dirty head but in the event it is, I was certain that other users would chime in on proper procedure. <snip>

+1 to everything KarMa said. I too have experienced dirty heads and cleaning them solved the problem. Even though cleaning tapes were frowned on, back in the day when everyone had a VHS deck, because they are "abrasive," they are actually pretty safe if only used when the tapes won't play, rather than using it every week or every month. You are extremely unlikely to harm your deck by using a cleaning tape a few times.

It is what I recommend that this OP do.

[amaipaipai]

Things you have to know.

1. You need to clean and grease all the tape mechanism.
2. Bellow the upper cylinder there is a tape guide that you have to clean up with a tooth pick or another soft but hard material like a bamboo material with a sharp edge like a screwdriver to remove any dirth that can damage the tape, same to all rollers and guides.

[Attachment 44625 - Click to enlarge]

3. Clean the capstan and the pinch roller, the black rubber thing on the right.
4. Consider a full recap, electrolytic capacitors get dry and old over time, about every 10 years or so. This might cause this no audio or video issues among other things.
5. This is optional but you have to check this overtime or if the machine has issues tracking the video. You see that S and T guides on the pictures, that is used to do the alignment for the tracking system. To do that you need a tape with SMPTE bars and a oscilloscope, there is a test point on the board that show the direct signal output from the heads, it's a RF signal. Looking at the oscilloscope you must see a retangular bar, if this bar is distorted you have to adjust the S and T guides until you get a perfect retangular shape signal.

That's it.
If you don't know how to do it, send it over to a service shop or some one with the proper tools to do it.

[johnmeyer]

I disagree about re-capping. I have an EE degree and have recapped a LOT of switchmode power supplies. The design of these supplies puts a huge amount of stress on electrolytic capacitors because of the high frequencies (40 kHz) and energy involved. The caps can get pretty hot. Unlike traditional linear supplies where the capacitors are mostly used to smooth out ripple and, when the capacitors start to go, you get increased hum and buzz, the failure mode for switchmode supplies is usually more of an "all or nothing" where the supply simply fails to start.

So, I wouldn't start investing the considerable time and effort to recap the supply. It doesn't cost much (DigiKey and Mouser both have really good prices on caps, and you can get really good product through them), but it definitely is going to be a major effort.

I should also mention that when amaipaipai says to "grease" the mechanism, he is NOT talking about petroleum-based grease, like you'd use on an engine. I use a lithium grease, but others may have better recommendations.

Having said all that, if you haven't done this before, you probably shouldn't do it now.

[amaipaipai]

So...
We shouldn't do the right thing because you have a degree and still don't know how to do a basic recap job?

Okay (?)

[johnmeyer]

So...
We shouldn't do the right thing because you have a degree and still don't know how to do a basic recap job?

Okay (?)

I realize that you are from Brazil and English may not be your first language, and perhaps that is why you didn't understand at all what I said. My advice is that if you don't understand what a person is saying, just leave it alone and don't post.

What I said, if you care to re-read it, is that I have re-capped "a LOT" (meaning many, probably a dozen or more), switching power supplies (the ones with tiny transformers, dangerous voltages, etc.). I only mentioned my degree because I was trying to get across that I do understand how most electronic things work and, because I have repaired many of them, I also understand the typical failure modes and what symptoms you are likely to get. As I accurately described, switching power supplies seldom "gracefully degrade," a term used when something still works, but doesn't work as well. Instead, switching power supplies usually just suddenly stop working.

When I first started doing recaps back in the 90s, I found an excellent overview of how these supplies work, how they fail, and how to fix them. Here is a link into the middle of this overview which states how these supplies typically fail:

Power Supply Repair

Note that the first three symptoms start with "supply dead ..."

Also note that bad solder is often a problem, something that I have seen myself in TV sets and other high voltage or high temperature electronics. The switch-mode power supply has both of these and therefore it is actually amazing that they work as well and as long as they do. Thus, even if the OP's problem turns out to be a bad power supply (which I think is extremely unlikely, given the symptoms he described), bad caps are only one of several things that can cause problems.

[amaipaipai]

I realize that you are from Brazil and English may not be your first language, and perhaps that is why you didn't understand at all what I said. My advice is that if you don't understand what a person is saying, just leave it alone and don't post.

What I said, if you care to re-read it, is that I have re-capped "a LOT" (meaning many, probably a dozen or more), switching power supplies (the ones with tiny transformers, dangerous voltages, etc.). I only mentioned my degree because I was trying to get across that I do understand how most electronic things work and, because I have repaired many of them, I also understand the typical failure modes and what symptoms you are likely to get. As I accurately described, switching power supplies seldom "gracefully degrade," a term used when something still works, but doesn't work as well. Instead, switching power supplies usually just suddenly stop working.

When I first started doing recaps back in the 90s, I found an excellent overview of how these supplies work, how they fail, and how to fix them. Here is a link into the middle of this overview which states how these supplies typically fail:

Power Supply Repair

Note that the first three symptoms start with "supply dead ..."

Also note that bad solder is often a problem, something that I have seen myself in TV sets and other high voltage or high temperature electronics. The switch-mode power supply has both of these and therefore it is actually amazing that they work as well and as long as they do. Thus, even if the OP's problem turns out to be a bad power supply (which I think is extremely unlikely, given the symptoms he described), bad caps are only one of several things that can cause problems.

Ok, let me rephrase that to you.
To me is a shame when a person come to a conversation using lame excuses like, "I have a degree so I know what I'm talking about", you don't because to you your title is bigger than your knowledge, you talk the talk, you don't walk the walk. Your "degree" is good as a toilet paper to me.

Since you like to introduce yourself with "I have a degree", I also have one and I earn it in Japan. The things you "fix", I design.

When you started in the 90's I was already a Engineer working at Sony, Sony Kohda to be precise. There we develop every device that uses a magnetic tape on it, Mavica, Hi8, DV, products for home user, for broadcasting, you name it. And I've designed A LOT of switching power supply, I've fixed A LOT of VHS's and Video Cameras.

Now that we've introduce each other....

How come you call yourself a Electronic Engineer and don't know the difference between a standard electrolytic capacitor from a low esr one used in a power supply? Did you even know WHY a standard capacitor - that you "re-caped a LOT" - get hot in a PS?? Did you EVER study Own's Law?

Was my English good enough for you?
"Do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth?"

My advice to you... Take a hike.

[johnmeyer]

Ok, let me rephrase that to you.
To me is a shame when a person come to a conversation using lame excuses like, "I have a degree so I know what I'm talking about", you don't because to you your title is bigger than your knowledge, you talk the talk, you don't walk the walk. Your "degree" is good as a toilet paper to me.

Since you like to introduce yourself with "I have a degree", I also have one and I earn it in Japan. The things you "fix", I design.

When you started in the 90's I was already a Engineer working at Sony, Sony Kohda to be precise. There we develop every device that uses a magnetic tape on it, Mavica, Hi8, DV, products for home user, for broadcasting, you name it. And I've designed A LOT of switching power supply, I've fixed A LOT of VHS's and Video Cameras.

Now that we've introduce each other....

How come you call yourself a Electronic Engineer and don't know the difference between a standard electrolytic capacitor from a low esr one used in a power supply? Did you even know WHY a standard capacitor - that you "re-caped a LOT" - get hot in a PS?? Did you EVER study Own's Law?

Was my English good enough for you?
"Do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth?"

My advice to you... Take a hike.

Wow, what a friendly person. And what a fool. You keep making statements about me that have nothing to do with what I posted and which are completely wrong.

Please note, everyone, that this guy just joined the forum, and he starts out by making these sort of posts. Classic troll. I've been here for sixteen years and have made over 1,000 posts. I always try to help people, and except when someone like this comes along, I don't take a thread OT.

1. You state that I started in the 1990s. No, that is when I first started fixing switchmode power supplies. I actually started in the early 1970s, working for Hewlett-Packard in their microwave test equipment division

2. You state that I don't know the difference between low-ESR caps and standard caps. There is nothing in either of my posts that could lead you to that conclusion. You simply made that up in order to make nasty comments. Classic troll behavior. For others reading this, ESR stands for "Equivalent Series Resistance" and specifies the "resistance" (which I put in quotes because it is actually NOT a resistance, but an impedance) component of a capacitor. Because of this impedance which develops at high frequencies, the capacitor will get very hot and self destruct. Therefore, when used in high current, high-frequency applications, you must use a low-ESR cap in order to minimize this self-heating.

3. He seems to think I don't know about Ohm's Law. What statement did I make that would lead anyone to come up with that??

I won't bother to respond any further to this very unhelpful person. I hope the moderators keep close watch over future posts that he makes, including any additional responses he makes in this thread. We certainly don't need any more of posts like the two he just made.

[amaipaipai]

Wow, what a friendly person. And what a fool. You keep making statements about me that have nothing to do with what I posted and which are completely wrong.

Please note, everyone, that this guy just joined the forum, and he starts out by making these sort of posts. Classic troll. I've been here for sixteen years and have made over 1,000 posts. I always try to help people, and except when someone like this comes along, I don't take a thread OT.

Are you going to call your mamy too?
Does a troll open his own VHS, take a picture, give specific instructions on how to clean an how procedure to fix and align a VHS mechanism?

Incompetent people are incompetent for years!
What give you the right to disagree with someone by putting your "degree" down as a argument?
If you really had some degree on something, to me you sound like a wanna be, your arguments should be technical! "I don't agree because this and this" and not because you think you had a degree on something.

What you did is a well know fallacy called "argumentum ad verecundiam" or a appeal to authority, is a common form of argument which leads to a logical fallacy, like the one that make people look like a stupid.

Been here for sixteen years and with over 1000 posts, you should know better how to behave yourself. This status doesn't give you any credit, it just show how a ignorant person can fool everyone just because he thinks he has a "degree", talk crap and doesn't know how to fix a damn PS.

1. You state that I started in the 1990s. No, that is when I first started fixing switchmode power supplies. I actually started in the early 1970s, working for Hewlett-Packard in their microwave test equipment division

2. You state that I don't know the difference between low-ESR caps and standard caps. There is nothing in either of my posts that could lead you to that conclusion. You simply made that up in order to make nasty comments. Classic troll behavior. For others reading this, ESR stands for "Equivalent Series Resistance" and specifies the "resistance" (which I put in quotes because it is actually NOT a resistance, but an impedance) component of a capacitor. Because of this impedance which develops at high frequencies, the capacitor will get very hot and self destruct. Therefore, when used in high current, high-frequency applications, you must use a low-ESR cap in order to minimize this self-heating.

3. He seems to think I don't know about Ohm's Law. What statement did I make that would lead anyone to come up with that??

I won't bother to respond any further to this very unhelpful person. I hope the moderators keep close watch over future posts that he makes, including any additional responses he makes in this thread. We certainly don't need any more of posts like the two he just made.

1. I don't care.
2.

The design of these supplies puts a huge amount of stress on electrolytic capacitors because of the high frequencies (40 kHz) and energy involved. The caps can get pretty hot. Unlike traditional linear supplies where the capacitors are mostly used to smooth out ripple and, when the capacitors start to go, you get increased hum and buzz, the failure mode for switchmode supplies is usually more of an "all or nothing" where the supply simply fails to start.

When standard electrolytic capacitors are used in high-frequency circuits, it dissipate heat because of parasitic internal resistance known as equivalent series resistance (ESR). Also, this heat is caused by a thing called leakage current indicating that the component is bad.
As stated before, the real troll here is you, that doesn't know WHY this components heat up and how superficial and ignorant you are!
I won't waste my time posting and writhing more stuff about this, for those that want to know more about it, please follow the link below:
https://www.electronics-tutorials.ws/filter/filter_1.html
3. In item two, you show that are too ignorant to know how to calculate a Capacitive Reactance - this is the correct term -, if we are talking about resistance we can't avoid Ohm's Law, and you just said that is not a resistance but I've shown that this can be calculated.

Yes, please!
Don't bother responding, just take your degree, put your tail between your legs and go, you don't deserve any respect at all. I'm sick and tired of liars like yourself teaching wrong things for good people that are asking for help. And boy I have a neck to expose fraudulent, liar and incompetent people like YOU!

Next time, don't you EVER, EVER! Start a discussion trying to push your "I have a degree" fallacy on others, because you might face some one with a REAL one that will make you look bad in front of everybody.

Just shut your mouth and GO!

[lordsmurf]

The rudeness level needs to stop now.

I may have disagreed with John -- as sometimes happens, though not often -- but I wan't an ass to him.

Degrees are verifiable credentials. It establishes education in the topic/field, usually experience, etc. Not to be ignored (unless MBA, because everybody seems to have one of those useless generic things). I'd rather talk to somebody that has a degree in a subject, as opposed to somebody that Google'd it in free time. That's why it matters.

A full (or even partial) recap is rarely needed for VCRs -- aside from those infamous pesky Panasonic decks.

Given this exact model, which looks to actually be Sharp rebadge, I'd not be surprised if leads on the mainboard were fried. Consumer VCRs were lousy with fuses/etc, and would let power issues jump onto the boards. Shortcuts were taken.

[redwudz]

If this thread continues with personal insults, it will be closed or those posted deleted. Fair warning.

Moderator redwudz

[FigureofBeach]

Dirty heads is a likely cause.

Thank you so much!

The exact same thing was happening with my VCR. I bought a VHS video head cleaner, and it worked! My old VHS tapes play perfectly now.

I hadn't used my VCR in about 5 years, and I finally decided to try it again a week ago. It worked fine for a couple of days. Then three days ago, I put in a tape, and I only got a blue screen, nothing else. I was pretty sure the tape was rolling, though, because the counter was counting. I tried to fast-forward the tape, but still only got a blue screen, and eventually, the VCR ate the tape. I was then afraid to try a different tape. I did try a few more that didn't have much sentimental value, but the results were the same - blue screen with a rolling counter. Luckily, no other tapes were eaten.

I'm used to old school TV's where there's just a lot of noise when the heads are dirty, so I didn't think it was a simply problem like that. I was afraid it was more serious, and seeing how ridiculously expensive VCR's are nowadays made me even more annoyed at the thought that mine might be broken. So I started Googling what could be wrong with my VCR, and I came across this post. It looked like the same problem I was experiencing. This post inspired me to buy a VHS video head cleaner. I got it in the mail today. I followed the instructions, popped the cleaner in the VCR for 20 seconds, then tried a VHS tape and it worked! I was very pleased, so thanks again for helping fix the VCR!