Do i need to care about SP/LP on my vcr during playback?

[wexman]

Hi!

Does it matter what mode i have on my vcr machine, SP/LP when play the tapes?

I'm capturing from my vcr to computer with usb capture device. From what i understand it only matters when recording to tapes and not during playback?

Really new to this and can't seem to find the answer.

Would be really glad for some help!

Kind regards
wexman

[dellsam34]

Correct, The playing back speed is set automatically according to the setting chosen during recording.

[wexman]

Oh okay got it!
Thank you so much for replying!

[Cornucopia]

Correct, The playing back speed is set automatically according to the setting chosen during recording.

Yep, if it has the supported heads & electronics, and can then lock onto the control track blips, and the video sync & colorburst, it should be automatic in a few fractions of a second.

Scott

[jjeff]

Note LP is kind of an orphan speed lacking many special effect features found on SP or SLP/EP and on some VCRs actually looks worse than the slower SLP/EP speed, so be prepared for that....

[dellsam34]

Because low speeds were not part of the VHS standard, VCR manufacturers took advantage of it to boost their VCR sales by offering such feature for more recording time on VHS tapes to save money on blank media, VCR's with only two heads track worse than VCR's with dedicated extra two heads for low speeds.

[jjeff]

Because low speeds were not part of the VHS standard, VCR manufacturers took advantage of it to boost their VCR sales by offering such feature for more recording time on VHS tapes to save money on blank media, VCR's with only two heads track worse than VCR's with dedicated extra two heads for low speeds.

AFAIK no VCR ever had dedicated heads for LP the way they did for SLP/EP, even the cheap first VCRs that had LP and SP made by Matsushita(RCA, Panasonic, Quazar, etc) were just 2 head VCRs although the heads may have been sized for LP and then you just wasted space for SP giving SP an inferior quality. That or they were 70-micron heads made for SP and then you just got some overlap when recording the narrower LP, I just know that those SP/LP machines had bad picture quality on any speed and I avoided them as I did 2 head SP/SLP VCRs. As I used SP almost exclusively I was either a 2 head SP machine guy or 4 head SP/SLP guy, not including Hi-Fi audio heads or trick speed heads.

[dellsam34]

I think LP, EP, SLP are names used for different formats, Long Play, Extended Play and I think Super Extended Play, That's why I mentioned them as low speed. I know for sure some did not exist in NTSC and others didn't exist in PAL formats, The extra two heads have special Azimuth angle designed for the low speed tracks. I have no clue what do you mean by "...wasted space for SP giving SP inferior quality" As I know there is no such thing.

[Cornucopia]

Because low speeds were not part of the VHS standard, VCR manufacturers took advantage of it to boost their VCR sales by offering such feature for more recording time on VHS tapes to save money on blank media, VCR's with only two heads track worse than VCR's with dedicated extra two heads for low speeds.

AFAIK no VCR ever had dedicated heads for LP the way they did for SLP/EP, even the cheap first VCRs that had LP and SP made by Matsushita(RCA, Panasonic, Quazar, etc) were just 2 head VCRs although the heads may have been sized for LP and then you just wasted space for SP giving SP an inferior quality. That or they were 70-micron heads made for SP and then you just got some overlap when recording the narrower LP, I just know that those SP/LP machines had bad picture quality on any speed and I avoided them as I did 2 head SP/SLP VCRs. As I used SP almost exclusively I was either a 2 head SP machine guy or 4 head SP/SLP guy, not including Hi-Fi audio heads or trick speed heads.

Not so sure about that. There were a few years between LP and SLP/EP, and I seem to remember multi-head decks, some of which were optimized for LP. But LP certainly overall was the "red-headed stepchild" of the family.

SLP (super long play) = EP (extended play)
SLP was common naming in NTSC areas, EP common in PAL areas, IIRC.

Scott

[DB83]

I'll add/confuse the issue a little from personal experience.


When I had my first vcr way back when blank media was very expensive it made economic 'sense' to record in LP mode. Roll on to my next vcr and these tapes would not play back correctly. So if, unless I was just unlucky, you are not using the original vcr you might experience the same if, indeed, they were recorded in something other than standard mode.


A similar experience when I acquired a commercial tape from the US which was also duplicated in a LP mode. Would not play back correctly in my vcr.

[oln]

[QUOTE=Cornucopia;2610346]
SLP (super long play) = EP (extended play)
SLP was common naming in NTSC areas, EP common in PAL areas, IIRC.
/QUOTE]

In PAL land the LP speed was what was widely available in addition to SP. This may because PAL used a slower tape speed in general, looking at e.g the table on wikipedia, the tape speed on PAL LP is very slightly faster than NTSC SLP/EP, while PAL SP is in-between NTSC SP and LP. A PAL 1/3 speed mode may have been more tricky to implement since it would be even slower, but I don't know for sure.

SLP/EP was not very common on PAL decks, as far as I know it's only found on 2000s panasonic VCRs and a handful of 2000s JVC decks (The only JVC ones I've seen have it have been SVHS ones and they don't really advertise it). On the Panasonic decks it's confusingly called Super LP but shortened to EP, the JVC ones use EP.

Panasonic also made at least one NTSC deck with VP (1/5) speed recording which I guess would be closer to the tape speed of PAL SLP/EP.

[autoreverse]

When I had my first vcr way back when blank media was very expensive it made economic 'sense' to record in LP mode. Roll on to my next vcr and these tapes would not play back correctly. So if, unless I was just unlucky, you are not using the original vcr you might experience the same if, indeed, they were recorded in something other than standard mode.

I've wondered about the cause of this, as I've had similar experience.

My theory is that it could be the distance between the control/audio head and the videohead between different VCRs. With LP-speed the tolerance would be smaller and would play a bigger role with regards to the sync?

Another theory I've read is that it's harder to roll the tape by consistently at a slower speed.

[johnmeyer]

I think the extra heads were to provide better image quality when you did fast-forward, rewind, stop action, and slow motion. I don't think they improved the actual quality of playback at the two slower VHS speeds. Here's one article from 1986 that was written at the time these multi-head machines came out:

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1986-02-28-ca-13042-story.html

[oln]

The video tracks on the tape in LP and slower speeds are narrower than in SP speed, so the alignment of the video heads is more critical than in SP to read the video signal off the tape correctly.

Extra heads were used for both better LP/EP playback and "trick play". There are some professional/editng decks like the huge grey Panasonic and JVC ones that used 2+ extra heads purely for providing better pause/ffwd etc and supported only SP. In most decks they were used for improved slower speed playback as well though. There is a short explanation in the JVC Video techical guide page 120 here.

[dellsam34]

I think the extra heads were to provide better image quality when you did fast-forward, rewind, stop action, and slow motion. I don't think they improved the actual quality of playback at the two slower VHS speeds. Here's one article from 1986 that was written at the time these multi-head machines came out:

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1986-02-28-ca-13042-story.html

They are specifically used in low speed, fast search and pause, But manufacturers used those differently so there is no general rule, By the way not everyone has LA Times subscription so I don't know what's on that link.

[johnmeyer]

They are specifically used in low speed, fast search and pause, But manufacturers used those differently so there is no general rule, By the way not everyone has LA Times subscription so I don't know what's on that link.

I don't have a subscription either. Not sure why you couldn't see the article. Here is the relevant portion:

Video heads, though, are more complicated than the heads on an audiocassette recorder. Both VHS and Beta players have heads that rotate on a cylindrical “drum” at 30 revolutions per second, interacting in a “helical-scan” (or “azimuth”) method, and placed in one of several different arrangements depending on the manufacturer. Of more importance to consumers than the intricacies of how this system works is what difference the number of heads makes.

On some machines, having four heads may provide a slightly improved picture on slowest-speed taping; on others, extra heads won’t make any difference in picture quality. But there’s one area where extra heads make a very noticeable difference: special effects.

Of course, we’re not talking about movie-type special effects. No, extra heads won’t make the explosions in “Rambo” any more spectacular. But if you’d like to view one of those explosions in detail, that’s where a VCR’s “special effects"--freeze-frame, scan and slow motion--will come in handy. And a four- or five-head VCR will give you more flexibility in their use.

[dellsam34]

I have ADBlock installed that's why it won't let me see the page. Anyway that's nowhere near to be a technical guide, Just random personal opinion from an average reporter who probably knows nothing about a VCR other than insert a cassette in it and press play, Check the technical reference that OLN linked above.

[jjeff]

I think LP, EP, SLP are names used for different formats, Long Play, Extended Play and I think Super Extended Play, That's why I mentioned them as low speed. I know for sure some did not exist in NTSC and others didn't exist in PAL formats, The extra two heads have special Azimuth angle designed for the low speed tracks. I have no clue what do you mean by "...wasted space for SP giving SP inferior quality" As I know there is no such thing.

Others have posted but I'll state what I know for NTSC.
SP-Standard Play, 2hrs/T120 tape
LP-Long play, 4hrs/T120 tape
SLP-Super Long Play, 6hrs/T120 tape, Matsushita's evolution from their LP speed, even slower
EP-same 6hrs/tape as SLP and what JVC and others who didn't get on the LP bandwagon called this speed, since they didn't really have the LP speed, why call their longer speed SLP so they chose EP.
What I meant by wasted space using 19 micron wide SLP/EP video heads to record SP is the space allocated for helical scan tracks for SP is 70 microns(maybe a bit wider for a guard band??) and SP only and early SP/SLP 4 head machines used the entire 70-micron width to store picture information. If you used 19-micron heads for recording SP you'd be wasting more than 2/3rds of the available storage space recording a narrow 19 micon band. To make matters worse if you played back such tapes on full 70-micron video heads, along with the 19-micron recording you'd be picking up all the garbage/noise on both sides of of that narrow band, giving you a very noisy video.
I always had 70-micron video head machines and I could always tell an SP recording made with such a machine, the video was very speckly/noisy, much better to playback such recordings on a similar 19 micron SP machine. Of course when recording and playing back with my machines or playing back a proper SP recording machine I got much better SP quality than someone with a cheap 2 head machine. SLP/EP recordings would be similar but I really never used those speeds.

From what I know about PAL speeds:
SP-Standard Play(as noted by others not the same speed as our SP, slower). 3hrs/T120(or what they call an E180) standard tape.
LP-their extended speed, I believe just twice as long as SP or 6hrs/standard T-120 or E180 tape?
?? slower speeds, not familiar with.

Lastly, my ES-30v Panasonic DVDR/VHS combo has a speed called VP, I believe it's 10hrs/T120 speed and the speed is atrocious! They specifically state in the manual this speed is NOT recommended for sharing between machines due to incompatibility.

When I say 70 or 19 micron video heads I'm just talking about the main video heads, trickplay heads were always a different width but always less than 70 microns

Lastly, PAL's standard E180 tape while similar thickness tape to our T-120 is a bit longer, I believe using an E180 tape in an NTSC machine would give you about 7 minutes extra length, from what I remember. It's one of the reasons I purchased several E240 tapes when in Europe, a E240(4h) tape was similar tape thickness to our T160(2h40m) tape but the E240 tape gave me even more SP time than 2h40m when recording NTSC.

[Suny]

Helo my all friend from worldwide
I m in tension.i need capture my old vhs movies who i was recorded in LP mode..now when i play at another VCR (remember my this current vcr are not multi system)
I mean that my vcr have no any Lp/sp system.
When i play my old vhs so those movies who i was recorded at LP,Movies play properly but they didn't show orignal colors..black n white movie shown with different colors strips.
I noted orignal movie colors shown time by time just for 3 to 4 seconds.
Plsssss advice that have any options in PD who play orignal movie
Plsss help

[Suny]

I have some vhs cassettes who was recorded at LP speed but now i need convert to digital unfortunately now i have just a vcr who cant play LP vhs corectly so i want know that anybody know abt any software like PD18 who capture vhs movie through EASYCAP and show in normal speed

[dellsam34]

You need a VCR that can playback LP speed in the right color standard of your country, There is no other option.

[Suny]

Thank u too much