chanster

My parents have a VCR and I am staying with them over the holidays. I know it sucks but we are trying to watch a movies and the damn VCR fuzzes out whenever there is an action sequence or big explosion. It happens on multiple good condition VHS tapes. I have looked over the settings..can't find anything..any help or suggestions. It is a 4 Head Sharp VCR.


Please help.......... and please don't flame me!

lordzeppelin

chanster...I'd love to offer advice, but I need a little more specific info on the problem. fuzzes out how? sound or video or what? what kind of setup? how is it hooked to whatever it's hooked to?

chanster

Lord-
Its hooked up through RCA cables. The fuzz happens, for about one second. It kinda buzzes, the screen kinda reds out and then goes back to normal. It seems to happen whenever there is a lot of action on the screen or quick cuts. It is very weird, I have never seen anything like it.

chanster

The screen kinda jumps as well

PhYbEr

Could need a head cleaner..but that sounds strange, how old is the vcr?

Copenhagen

Try playing a brand new blank tape for a few minutes and then pop in the movie if you don't have and VHS cleaning tapes handy.

QuAcKeR

Do you watch television on this monitor as well? I had a tv that would do what you are describing... and the screen would "jump" or "horizontal roll" whenever there was a flash of white or an explosion etc... but it was hooked to DVD... it seems that the monitor just couldn't handle the IRE if it was as blown out as pure white... dunno if that helps...

chanster

Quacker, that sounds like the problem. But it only happens when watching the VCR..TV works fine..also we watched Lord of the Rings taped off Showtime last night and it was perfect..could it be the tape player is having a problem with Macrovision or something??

chanster

Quacker..what did you do about your monitor problem?

OldDude

Are you using video input? Most tvs store separate contrast/brightness/color settings for tv mode and each video input. You may just need some adjustments. Does tv look more "garish" when watching tape.

On this subject, has anybody ever played Avia setup dvd on their player and recorded output on VCR to have a reference to setup vcr's video input? Just wondering if that would work.

Icculus

I didn't do it with a VCR but I did with a replayTV. It didn't really make all that much of a difference but I think that's mainly because every channel on cable looks different anyway. The settings were a little different but that could be the differences in inputs (component vs. s-video).