A guy at work who recently moved here is having trouble with his VCR. The VCR plays all of his old tapes in color, but only plays the stuff he records in black and white, even though they show up in color on other VCRs.

Thoughts?

tell him to throw it away

Is this VCRTalk? No.

Sounds a little strange. Any idea how he has it hooked up to the TV? I'm thinking some sort of connection issue, but really not sure.

A connection problem would effect all tapes, not just the ones he recorded.

Has he fiddled around with the tracking control to see if that solves the issue?

If not, VCRs are so cheap these days he could just end his frustration by buying a new VCR.

Wait, do they still make VCRs? I meant DVD recorder.

It's an odd problem, which is why I posted here. As I said, he just moved to town and there is a bit of a wait to get the dual tuner HD PVR that he wants, hence he wants to just use the VCRs to tape some shows.

And Arpeggi, this is DVD & Home Theatre Gear, which includes VCRs for some people. Why drop in just to threadcrap?

It's what he does. Just ignore him.

Is he recording on the same VCR? What are the input and output cables connected to, and what kind of cables are being used (type, not brand).

I have seen issues like this with bent or broken pins on an S-Video cable before.

I'd pretty much go with Mr. Salty's recommendations. If the tracking doesn't help, the only other thing he'd try might involve using a head cleaner or taking it in for a professional cleaning. At that point, might as well just buy something.

Or if he has his sights set on a VCR (so he can watch stuff already recorded), maybe he can check craigslist for a cheap, working model.

Relax, it was a joke.

Or try thrift stores. I'm starting to see some nice VCR's show up at the stores I frequent. The going rate is around $10 (but usually missing remote). Folks are ditching VCR's and smaller SD televisions in a big way.