u/_Will1405_

▲ 3 r/VCRs+1 crossposts

My VCR is adding horizontal artifacts and I can't get rid of them

How it should look

How it looks now

I started getting the strange artifacts as shown in the second video so I very carefully cleaned the video heads with 99.9% IPA and chamois swabs. Lots of dirt came off so I was confident that this was the problem and after a while of trial and error it fixed it. I, regretfully, decided to give it one last clean before I put it back together and the artifacts came back exactly as before.

It is definitely not the tape as I had the same result on other tapes, and it is definitely not the tracking either.

Does anyone know what could cause this and how to fix it?

Thanks!

EDIT: I've just discovered that switching to 'Player' instead of 'Passive' on the Edit Mode removes the artifacts, but the colour is not as good. I've been on Passive mode for a while so I know that the issue wasn't always there.

reddit.com
u/_Will1405_ — 2 days ago