Some vids have "tracking problems" at the top of the screen??

[jaymanchu]

I've noticed that some of my videos that I've tried to capture have tracking problems at the top of the screen. At first I thought it was my VCRs but that wasn't it. Then I thought it was the tape speed and that wasn't it. Does anyone know what might be causing this and how to fix this. These are home recordings and not "macrovision" tapes.

I have an ATI all in oneder 7500 card.

Thanks,
Jay

[Kika]

That's not a bug, that's normal. All VCRs are doing things like that. Some at the Top, most at the Bottom of the Screen.
On the TV, you can't see those "broken lines", because they are in the Overscan-Area. If you are capturing the Video and watch it on the Monitor, you don't have an Overscan-Area.

[dirk67]

Hi,

you should crop away those garbage lines afterwards, because although they're invisible because of overscan, they waste bit rate.

Dirk

[jaymanchu]

I understand what you guys are saying but I don't think that's my problem. The tracking goes into the picture and sometimes it's half of the picture. It's almost like it has a double image just on the top portion of the screen.

I'll try to post a screen shot to show you what I'm talking about.

Thanks,
Jay

[Kika]

OK, This sounds far different from your first posting.
Does this heppen on any Tape or only on one (or more) specific Tapes?

VRCs are often doing this. The TV does not have problems with weak Signals, Capture-Cards do have.

[kouack]

Hello your problem with the tracking at the top comes from the spring witch adjusted the tension of the video tape onto the video head. Because all your video are not adjusted exacly the same. My suggestion would find the best compromise beteween your videos or crop just like suggested before.

[jaymanchu]

Originally posted by Kika
OK, This sounds far different from your first posting.
Does this heppen on any Tape or only on one (or more) specific Tapes?

VRCs are often doing this. The TV does not have problems with weak Signals, Capture-Cards do have.

It's only on a few tapes and it doesn't matter which vcr I use.

[Kika]

Then i guess it's the Tapes. This can happen. One solution to solve this, is a TBC or a VCR which includes a TBC (Time Base Corrector).
On TV-Cards with BT-Chipset, the BT-Tweaker for VirtualDub is a solution, but with an ATI-Card... i must pass.