stern@tilt.FUN (01/20/86)
[] I have been experiencing a bizarre problem with my vcr and I thought I'd ask the net viddies for their help: I have a 4-month old RCA Selectavision VCR, and a 19" Panasonic Color TV. For a while, I had the VCR sitting next to the TV and I got beautiful recordings and playbacks. Then I got yuppie and bought some new furniture, and moved the VCR *under* the TV set, reconnected it, and I noticed that I was getting all kinds of interference-type patterns during playback. Specifically: when playing back 2-hour tapes, I get a vertical streak along the left side of the picture, a few inches from the edge of the picture. The streak looks like a whole bunch of broken lines stacked up, as if the sync information went nutso at this point in the trace and made the picture jump. When playing back 4-hour tapes, they play back in black and white only. I did a little experimenting -- I found that tapes I *recorded* play back fine on other people's VCRs, so it must be a playback problem. I thought it might be a problem with the el-cheapo cables the cable company supplied, so I bought some high-grade cables and still had problems. I didn't think to try moving the VCR and then playing back a tape, so I took it in for service. Nothing wrong, said the RCA Service Center, but they cleaned it and tuned it anyway since they got me for $65. When I got home, I put the VCR on a table, connected it, and had no streaks. I put the VCR under the TV again, and the streaks reappeared. I noticed that as I moved the VCR from one side of my TV stand to the other, the streaks got worse and worse, going from non-existent to unbearable. I just did a little shuffle and found another place for the VCR, but I'm wondering what could cause something like this -- it's almost certainly caused by sitting under the TV set. Could poor shielding of the magnetic elements of the set cause the interference patterns? I don't normally read Netnews, so any responses should be mailed to me electronically. If I get a great repsonse, I'll post a summary. Thanks, gang. --hal stern princeton university {ihnp4, allegra, seismo}!princeton!flakey!stern