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submitted 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) by akunohana@piefed.blahaj.zone to c/techsupport@lemmy.world

Edit4: there seems to be a correlation between whether the VCR's timer is counting (meaning it's able to read data on the tape) and whether there is any visual noise.
f5V3eBzyO44TpGL.gif

Edit3: I cleaned the whole pathway that the tape travels within the VCR, to no avail, but I experimented with extremely lightly giving the "tension arm" (it's called something else for Walkmans...) a little more tensions, and lo and behold, at the very least it influenced the duration of each individual noise occurrence. Push to hard and the noise in the attached video above disappears, but then other artifacts are introduced. On another Sharp VCR that I had, rest in peace, you could actually adjust the tension belt by hooking it further "back", giving it more tension, but not on this LG. Here is the part in talking about:
6mIXXa4oy9BsUAU.png

18wBK7Pex9gi9Zl.png

Edit2: As stated by @voodoo3dfx@retrolemmy.com the creases on the tape seem to be a huge contributing factor. Interestingly, the noise seems to temporarily improve if I manually, with my fingers, spin the two wheels/gears in opposite directions to give the tape a bit more tension. It soon degrades again though.

Edit: The VCR is an LG RC185 and the make of the tape is unknown. The underside of the tape lid say P-55. Also, I noticed these fairly evenly distributed physical lines/indentations on the tape: DYoaTINnGIww6qg.gif

This phenomenon, in which noise appears at the top, slowly travels downwards and disappears at the bottom happened all through the tape, from start to end, at quite regular intervals, perhaps every ten seconds.

I have cleaned the read/write head of the VCR, which already looked fine regardless. By clean I mean shiny, because I'm a layperson...

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[-] akunohana@piefed.blahaj.zone 2 points 2 weeks ago

Interestingly, the noise seems to temporarily improve if I manually, with my fingers, spin the two wheels/gears in opposite directions to give the tape a bit more tension. It soon degrades again though.

this post was submitted on 25 Oct 2026
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