# VHS

Tape · SP/LP/EP

A VHS deck reads the picture off a slanted track of tape with spinning heads, and keeps the color at a fraction of the detail. VHS plays your picture back off a tape that has been around, with the bleed, the noise and the deck's own buttons.

## Controls

### Deck

- **Speed** (Select: SP / LP / EP). The tape speed. **SP** is the best picture. **LP** and **EP** fit more on the tape and play softer, noisier and shakier.
- **On-screen** (Select: Off / Play / Date / Both). What the deck shows on screen. **Play** shows PLAY for the first seconds of each loop. **Date** burns in a camcorder date and time, and you can set your own in the field beside it. **Both** shows both. Pause, Rewind, Eject and Tracking show their own labels unless On-screen is Off.

### Tape

- **Age** (hero knob, 0 to 100, rests at 35). The hero. How old the tape is. The picture loses its fine detail and smears sideways.
- **Tracking** (Fader, -100 to +100, rests at 0). The tracking knob. Off center, a band of noise tears across the picture and rolls through it, and a TRACKING bar comes up. Back at zero it clears.
- **Wrinkle** (Knob, 0 to 100, rests at 0). A creased stretch of tape crawls down the picture, wavy and bright.
- **Dropouts** (Knob, 0 to 100, rests at 15). Short white streaks where the tape has lost its coating.
- **Stretch** (Knob, 0 to 100, rests at 0). The picture sways and warbles, like tape that has been stretched.

### Color

- **Color bleed** (Knob, 0 to 100, rests at 50). Color smears sideways past the edges.
- **Color delay** (Knob, 0 to 100, rests at 30). The color slides off to the right of what it belongs to.
- **Saturation** (Fader, -100 to +100, rests at 0). The color, from faded to hot.
- **Color noise** (Knob, 0 to 100, rests at 30). Blotchy streaks of color noise along the lines.
- **Edge ring** (Knob, 0 to 100, rests at 35). A bright outline beside edges, the deck's sharpening overdone.

### Signal

- **Head switch** (Knob, 0 to 100, rests at 50). The ragged strip of noise at the bottom of the frame, where the heads switch.
- **Snow** (Knob, 0 to 100, rests at 20). Static over the whole picture.
- **Jitter** (Knob, 0 to 100, rests at 20). Each line shifts sideways a little, so edges shiver.

### Buttons

- **Eject** (Pulse button). Press it and the screen drops to deck blue with EJECT, then the picture comes back.
- **Pause** (Switch: Off / On). Holds the frame you switched it on. The still shakes, with a bar of noise near the bottom.
- **Rewind** (Switch: Off / On). The picture races through the frame in torn bands, its color drained, with REW on screen.

## Presets

- **Rental Tape**: A much-rented copy: soft, bleeding color, the odd dropout, a busy head switch.
- **Camcorder 96**: Home video with the date burned in the corner.
- **Worn EP**: Six hours on one tape, played too many times.
- **Tracking Lost**: The heads drifting off the track: rolling noise bars.
- **Crease**: A wrinkled stretch of tape crawling down the picture.
- **Paused**: The frame on hold, shaking, with a noise bar.