[pacificvcruser]

OK, this first was encountered around December of 2007, and I had encountered this problem for the first time. During September - October time of the same year, I recorded some cartoons of my analogue television in my room, and they had the best of quality. Now, on to December of 2007. My favourite show, You've Been Framed! was on, and I wanted to record it. Now, here come the problems. When I played it back, the picture quality was not what I expected - It kept on jumping every few seconds, along with that, the audio quality went good-bad-good-bad etc. So, can anybody rectify the problem?

Thanks,

pacificvcruser

[JayCee]

A duff tape, dirty/worn video heads, dirty audio control head, worn pinch roller, a foreign body (usually a tape label), faulty capstan motor, fault in the servo control electronics, broken back-tension band...take your pick.
You haven't stated if a known good tape plays okay?

[pacificvcruser]

JayCee,

I have lots of videos including 3 television tapes - one that is 4 hours in length, with 3 programs - The 4 hour tape has 3 Sky programmes, and the You've been framed on it did not work, my second one is 3 hours in length, and has 2 programmes recorded of Analogue TV (the Sky is downstairs, but no VCR), and an other one with One programme off the Sky. They are good quality, except for the analouge programmes recorded since December 2007. Would I require to clean the Video head or to clean the Record head?

[JayCee]

Originally Posted by pacificvcruser

Would I require to clean the Video head or to clean the Record head?

Neither...if the heads were dirty all tapes played back would be poor...as it is only happening on 1 particular recording this proves that the dirt was present at the time of the recording
There is no way to improve this recording...it will stay this way forever...the tapes have a self-cleaning action and the dirt that was present at the time of recording has shifted and is no longer affecting new recordings or playback.

[pacificvcruser]

Originally Posted by JayCee

Neither...if the heads were dirty all tapes played back would be poor...as it is only happening on 1 particular recording this proves that the dirt was present at the time of the recording

The first tape with the half an hour recording off my bedroom tv is fine for nearly 1hr 30 until the analog recording that was poor quality wasting 30 mins of tape time. I tried a 2-second recording with the aerial plugged into the VCR, still bad - It's as if one half of the record/erase head is clean, and the other dirty. As I said, all of my videos and the 3 television tapes play fine - the second one was recorded off analogue, and they were fine. Is there any way to clean the Record/Erase head? Because i'm thinking a dirty Record/Erase head makes it not record properly.

[JayCee]

Let's get a few misconceptions out of the way...you're recording the signal off the aerial...not the TV...the TV doesn't even need to be switched on at the recording stage...the TV is only there to monitor the signal during recording and playback.
If the source signal is poor the recording will be poor...do you have a good analogue signal.
There isn't a record/erase head.
You can buy a video tape head cleaning tape and run that through the machine.

[pacificvcruser]

Thanks for the info, How can I connect my VCR to my TV with a 75Ω coaxial aerial cable? I would like to experiment by plugging in my PC which is plugged into the TV, into the VCR.

[pacificvcruser]

Originally Posted by JayCee

If the source signal is poor the recording will be poor...do you have a good analogue signal.

Well, I am using an inside aerial (on top of tv)

[JayCee]

With respect...you haven't answered my question.

[pacificvcruser]

Sorry JayCee,

As you said about good signal, there is a good picture on the TV, but I may be getting low signal, as the aerial is one of those little indoor aerials that sits on top of my TV. Maybe that is the source of poor recording. As I did say, I am sorry about not answering question.