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I was just given a Prestige that is probably five or more years old. When I record a VHS tape that has momentary dropouts or glitches, the Prestige stops recording b/c it loses signal. Is there any way around that? Is there any sort of sensitivity adjustment or delay? I've used a couple different VCRs and the same thing happens. Thanks!

Al, welcome aboard.

The issue you describe has been around a long time. The most common way to avoid it is to use a pass-through device. Many camcorders (for instance my old Sony pd150s) allow you to input video and audio via analog (RCA) to the camera while going out via firewire into your Prestige. There is a menu setting that must be turned on in the camera to allow this. Usually cleans up the problem you are having.

Hi Bob,
Nice to be here! :>) I'll have to poke around and see if I can find some device that will work as you say. I wonder if I can record at least that scene on someone's computer and xfer it to the Prestige that way.
Thanks, Al

The most straight forward method of avoiding the lost control track signal is to run the video thru Time Base Corrector. If you are going to do much with any customer tapes, it is easy to pick one up from ebay etc. Even if there are no blank spots on the tape, the TBC stabilizes the video for a better transfer.

Al

One thing you might try if your camera wont allow for pass through, is to just re-record the old vhs tape by dubbing it over to another tape. Hopefully a Digital cam, and then download that new copy into your unit. If you have missing frames where the problem is it may look a little choppy, but it wont be breaking your footage into many tiny little scenes.

I have in the past just recorded a VHS tape with massive drop out issues, onto an SVHS blank tape, which worked fine when then played into my Solitaire. As an extra security step, you could just record black onto an SVHS tape first and then record the VHS over the blank black.

There is of course a slight potential quality loss in this transfer, but using VHS to SVHS does limit this and in my case I could not tell the difference between the two versions.

Cams in the UK do not normally have the play through facility, hence the need to do the above.

Ian

Hi Al
This works in the UK it might work elsewhere.If you have a Panasonic DVD recorder connect your VHS player / recorder to the front inputs AV3 then from the rear connections to your Prestige.

Hi Everyone,

I'm still listening! Thanks for all the suggestions. I'll evaluate them and do what I can. Keep 'em coming!

Sincerely, Al