Talk About the Irony (S-VHS, Tbc)

[Tranzor]

I probably should not post this in here, but I think many in this sub forum section will appreciate it

I have really no finances to speak of so spending is not a smart thing for me, however.....

this summer I finally picked up a true TBC (datavideo tbc-1000) as well as a color corrector when needed (sima color corrector pro series scc-2)

I fished out some tapes from an old mom and pop store I wanted to convert (ones with still no dvd release)

everything was fine for the past few days.

I have an SVHS deck (PHILIPS VR960B) that I do take care of


so I was converting tonight two old WWF video tapes (coliseum video) from 1984/85. Both tapes have the wrong running time listed (one was listed as 65 mins and ended being 1hr and 40 mins!!!)

I went to re-do them again using the proper speed setting (jvc drm100s)

and I set one tape in motion, leave for about 10 mins and come back to see the tape ejected out of the vcr and the dvd deck still recording

The tape was really f*cked and wrapped around one of the rollers. I fixed this and tested things out.

In the end now that I have all the proper equipement, the svhs deck decides to die out on me. Something on the digital circuit board went bye bye (if you put a tape in it would start playing it at twice the speed though no pic is showing, and the rewind/stop button did not work on the machine or remote)

luckily I found two used decks of the same model on ebay for cheap and snagged both (total of 100 for the two)


I really hate this, I finally get the equipement I should have purchased years ago, everything is all set and of course the damn vcr had to die out throwing me back to square one and another $100 in the hole

[Tranzor]

so after I plunk down 100$ for two svhs decks , guess what decides to start working today.....

I lightly used compressed air on it the night of the screw up. As I was trying to sleep last night, I was thinking that maybe a part/part of the circ board was then too cold and starting to malfunction and this was causing the issue and that perhaps the tape chewing was just from it being an old tape?

I was running tests on it today, without the lid on the vcr the problem re-occurred (minus any tape chewing). With the cover back on the vcr it went away. This then led me to believe that the cover acts as some sort of grounder for this deck (has a thick piece of rubber and a slither of metal that would touch the top of the inside cover when it was put on).

Either way it is working fine again and I am out a needed $100.00 (though if it goes crazy at least I now have two backup decks for the same model)--woooooo

[lordsmurf]

Head misalignments cause most "eaten" tape issues.

[Tranzor]

Thing is that in all my years of owning this machine (it was made in 2000) it has never eaten a tape before. Also this same tape played just fine 2 hours before I tried to do it again (adjusting the correct speed on the dvd recorder to match the tapes true running time which in the end I had to keep the first disc I made from this tape).

Though things are a bit of a blur from the other night, I am pretty positive that before this tapes second run, but after the full recordings from both tapes earlier is when I hit it with the compressed air which is then when shortly thereafter (first 9 mins of playing) everything seeemed to go wrong. I really think parts of the machine migt have gotten a bit too cold to function properly

Though anything is possible, my theory of letting the machine warm back up to room tempature the next day might hold true. The test tapess I was trying after all of this were working fine (just letting the tape play for about an hour or so with no problem)


Ehh who knows, will still keep a watch on the header when I figure out how to make this machine work properly without the metal shell on

and from this point forward no more compressed air, and if I do I let it sit for 24 hours before re-using

[lordsmurf]

Well, too cold isn't the best idea either, no. I had some troubles on my JVC 9800 last winter, left the window open while I passed out into a nice nap. A few hours later, the office was freezing inside. The VCR was sluggish to react.

Don't let liquid spew from the air can.
And then don't hold it so close that it gets cold.
Don't use that stupid straw thing, either.

[Tranzor]

I did learn a lesson with taking advantage of the compressed air use and in some strange way now another $100.00 down the hole at least I have two back up decks coming for this same model

I still have older Panny ominvision regular vhs decks and one other svhs by Mitsubishi (HS-u746) which by the way has a bad playback pic quality when compared to the Philips, but a nice super fast rewind/fast forward feature it advertises on the deck (yes it does
have the begin/end of the tape soft sensor feature to gently slow down when reaching these parts from rewinding or fast forwarding, only reason why I kept it)