Thank you ever so much for these videos! You've gotten me out of some real dilemmas over the last few weeks and I can't say how happy each and ever one makes me. 'Keep 'em coming' and thanks again from the U.K.
After watching your video, I was able to correct a tracking problem I had, inadvertently created myself. After cleaning the head with alcohol and also the chrome colored recorder, I notice the screws (around the recorder base) looked to be loose, so I tightened them all the way down. When I played the next tape, I had a pretty severe tracking problem... After playing around with the head screws, as shown in your video, without correcting the problem... I checked the recorder base screws, I had screwed up, by screwing down, and was able to correct the tracking problem. My unit is an E-Bay purchase, a Magnavox... All was good. except it will not record from the TV; a problem they didn't tell me about... and one I still have no ideal of how to correct. Anyway, thanks for the video and for showing me how to correct the tracking problem. Ray
Thank you for this very helpful tip! I own a JVC Super VHS ET recorder and could never figure out my tracking problem even after careful meticulous cleaning until now. My machine is working perfectly now after the tracking head adjustment and am using it to transfer VHS to DVD for a friend.
Awesome! This did the trick on my Panasonic 4 Head VCR! Now my VCR tracking works better than ever! I adjusted the screws on the roller guides/head guides with a screw driver. Thank You! BTW, love those cats in the video! That sucks about those youtube turkeys though. What a pain!
Thanks Dave for your usual informative tutorial🙏👍I notice the usual screw driver head will not sit into the Top Slot Of the Guide Posts as the slot dies not cut all the way across, as slot is blovked in center. What tool ir head of the tool you use ?
Just wondering if you have done a video on how to align the tape path on Beta decks so some of these really old tapes recorded on other machines will play back so their contents can be archived? I don't have a scope. I have a newly refurbed Sony Beta SLHF-450 which is pretty good with many of the oldest tapes I got from friends in Japan years ago but there is a box full of tapes that simply won't track. I can still see the tape tracking noise in the picture even with the tracking setting as far over as it will go. Ditto on many VHS tapes recorded in both SP and EP while trying to play them back on both of my JVC HRS-3910U recorders.The tracking either won't hold for any length of time if in auto mode or else can't be set to an extreme setting to compensate. Pre-recorded tapes however play just fine. I also have a box of tapes that have shed but those will have to be baked. Luckily I have a friend in town who has some experience with that after having done so to restore video tapes as well as reel to reel audio tapes in his collection. He wrote to people in the states who had come up with this. He is giving me the files he had and I will attempt this as a last resort as those tapes are useless in their present state. Thanks again...
cat unboxing, LOL, yup, our goofy cat cannot resist a box too. one of the cheapest worst VCRs I had in the 90s was a Sharp, but it had a nice picture. Just crappy build, very flimzy. I like some Sharp stuff, especially my VZ3000 with vertical linear tracking turntable. Don
Hi! I Have this tape recorded on Toshiba V-K60 back in the day. For some reason I decided to record it in " PAL LP" with Hi-fi stereo track (the source was PAL of course). I don't have that VCR no more, what I have now is Sony SLV-720, very basic but is able to play and record Hi-Fi track. Sony doesn't play this tape good at all. Though its auto tracking stops hunting eventually I still can't get satisfactory results even with manual tracking, there's still some thick noise bars down below and a kind of a slight "colour jitter?" in the top part's center and of course no Hi-Fi audio. Do you think I should try adjusting those guides and if it will help? On Toshiba this tape played just fine. And SP recordings play on this sony fine too. Maybe I should go for more advanced machine, 'say Panasonic HS1000? Please help =) Love your videos.
It sounds like one of the machines has an alignment problem. You could tweak the guides to see if you can recover the tape. I do this all the time to recover camera tapes that were recorded on a camera that the guides shifted during record.
I've made it! And it Helped! It even plays Hi-Fi audio track now. So it Means that V-K60 was out of alighnment when I was recording. Thank you so much for your videos! I'm So happy =))))
You should use a Panasonic or JVC VCR they will not give you any problems playing back tapes recorded in LP mode, do not use LG, Aiwa or Sharp, unsatisfactory results etc.
Automatic tracking is not one of my favorites, unless it can be switched off, ive found some videos that never quite track corrrectly or the automatic system gets it wrong, manual control for me. So you cleaned the rabbit reference shelf after the adjustment, yoooou bad lad LOL :-D. Hey you saved a loverly cat, shame the vet was crap at there job :-(
You like it? I find it annoying. It appears on the screen ayntime I play a tape, no matter how the picture actually is! I'm sure older VCRs were better!
Always struck me as an odd sort of company, Sharp.... some of their stuff was OK, although not outstanding, and then in the mix they had some real garbage. It always seemed to me like they were capable of making good kit, but chose not to purely to hit a price point, but then didn't do the stack 'em high and sell 'em cheap thing to get volume for their price point - - they were almost schizophrenic in their approach (a bit like Philips in many ways). They are pretty much non-existent in the UK domestic market now, so goodness only knows what they are doing for money
A lot of companies had that Philips type approach. Thomson were pretty bad for that, all the technology they owned and still they turned Thorn-Ferguson in the UK from market leaders to a pile of smoking rubble inside five years... Sharp were by no means the worst, but they had the means to be another Panasonic or Toshiba and they blew it. At least the like of Sanyo were aiming for the basement, and had the common sense to put reliability first. Some of the Sharp stuff was as bad as the bankrupt European manufacturers in the 1990s
Auto tracking can be really annoying when it shows on the screen anytime we play a tape no matter what the picture looks like! Maybe older VCRs weren't as annoying!
I hate auto tracking. Should never have been introduced on VHS. 8mm it is built in, but works in a totally different way because 8mm and hi8, as well as all the digital tape formats (DAT, D8, MiniDV ect) record specific ATF, auto track finding signals onto the tape. With VHS they used the envelope detector, and tried to maximize the RF envelope. That works great under perfect conditions, but as soon as the heads start to wear either the heads that recorded the tape or the heads on the machine playing the tape, it starts to hunt. If the mechanical alignment is slightly off, then a perfectly flat waveform is not possible, and it hunts. Manual tracking with a physical knob that you had to turn on the VCR was the best. None of this tracking buttons on the remote BS.
Thank you ever so much for these videos! You've gotten me out of some real dilemmas over the last few weeks and I can't say how happy each and ever one makes me. 'Keep 'em coming' and thanks again from the U.K.
After watching your video, I was able to correct a tracking problem I had, inadvertently created myself. After cleaning the head with alcohol and also the chrome colored recorder, I notice the screws (around the recorder base) looked to be loose, so I tightened them all the way down. When I played the next tape, I had a pretty severe tracking problem... After playing around with the head screws, as shown in your video, without correcting the problem... I checked the recorder base screws, I had screwed up, by screwing down, and was able to correct the tracking problem. My unit is an E-Bay purchase, a Magnavox... All was good. except it will not record from the TV; a problem they didn't tell me about... and one I still have no ideal of how to correct. Anyway, thanks for the video and for showing me how to correct the tracking problem. Ray
Thank you for this very helpful tip! I own a JVC Super VHS ET recorder and could never figure out my tracking problem even after careful meticulous cleaning until now. My machine is working perfectly now after the tracking head adjustment and am using it to transfer VHS to DVD for a friend.
u r my kind of a guy. because of your kindness to animals. love u
Awesome! This did the trick on my Panasonic 4 Head VCR! Now my VCR tracking works better than ever! I adjusted the screws on the roller guides/head guides with a screw driver. Thank You! BTW, love those cats in the video! That sucks about those youtube turkeys though. What a pain!
That cat now is huge. About 23 lbs! Big full ball.
Where are the guide posts located so I can tweak my VCR as I have tapes with a fuzzy picture and YES I am using a SHARP VCR
Thanks Dave for your usual informative tutorial🙏👍I notice the usual screw driver head will not sit into the Top Slot Of the Guide Posts as the slot dies not cut all the way across, as slot is blovked in center. What tool ir head of the tool you use ?
Just wondering if you have done a video on how to align the tape path on Beta decks so some of these really old tapes recorded on other machines will play back so their contents can be archived? I don't have a scope. I have a newly refurbed Sony Beta SLHF-450 which is pretty good with many of the oldest tapes I got from friends in Japan years ago but there is a box full of tapes that simply won't track. I can still see the tape tracking noise in the picture even with the tracking setting as far over as it will go. Ditto on many VHS tapes recorded in both SP and EP while trying to play them back on both of my JVC HRS-3910U recorders.The tracking either won't hold for any length of time if in auto mode or else can't be set to an extreme setting to compensate. Pre-recorded tapes however play just fine. I also have a box of tapes that have shed but those will have to be baked. Luckily I have a friend in town who has some experience with that after having done so to restore video tapes as well as reel to reel audio tapes in his collection. He wrote to people in the states who had come up with this. He is giving me the files he had and I will attempt this as a last resort as those tapes are useless in their present state. Thanks again...
I have meet strange mode switch with gear that can't pop out to clean (panasonic nv-sd300 k-mechanism).do you have an idea?
That PLAY OSD IS HUGE, NEVER SEEN A PLAY ON SCREEN DISPLAY THAT BIG ETC.
cat unboxing, LOL, yup, our goofy cat cannot resist a box too.
one of the cheapest worst VCRs I had in the 90s was a Sharp, but it had a nice picture. Just crappy build, very flimzy. I like some Sharp stuff, especially my VZ3000 with vertical linear tracking turntable. Don
Hi! I Have this tape recorded on Toshiba V-K60 back in the day. For some reason I decided to record it in " PAL LP" with Hi-fi stereo track (the source was PAL of course). I don't have that VCR no more, what I have now is Sony SLV-720, very basic but is able to play and record Hi-Fi track. Sony doesn't play this tape good at all. Though its auto tracking stops hunting eventually I still can't get satisfactory results even with manual tracking, there's still some thick noise bars down below and a kind of a slight "colour jitter?" in the top part's center and of course no Hi-Fi audio. Do you think I should try adjusting those guides and if it will help? On Toshiba this tape played just fine. And SP recordings play on this sony fine too. Maybe I should go for more advanced machine, 'say Panasonic HS1000? Please help =) Love your videos.
It sounds like one of the machines has an alignment problem. You could tweak the guides to see if you can recover the tape. I do this all the time to recover camera tapes that were recorded on a camera that the guides shifted during record.
Yeah, that's exactly what I thought. Thank you.
I've made it! And it Helped! It even plays Hi-Fi audio track now. So it Means that V-K60 was out of alighnment when I was recording. Thank you so much for your videos! I'm So happy =))))
You should use a Panasonic or JVC VCR they will not give you any problems playing back tapes recorded in LP mode, do not use LG, Aiwa or Sharp, unsatisfactory results etc.
Automatic tracking is not one of my favorites, unless it can be switched off, ive found some videos that never quite track corrrectly or the automatic system gets it wrong, manual control for me.
So you cleaned the rabbit reference shelf after the adjustment, yoooou bad lad LOL :-D.
Hey you saved a loverly cat, shame the vet was crap at there job :-(
Unfortunately on this machine it can't be turned off. That's a fail in my books. Mitsubishi was bad for that on some models as well. FAIL
You like it? I find it annoying. It appears on the screen ayntime I play a tape, no matter how the picture actually is! I'm sure older VCRs were better!
@@Florentina-ox9xq I hate the auto tracking screen appear when I’m watching so glad that I got a Sony vcr without auto tracking screen
Wou! You have a diagnostic cat!
Always struck me as an odd sort of company, Sharp.... some of their stuff was OK, although not outstanding, and then in the mix they had some real garbage. It always seemed to me like they were capable of making good kit, but chose not to purely to hit a price point, but then didn't do the stack 'em high and sell 'em cheap thing to get volume for their price point - - they were almost schizophrenic in their approach (a bit like Philips in many ways). They are pretty much non-existent in the UK domestic market now, so goodness only knows what they are doing for money
A lot of companies had that Philips type approach. Thomson were pretty bad for that, all the technology they owned and still they turned Thorn-Ferguson in the UK from market leaders to a pile of smoking rubble inside five years... Sharp were by no means the worst, but they had the means to be another Panasonic or Toshiba and they blew it. At least the like of Sanyo were aiming for the basement, and had the common sense to put reliability first. Some of the Sharp stuff was as bad as the bankrupt European manufacturers in the 1990s
Auto tracking can be really annoying when it shows on the screen anytime we play a tape no matter what the picture looks like! Maybe older VCRs weren't as annoying!
I hate auto tracking. Should never have been introduced on VHS.
8mm it is built in, but works in a totally different way because 8mm and hi8, as well as all the digital tape formats (DAT, D8, MiniDV ect) record specific ATF, auto track finding signals onto the tape.
With VHS they used the envelope detector, and tried to maximize the RF envelope. That works great under perfect conditions, but as soon as the heads start to wear either the heads that recorded the tape or the heads on the machine playing the tape, it starts to hunt. If the mechanical alignment is slightly off, then a perfectly flat waveform is not possible, and it hunts. Manual tracking with a physical knob that you had to turn on the VCR was the best. None of this tracking buttons on the remote BS.
Is 100MHz oscilloscope good enough or do I need 400MHz?
FOR vcr WORK A 20 MHZ IS PLENTY.
sharp vcr's can be a bit ornery I had one once
OK, now we know why you call the cat Bill... well, invoice is no name for a cat.
Thanks
Good job
i love your cat..lol
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