In article ,
crazy chicken wrote:
I am having the exact same problem. What is broken, the VCR or VHS that is making it B&W. Is everything B&W
because my VHS tapes are too old and have eroded? I have tapes since 1990, so do they still work 30 years
later? Is there no solution to this problem? I am trying to get my tapes to digital, and I need to solve this
problem.

https://www.broadcaststore.com/pdf/m...20-%204802.pdf
has some useful information about how VHS color recording works,
although the details of the testing procedure it suggests won't help
you all that much.

With tapes in good condition, and a VCR in good condition and
alignment, color playback should work OK. It's unlikely that several
different tapes would have degraded in the same way, so the fault is
more probably with the VCR.

VHS can lose color because of dirty or bad playback heads in the drum,
or because of a fault in the color-conversion circuits (VHS stores the
color information in a different frequency band than is used by NTSC
video). A failed 3.68 MHz color-reference oscillator would be one
such possible fault, and I'm sure there are plenty of others.

Sure, there's a solution: try a different VCR, preferably one which is
in known-good condition.

Your existing VCR might be repairable; it might need something as
simple as a good professional cleaning (and I don't mean a "cleaning
tape", I mean a by-hand cleaning by a technician who knows how to do
it properly and who won't damage the heads) or it might need circuitry
repairs. Old VHS players are common enough that simply buying a
(used) replacement is likely to be cheaper than a repair.

Another possibility - if you have hooked your VCR up to a TV/monitor
using an S-video cable, try a different cable. S-Video sends the
luminance (brightness) signal on one wire, and the chroma (color)
signal on another wire. A broken wire or pin could cut off the chroma
and leave you seeing black-and-white. See if the problem is still
there if you use a composite-video cable (RCA plug/jack, usually
yellow) rather than S-Video.

If you're trying to video-capture onto a PC, you might have a problem
with your video-capture card.