VHS Hi-Fi / THX Purchase

[dillon]

Well there's about 200-300 LD captures online - maybe more and only about 3 of them have *very* minor laser rot.

[BusterD]

My Panasonic consumer SVHS deck from Japan is usually pretty good at preventing dropouts, looks like those don't go for too much nowadays, but of course you'd have to deal with shipping and proxy fees.

[zoidberg]

Typically LDs with bad rot do not get captured or synced/released, only the good rot-free discs. It's the picture of the bomber with all the bullet holes situation (ie survivor bias).
I think the key to clean VHS hi fi captures is a combination of player and media, as the heads wear down dropouts will become more prevalent due to the hi fi signal being 'under' the video signal on the tape. As was mentioned previously tapes can benefit from a play or two prior to capture to clean the tape surface (especially if the tape was not fully rewound for an extended period of time)

[Yarp]

Typically LDs with bad rot do not get captured or synced/released, only the good rot-free discs. It's the picture of the bomber with all the bullet holes situation (ie survivor bias).
I think the key to clean VHS hi fi captures is a combination of player and media, as the heads wear down dropouts will become more prevalent due to the hi fi signal being 'under' the video signal on the tape. As was mentioned previously tapes can benefit from a play or two prior to capture to clean the tape surface (especially if the tape was not fully rewound for an extended period of time)

I've got a couple captures where rot is visible in spectrogram in a few places but it's not audible. Also have a few others that have it audible in a few places but you really have to listen for it. Outside of those few examples all my other rotted captures aren't viable to sync. I actually opened 2 brand new discs a few months ago and both had some of the worst rot I've seen so in my experience it's really been all over the place. I had a large ebay seller tell me that he sells so many LDs and rot is prevalent enough, even on new discs, that he just gives out immediate refunds for any claims.

As for the multiple plays, I've been doing that a bit more lately and it can make a pretty drastic difference. Most of the tapes I record will just end up as reference, but the small percent that are worth syncing, i've been often going back and after 1 or 2 playthroughs I can usually get a really clean capture (if I was having issues before).

[BusterD]

I don't have too many rotters in my collection, but I mostly have Japanese discs. Looks like there's a greater chance of having rot if it's a US or UK disc: https://www.lddb.com/laserrot.php

[dillon]

depends on the quality of the tape used as well
theres one tape i have that turned out perfect, and it was missing the front plate . My VCR isn't top of the line either it's 2000 or so Panasonic Omnivision.
another tape i had to do about 15 replays just to patch out some end credit music.

[Bilbofett]

I own an S-VHS player w/ a jog-shuttle, Super VHS out, and a built-in TBC. It defeats most dropouts and maintains the HiFi track encoded as part of the video signal (that is lost on the dropouts and back tracking).

I've been hunting for a good deal on a JVC TBC player but I'm not ready to drop that kinda cash since they are so expensive.

Also a tape can drop out of Hifi mode without tracker noise . then you have to recapture again - thats if you even notice it.

In my experience rotted LDs are far more common than people think and I run into them much more often than problematic VHS tapes. I've never had a tape drop out of hi-fi during a recording unless it was damaged to start out with.

what are you looking to spend?

[zoidberg]

It looks like there are two tiers of SVHS deck, ones with or without TBC. What difference does having inbuilt TBC make?

[Yarp]

what are you looking to spend?

I want a crazy deal. If I had a budget, I'd probably own one already, lol. I bet I can eventually snag one for under $100.

My capture card (Magewell) was fine with LDs, but when I went to VHS, depending on the tape the timing fluctuations caused rolling frames, dropped frames, etc.

I have yet to make a recording that was difficult to sync...does this make a big difference for audio only recordings? I do have a short stack of tapes I've set aside to digitize so I'll at least have to start hunting for one of those DVD recorders, that is new information to me.

[zoidberg]

I figured that was the case with the TBCs, ie the decks with TBC were more for the pro/prosumer market.
Yes the DVD recorder pass-through TBC trick has been common knowledge for quite a while. Some DVD recorders also have very advanced comb filters, much better than the ones typically included in modern flat-screens.