Laser Disc to VHS to DVD

[Clevo]

I hope this is general enough for this forum... it's a cut and Paste from a question I posed on another forum but I thought I would run it here for a wider audience:

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Greetings all,

I'm hoping someone could give me some advice.

First my set up:

a LG VHS player model # GC990W: it can playback SP, LP PAL & NTSC.

The VHS is connected via composite cables to a Kaiser Baas Hybrid USB TV dongle which came with Cyberlink Power Cinema software. Which works fine.

I normally have no problem capturing VHS analogue signals

The Problem:

I've been lent a stack of VHS' which have been used to record stacks of Karaoke songs which were originally on Laser Disc. I know the Laser Disc video format isn't in a normal format but the owner of the VHS videos swears he's used them before when he had a VHS player. Though he later told me he recorded them in LP (I'm highlighting this as I think this is where the problem is).

I've tried capturing using a few different software (Windows Media Centre, WMM, Cyberlink power Ciname, Nero & Corel Video Studio) they all give me the same result. Clear sound but no picture. Let me clarify the picture a bit...it looks like it can't track properly but when I cue forward I can almost see the karaoke text with the cheesy video but it's all garbled (like trying to look at NTSC in a PAL only set-up). When I press play the screen goes blue like it's not getting a signal or it's very garbled)

The odd thing is when the recorded Kareoke stuff finishes I get a clear picture of what was recorded earlier on the VHS tapes. A good clear image...so I know there are no loose cables and everything works as it should... but for some reason the recorded Kareoke stuff doesn't.

I suspect the Laser Disc was connected to a standard CRT TV and the VHS player recorded what was on the screen. These dubs were done about 10 years ago and the owner would like them on DVD.

I'm scratching my head on this one but it's possible I am missing something.... perhaps you can help

[skier-hughes]

As you say, when the karaoke finishes it plays and captures fine I'm with you, in that it may be the long play that is the problem.

It doesn't matter what the original format was, it is now a VHS tape.
If it were me trying to do it, which I often am I'd just keep trying different players until I found one which would play it back ok, or ask the client if he still has his vhs player that recorded it, or at least maybe tell you which make it was, then look for one of these.
Whichever way this is not going to be profitable on time, so you may be best to just say no now, before you waste more time!!!!

The other option is that it is maybe an s-video recording and you need an s-vhs player to play it back properly.

[Black Lab]

I'm scratching my head as to why someone would want 10 year old karaoke songs.

[sjj1805]

I............ Though he later told me he recorded them in LP (I'm highlighting this as I think this is where the problem is.......

It has been a number of years now since I converted my VHS tapes to DVD but I do recall that those in long play were more difficult to work with. I formed the opinion that tapes must have a bit rate or something equivalent, and that bit rate is low in long play mode thus leading to a weaker signal for your computers software to detect the video.
Here is one of my posts from 2 years ago

[skier-hughes]

I don't think there is a change in bitrate, merely a change in speed of the tape moving. Different makes of vhs player used different speeds for long play, which meant differing players had trouble in reading the info correctly.