Just realized my old VCR is way better for finding weird stuff than my new capture card
I've been digitizing a box of tapes from a thrift store in Omaha for about two months now. At first, I used my new USB capture card with a modern VCR, thinking the clean signal would be best. But all I got were the recorded shows, nothing odd. Last week, I dug out my old, beat-up VCR from 1998, the one with the tracking knob that clicks. The picture was a bit snowy, but on a tape labeled 'Family Reunion 1999', right after the main recording, there was about 30 seconds of a local news segment from a different channel, followed by what looks like someone's home video of a weird, silent puppet show in a dark room. The old machine's worn heads or something must have played back a weaker signal that my new gear just corrected away. Has anyone else found that using 'worse' equipment actually reveals more of the hidden stuff on old tapes?