TBC - Choosing between 2 budget models?

[ChrisNeedham]

Hi, I've read around the site and the sticky about Time Base Correctors and have decided this is what I probably need to buy.

I want to tranfer vhs from an average domestic Nicam Sony through a Miglia Directors Cut onto a G4 Power Book running iMovie. Most of the vhs I want to save is quite old and is causing dropped frames (I've checked it isn't the Miglia/Mac/iMovie etc as it records fine from cable tv). I'm not hugely bothered about the vhs looking great, I just want to stop some of the breaking up and subsequent dropped frames, hopefully with the use of a TBC. I don't really want to spend beyond £200 if I can help it.

I live in the UK and have seen 2 relatively affordable ones that match my needs:

1. CTB-100 (made by Lektropacks?)

http://www.lektropacks.co.uk/product/technical.asp?dept%5Fid=60&sku=601

I've seen this as cheap as £179, which is in my budget. Would it be any good at this price? Has anyone used one?

2. Datavideo TBC-1000

http://www.datavideo.info/products/tbc_1000_main_page.htm

I've heard this mentioned frequently on the site so I assume it is a good TBC. However it is a hundred pounds more than the above model (£279). I'd be prepared to save up the extra if it was going to make a huge difference but don't want to spend more if the other model is going to be fine for my needs.

This is my first post, so I hope I've explained myself properly and not covered too much old ground.

Any advice would be great.

Thanks

[upshot]

Also check out e-bay... I got a commercial grade TBC for under $200(usd).

[ChrisNeedham]

Thanks for you reply.

I've been keeping an eye on ebay but most of the pro TBC items at the moment seem to be quite old and "sold as seen", plus I don't know enough about them to know if they'd be compatible with my domestic gear. Ideally I'd prefer to buy something fairly simple that I knew was in working order. I'll keep checking though.

[upshot]

I don't think there has been leaps and bounds in TBC technology... Just because it's old does not mean it's useless. The one I got was a 'prime image' and after calling the company I got a wealth of information(users manual, calibration, etc.). They even sent me a switch that was going bad at no charge.

Best of luck anyway... Hopefully someone can chime in on the models your looking at...

[lordsmurf]

There have been leaps and bounds in TBC tech in the past 10 years, without a doubt.

AVT-8710 is another one for $200
DataVideo TBC-1000 is about $300

That UK pricing is ridiculous, totally unreasonable.

[ChrisNeedham]

Hi, thanks for your reply.

Yeah, you're right about UK prices. Everything is overpriced in the UK.

From a quick google search the AVT-8710 you mention appears to be identical to the CTB-100 I found on the net:

http://www.citysouthelectronics.com.au/CTB100large.jpg

http://www.avtoolbox.com/images/avt-8710-top.gif

In which case, do you think that one is worth getting? How would the Data Video TBC-1000 perform differently/better?

Thanks for your help

[gshelley61]

The AVT-8710/CTB-100 has a basic proc amp and image sharpener in addition to the TBC. This will allow you to adjust color, black level, etc.

People on the site who have this unit generally speak highly of them. The Datavideo TBC-1000 also has a good reputation.

When it come to the used pro units, you really need to know what you are looking at. Some require external sync to operate properly.

[ChrisNeedham]

Very tempted to try out the CTB-100 then, will and try and find a place that will take it back if it doesn't do what I want it to.

Thanks for the tip on used pro gear, I suspected there would be hidden complications with them which I really can't be bothered with.

[steveryan]

Chris, out of interest where did you find the CTB-100 for £179?

[ChrisNeedham]

Hi, heres the link

http://www.threedoubleyou.com/tbc.htm

[steveryan]

Thanks for that, let us know how you get on with it.

[mpack]

I wish I could get a good look at that CTB-100 thing. It looks suspiciously like a TBC-100 (which is what I have) but in an external box. Is that what it is?

If so, then it must surely be possible to get the TBC-100 itself cheaper, without the additional case and power supply?

[mpack]

Forget what I said. I just followed the link and got a closer read of the spec for the CTB-100. It can't be the same device.

[underwurlde]

That UK pricing is ridiculous, totally unreasonable.

No change there then. Just like every bloody thing else in this poxy country!

[gshelley61]

The CTB-100 is the AVT-8710 for markets outside of North America.

[ChrisNeedham]

I'm still deliberating about buying one. I just need to be sure it is going to solve my dropped frame/capture problems. I don't expect it to work miracles but don't want to spend £200 on something useless.

[mpack]

I'm still deliberating about buying one. I just need to be sure it is going to solve my dropped frame/capture problems. I don't expect it to work miracles but don't want to spend £200 on something useless.

I bought my TBC-100 from Keene Electronics in the UK. It seems to be offered at the same price as the CTB-100 you are looking at. I can't comment on how well the CTB-100 works, but the TBC-100 has done the job perfectly for me (ie. I was dropping lots of frames on older tapes, and the TBC fixed that).

The TBC-100 is purely and simply a TBC - it doesn't have the video adjustment features of the CTB-100. That having been said, I personally have no use for colour correction etc on my TBC - I prefer my capture to match the source as closely as possible, and do any filtering etc on the PC. In other words I don't like to start from a tainted original.

[gshelley61]

I don't like to start from a tainted original.

Adjusting the black level, luma, hue and color saturation (and even mild sharpening and/or noise reduction) is not "tainting" the original. The fact is, with every machine that something is recorded or played back on, with every video source... there is a large degree of image variation, even with sources like laserdiscs (you would think they would have all been mastered to a very strict standard). For transferring a video source to DVD for the purpose of watching it later on your TV (and not strictly for archival purposes) it is perfectly acceptable, in fact preferable, to make these corrections prior to capture and encoding. I use video hardware processing to do this in real time, rather than capture to AVI first and then filter and encode.

For archival projects, you are correct. The video transfer should be done with no alteration whatsoever. Plus, you wouldn't archive to DVD (MPEG2) anyway. An uncompresssed digital storage format would be used.

[mpack]

I don't like to start from a tainted original.

Adjusting the black level, luma, hue and color saturation (and even mild sharpening and/or noise reduction) is not "tainting" the original.

Well, I admit that this is a gut prejudice, but I don't agree. The VCR outputs a certain signal at certain volatages. Run it through an external video processor and that signal is modified. Run it through your capture card and it gets modified again. Leave aside cable losses etc, that is at least one too many deliberate modifications in my book. If I'm going to start on a restoration project the first thing I do is create a digital master as close (in fidelity) to the source as possible - that way I can only make things better, not worse. If my master is already modified then I can never return to the true starting point.

However, in truth I really wouldn't get too worked up about preserving exact color, brightness etc - those are linear operations, easily corrected. My venom would mostly be reserved for external processors which sharpen or blur the signal.

Plus, you wouldn't archive to DVD (MPEG2) anyway. An uncompressed digital storage format would be used.

There's nothing wrong with compression, as long as it's lossless. I capture to a Huffyuv compressed AVI.

[lordsmurf]

Once you go digital ALL HOPE ... repeat ALL HOPE... at correcting color/etc is lost. Do it at the analog level BEFORE it hits digital. This is a cardinal rule of both restoration and transfer. You have LIMITED options after the digital transfer has happened. That is why proc amps, TBCs, detailers, etc are so important for a high quality transfer.

"Faithful" transfers are meaningless if you're just transferring flaws created after the ORIGINAL SOURCE, which is what tv, NTSC color specs, VHS, etc., ALL DO to the video.

Unless you own the ORIGINAL SOURCE (film from the studio, your homebrew VHS tape, etc), then faithful transfer is impossible. And that's already ignoring flawed source (VHS home movies suck from the moment the head hit the tape @ recording time).

There is really no such thing as "lossless" compression. Something is sacrificed at some point in time to achieve the compression. "As good as" and "it is" are exclusive terms, though too many people think otherwise.

[rkgibbons]

I don't normally disagree with you Smurf Guru, but actually, there are plenty of lossless compression formats -- they do exist...and they ARE completely lossless.

Apart from the obvious non-video related example of ZIP archives (where the files are compressed and later decompressed back to the exact copies of their originals)...there are lots of lossless video formats as well.

If a video still contains a string of pixels that are identical, or that are related to each other in a mathematical way (for instance, if 15 consecutive pixels are all the same exact hue of red, or if 15 consecutive pixels are each 10% brighter than the pixel before them) this string of pixels can be represented with a formula...which takes up considerably less space than listing out the values for all 15 pixels. When decompressing the video still, it's entirely possible to reproduce the exact original frame by reversing the formulas.

[gshelley61]

Even professional video archivists use TBC's and other processors to stabilize vintage analog videotape sources and to keep the signals within proper broadcast standards. In the case of tapes that are old, in poor condition or that are multi-generational, simply going from the VCR to the capturing device may result in dropped frames, sync timing image flaws (like crooked vertical lines, for example), and video signals outside the established standards (which can cause problems for some displays and equipment).

BTW, there are several uncompressed digital recording formats... D-1, D-2, etc. Here's a pretty good summary of all but the most recent analog and digital video formats:

http://www.hut.fi/~iisakkil/videoformats.html

[rkgibbons]

Uncompressed and lossless compression are two different beasts -- but have the same result visually (with one, potentially, occupying considerably less disk space than the other).

[mpack]

There is really no such thing as "lossless" compression. Something is sacrificed at some point in time to achieve the compression.

Eh !! ????

Smurf - here for your consideration is a 6 x 1 grayscale image (the numbers are grayscale pixel values) :-

23 23 23 23 23 23

Since all the pixel values are the same they benefit greatly from a simple run length encoding, eg. :-

6 23

That simple encoding has reduced the image from 6 bytes down to 2, in other words I got a compression ratio of 3 to 1.

Run those two bytes through the decoder at the receive end and you get the following reconstructed image :-

23 23 23 23 23 23

which is identical to the original image. Ie. I got compression, and it was lossless.

Now, tell me again about how lossless compression doesn't exist?

Run length encoding is just the simplest algorithm to describe: many other algorithms exist, in particular (restricting myself to the image compression field) Huffman (and other forms of prefix coding), Arithmetic coding, LZW (ie. dictionary coding, as inappropriately used in GIF), quadtree coding (and other multiresolution methods). Etc etc etc etc.

Some of these methods have been well known since the 1950s. You can find them described in any good book on the subject. To hear someone claim that none of them even exist is... somewhat surprising, to say the least.