Newbie question about VCR head cleaning

(Apologies for the multi-posting - I've had no replies at alt.video.vcr so am trying here.)

About 2 years ago I bought a Philips DVP620VR DVD player & VHS recorder combi machine. The VHS side of things has only been quite lightly used, and playback quality was always good, until about 2 months ago, when one day I went to use it and found it was playing "slow" - snow all over the video image and the sound playing back wobbly at half speed and pitch, as though the machine thought I'd given it a tape recorded in Long Play when I had not. This affected both pre-recorded tapes and stuff I recorded myself, but only when actually playing - the snow goes away when the tape is paused or ff/rw.

I bought an extended warantee, so I took it back to the shop (Richer Sounds, UK) for repair. When it came back, the paperwork said all they had done was cleaned the heads, but sure enough it was now working fine.

I then did not use it for about a month, and found after this time the problem has returned. Not wishing to cart it back to the shop unnecessarily, I tried a head cleaning tape, which helped, but the next morning the problem was back again.

Now I understand that heads need to be cleaned but this is a bit ridiculous. If I take it back to the shop again I'd imagine they'll just clean the heads again. With every other VHS machine I have used, dirty heads have caused a slow, gradual degradation of playback over time, not a sudden change from excellent to unwatchable overnight.

Does anyone have any experience with this machine? Is this a known issue with it, and does it have a fix? Or can anyone suggest anything else I might try, apart from hassling the shop and trying to get a refund / replacement model?

Thanks in advance for any help.

Reply to
Tom Cumming
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The prob could be in the pinch roller worn, glazed or dirty and needs replacing, a lot of repair shops don't replace them these days and can cause probs as the newer models use smaller dia rollers and cause more probs. Try taking it back as the tech should look at it more carefully and diagnose it better. Justy.

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Reply to
Anonymous

Ok I think you've convinced me now :) I'm going to take it in for repair again on Saturday, so we'll see what happens.

Reply to
Tom Cumming

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