[wazoo2u]

Originally Posted by Five

HiFi VCR (stereo rca outs) > soundcard

plese explain this "longitudinal" business

I've seen it with cassettes but the stripe is fainter, as ffooky says.

Generally, if the frequency response looks like FM and there's a fat bright red stipe at 15.5kHz, the source is probably TV. This should all be in the lineage, anyways!

Without getting too involved, VHS (and Beta) Hi Fi recorders utilize both multiplex and traditional methods for recording audio. The "HiFi" signal is an FM modulated signal that's buried within the video signal (a longer tech explanation doesn't help here). The normal audio channels are recorded along the edge of the cassette tape (longitudinally) just like an audio cassette or reel to reel analog tape deck. The difference is that because the HiFi audio is tied to the video, you can't insert edit new video without losing that "tied" audio. The longitudinal tracks remain untouched.

The reason I'm asking is to see if the source audio error could be caused by a misaligned analog tape deck. The frequencies I see displayed in Spectral view don't match up to known pilot or scan frequencies. They're close, but they're not close enough to be considered deviations of those known freq's.