Audio problem during VHS playback on Samsung DVD-VR355

BrianD3

I have a Samsung DVD-VR355 DVD recorder/video combo machine. I am using this to transfer VHS recordings to DVD.

Problem i'm having is during video playback I'm getting sound going from stereo to mono at irregular intervals, It is very noticable and annoying. When the change in sound happens a message will appear saying Audio LR or L,R, Mix, Mono. The only way I've found to stop the changes in sound is to set the audio to Mono.

These tapes were recorded using a Philips Nicam Video recorder and a Chorus analogue signal. Now I was under the impression that Chorus analogue was mono?

When I would record and playback video on the old Philips machine I never noticed any problems with audio but TBH I couldn't say whether it was stereo or mono because it was always the same and no messages would come up.

Can anyone suggest what is happening here. Are my recordings Mono, Stereo or a mix of both? Is there an incompatibility between the old recordings and the new machine? Is the new machine faulty?

I don't think tape degradation is an issue here as all recordings on many tapes are affected and many of them are less than a year old.

zilog_jones

There's two types of audio recording on a VHS tape:
- A mono linear track, which is the only option on cheaper/older VCRs. Worse than audio cassette sound quality.
- A "Hi-Fi" helical scan track (inbetween the video tracks). This is potentially near-CD quality. It can be stereo but doesn't necessarily need to be. Hi-Fi VCRs will record this and the linear track at the same time.

"NICAM" is a digital system and cannot be recorded on VHS tapes (not to any known standard anyway). The VCR will decode the NICAM signal and record the analogue output to the tape.

You are almost correct thinking that chorus analogue was mono - the Irish terrestrial channels retained NICAM stereo (they do in Limerick anyway).

But the VCR can still record mono audio as Hi-Fi audio, and benefit from the much higher quality system.

I've only experienced what you're describing on really old knackered tapes from the '80s (commercially released tapes have had hi-fi audio for ages), with switching between linear mono and Hi-Fi audio coinciding with video noise and drop-outs.

I'd say either the head alignment is out on one of your VCRs, making the hi-fi tracks incompatible, or there's something just broken with your new VCR.

Have you tried the tapes on another Hi-Fi VCR, or tried a pre-recorded tape on the Samsung one? If you're getting the same problems with real factory-recorded tapes, or tapes recorded from another VCR, then the problem lies with the Samsung VCR.

BrianD3

Bingo Thanks for the explanations and ideas zilog, you were right. I've just tried a commercial tape (the film "Go" from 1999) in both machines

new Samsung machine - stereo is dropping in and out during VHS playback. It may go several minutes without a dropout but they are definitely there

old Philips machine - no dropouts.

So it seems like there is a problem with the new machine. I wil bring it back and see if I can get it fixed/replaced.

Bit of a balls - the whole reason for buying a DVD recorder/video combo machine was to facilitate transfer of tapes to DVD - not much use if the video part is faulty.

When I hook up the old video to the combo machine and record onto DVD I'm getting good results. So I should have just stuck with the old video and bought a DVD recorder rather than a DVD recorder/VHS.

PS I also have some tapes recorded on a JVC video recorder bought in 1991. No dropouts when playing back these tapes on the Samsung, I guess this is because this old machine was only recording a mono linear track

zilog_jones

BrianD3 wrote: »

PS I also have some tapes recorded on a JVC video recorder bought in 1991. No dropouts when playing back these tapes on the Samsung, I guess this is because this old machine was only recording a mono linear track

You're probably right - VCRs with hi-fi sound back then would have been quite expensive (mainly because they require extra heads), so they weren't very common.