Color caste in the recording process.

[timbo-wilderbeest]

Hi there,
A problem has cropped up in my video conversion of late and I’m not quite sure where the problem is coming from. Hopefully someone here can offer some advice on the matter.

I’ve been converting a number of my old video’s to DVD in recent months, all to a standard I’ve been reasonably happy with. But recently I’ve noticed a little problem creeping in, which is that I’m starting to get a pale yellow caste flickering in and out across the top portion of the image. For anyone who has seen an old color tube on its way out, the effect is fairly similar.

I initially though it may have been my VCR and swapped it with another unit, but the problem remained visible on my computer system. It can’t be the monitor, for two reasons. Firstly, it appears perfect with everything else I do on a day to day basis, and secondly the yellow band appears on the finished DVD when I play it. That would hardly be the monitor’s fault. The fault lies somewhere in the recording process.

The only other thing I can think of is that something is affecting the capture card, that or it’s on its way out.

Has anyone else had a similar experience they can relate? If it’s just the card that’s at fault than fine, I can replace it with something else, but I don’t want to simply toss out the existing one if it’s not to blame for the problem.

Thanks in advance.


ASUS P4P800-E deluxe Mobo
Intel Pentium 4 3.0E Prestcott
Zalman CNPS7000B-Cu
Seagate Barracuda 80GB 7200 SATA 150
Radeon 9600 126MB DDR AGP
Kingston DDR 400 SDRAM (PC3200) (1GB)
Creative Soundblaster Audigy 2 ZS
MSI TV@nywhere capture card
Optorite DVD burner
Thermaltake Purepower W0009R ATX 420 Watt
Maxtor Ultra 200GB 7200 ATA 133

[lordsmurf]

Copy protection.
Chroma errors.
Timing errors.

A good S-VHS VCR and good TBC would go a long way.

[timbo-wilderbeest]

Hi there,
I think you missed the point. Results for a considerable number of tapes have been fine over the last 12 months or so. The VCR being used was high end, and as already pointed out, the switch to another unit proved that it wasn't the VCR at fault anyway for the recent problem that has cropped up. Obviously I could throw the best VCR available into the fray and it wouldn't do a thing to correct the problem.

The question was whether the capture card - which has performed admirably for all this time - may be on its way out and in need of replacement, thus explaining the yellow caste that has recently appeared. If anyone else has had a similar experience that could verify this point I'd most certainly appreciate it.

Thanks

[lordsmurf]

What happens when you try to capture the same tapes that were fine in the past?

[marenka]

I'm having a similar problem capturing from my VCR to a KWorld DVD Maker PCI card. I get intermittent color distortion across the top of the video image. I was going to try with another VCR, but your post is making me wonder if that will work. Below is a particularly bad sample. Does anyone know what's going on here?