Posted by David McCall on 04/25/06 00:02

"ovalking" <ovalking@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:e2je3m$k60$1@news.e7even.com...
> >is coming out mono from VCR 2
>
> When I play some tapes in a Panasonic NVM10 camcorder, I have to adjust
> the tracking to get stereo. Don't know if you've tried this.
>
>>Early model Mitsubishi SVHS (consumer models) VCRs had linear stereo.
>
> I'd be interested to know if this includes the M1000 and the earlier B(?)
> (it's in the loft) which I have.
>
I came in late here, so this might be redundant.

Sound was handled several different ways on different machines.

There were 2 kinds of audio tracks.

There was a linear track that was recorded in the same way
as a typical audio cassette. Simple magnetic heads recording
a linear track along the edge of the tape. It started as mono,
but later professional machines got stereo, and even later
consumers got it in some machines. Being that it was linear,
and the speed of the tape was rather slow, the frequency
response wasn't that great nor were the noise figures.

There was also what was called stereo "Hi-Fi" audio. This
was recorded by embedding the audio in with the video.
the audio quality was much better than the linear track,
especially since most VHS decks had been mono up to
that point. IIRC many, perhaps most, of the consumer machines
that were built with the "Hi-Fi" feature, still had mono linear tracks.

Because the "Hi-Fi" was embedded in the video, you couldn't
alter it without altering the video at the same time. However
the linear audio could be edited separate from the video.

Many decks had switches or menu items to allow you to choose
which tracks you wanted to listen to. Even if the tape was "stereo"
the linear track might have been mono. If you were listening to
the linear track you would then hear mono, but if you switched to
the "Hi-Fi" tracks, then you would get stereo.

Of course there could be other issues. If adjusting tracking
affected the sound, then you would be listening to the "Hi-Fi"
audio track.

David

[Back to original message]