Old VHS tape help

[RhinoZ]

Hey folks,
Need help from the professionals here

I've found a 20year old vhs home movie tape buried in a box at my parents place. It's watchable but barely. Lots of noise and lines on the TV and a little colour loss. The movie was filmed under ideal conditions so lighting was not a factor, so the source was pretty good. I think most of the damage is from old age. Is there a way I can make this tape a little more viewable? Anything hardware that I can run the video signal through to improve the quality.
Thanks a mint.
R

[nunchalnaomi]

Hi,
I can add my two cents. I would fast forward or play the tape untill the end and rewind. I would capture using manual tracking that gives the best picture. I would then use color correction and resaturate the avi footage. Some decks play footage differently. Try to find a good clean deck. The noise is probably where the emultion has cracked off the base. There is not much you can do with the noise and white lines. Sometimes its worth it to have even fuzzy footage on dvd.

[degrub]

If you really want to recover the video, take it to a professional service and let them handle it. Let them know that the tape is 20 yrs. Ask for references before giving them the tape. If the mag layer is really in bad shape, you want to minimize the mechanical stresses and the number of times you play the tape.

[Brian Ellis]

Obviously too expensive for a single tape, but a conversion to DV would seem to be the best idea, using a converter incorporating time base correction and selective noise filtering. One such is the Canopus ADVC-300. If you have a number of analogue tapes to do, this could be a possibility.

[Marshmallowman]

Well my 2cents is , try to play it back on a multihead vcr when you doing the cpature, eg 4 heads or 6 if you can get access to one.

The difference in qualtiy can be very pronouced. It was for my old vcr tapes anyways
(the extra heads help to minimise noise)