Wondering about getting a standalone recorder

[uriel23]

I'm now wondering about getting a standalone recorder. I've had a Canopus ADVC-100 for about 4 years. I have it hooked up to the sky box via JVC S-vhs S-Video deck. Picture quality has always been ok on the tv but never really been happy with encoding and play back on same tv.

I use Scenalyser live to capture, premiere pro to edit then frame serve to TmpgEnc Plus where I just encode video stream audio is exported seperately from premiere and converted to AC3 during Tmpg Author.

I've alway used the VBR two pass setting as did a lot of reading back in the day. Tried many settings as described in the forums for tmpgenc. used to use min 2000 average 7000 and max 8000 usually try to fit around 1hr 22 mins. About a year ago was trying to sort this out again and saw a link to a chart and changed my min setting to 5800. experimented with average 6400 etc, have always used the calculator. But never really been happy killing off the avi files, but had to. I've run the files throught Gspot and can see the sky bitrates differ from channel to channel. E4 show went out at 15880 k, BBC One show 28883 k. The thing is my sister recorded the same show on her dvd recorder and the pictures look like it was being streamed live, where mine look pixely. I trained in video and film years ago since gone into props working on Torchwood, I evolved through the costly Beta SP and then Digi Beta machines we used to use thinking wouldn't it be great to be able to have one at home for recording, it would be as if live play back.

Can anyone help or should I just give in and go for the fixed bitrate machine?

Cheers,

Justin

[redwudz]

Please don't dredge up old topics to post in, just create a new topic. I've split off your topic with a new title. Thanks.

[uriel23]

Sorry, after reading other moderator comments on here over the years and elsewhere I didn't want to be accused of not looking for the info which is already on here, I looked damn hard for the answers. Plus I thought I was amoung the right people to answer my question, after reading all of their posts. This I find so frustrating with forums hundreds of people starting they're own topics about the same thing. Its like looking for a needle in a haystack, because so many and never the answer your looking for. In future I will start a new topic, cheers for moving hopefully someone may look into that forum, its just the title speaks nothing about my question and since its been moved I think the title is now out of context.

Thanks Anyway

[lordsmurf]

I saw your post, I know the context.

I suggest going with a Toshiba XS34 or XS35 machine. Best Buy has them in some locations. The Toshiba lets you tinker with bitrates and has good image quality. This model also has a hard drive.

If you're doing mostly VHS conversions, I suggest the JVC DR-M100S, found refurbished in several places online. I use one of these, two of them actually (if you include the DRM10 too). They filter video and provide an extremely clean image without adding new flaws.

These options may look even better than your Canopus setup, depends on source.

Good luck.

[davideck]

Did you see this thread;
https://forum.videohelp.com/viewtopic.php?t=323110

[uriel23]

Thanks guys, sorry haven't replied sooner had a lot of work on casting faces and stuff.

Had a little look at the Toshiba range, we don't seem to have the models you mention in the uk, slightly different numbers which are different machines when I checked. Also saw the HD version.

I thought I'd give the canopus one last try before it gets ditched and found some interesting stuff which has turned me into the blind man from Life of Brian, My eyes are weak.

Here are the findings from the united kingdom(gone all eurovision) and what I've emailed to canopus. Not holding my breath though. Maybe someone here can help.

Hi,

I’m slowly loosing hair over this one lol getting very tired looking through forums and not getting an answer.

Here’s some background. I have been using the canopus advc 100 for a few years now. I use scenalyser live to capture, premiere pro to edit then export to Tmpegenc 2.5 plus via the videotools.net frameserve plugin.

I have never really been happy with the finished dvd as always looks pixely with lines. My sister recently bought a standalone hard disk and dvd recorder. The quality I thought was great and has made me think why am I bothering with capture devices. I bought the canopus as thought it would be superior to on the fly recording.

I recently found a forum where someone talks about a chroma bug using the canopus codec and says how it can be fixed through Avisynth. There are screen grabs which look very similar to what I am seeing on my outputted mpeg2 dvd files.

Here is the link and copied selection below:

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=33526&pp=20

this is the part we are looking at which shows pics

Canopus DV Codec V1.00

This codec uses the FourCC "cdvc", so before the system will use it you have to change the FourCC of the AVI file with a tool like AviC supplied with the XviD codec (default FourCC for DV is "dvsd").
(I have now configured scenalyser live to capture using canopus fourcc cdvc and changed old avi headers with AviC)
Out of all DV codecs, the Canopus decoder does not seem to apply any sharpening of the decoded image (which is good in my opinion). It supports YUV2 and RGB color space.

Watch out though, when the Canopus decoder performs the RGB conversion it seems to use a luminance range of 16-235 instead of 0-255 used normally for computers.

RGB: http://mywebpage.netscape.com/wlopen...anopus_RGB.png [616 KB]
YUV2: http://mywebpage.netscape.com/wlopen...nopus_YUV2.png [557 KB]

A big issue with this decoder is that it has a nasty "chroma upsampling bug". This bug exists for both YUV2 and RGB. Fortunately this bug can be fixed using AVISynth's function "FixBrokenChromaUpsampling".

RBG with bug: http://mywebpage.netscape.com/wlopen...anopus_RGB.png [717 KB]
YUV2 with bug: http://mywebpage.netscape.com/wlopen...nopus_YUV2.png [776 KB]
YUV2 fixed: http://mywebpage.netscape.com/wlopen...YUV2_fixed.png [764 KB]

Here’s some other info I’ve found, the tmpgenc environmental changes I have now applied :-

About Canopus codec, the "fog effect" comes from the YUY2->RGB conversion, as stated by ScrollLock in the sticky thread, as it uses a luminance range of 16-235 instead of 0-255.
If you frameserve from premiere, to correct the levels, you can use :
ConvertToYUY2()
ColorYuv(levels="TV->PC")
in avisynth, but it involves two or three colorspace conversions (YUY2->RGB->YUY2, + YUY2->RGB if tmpGenc).
And if you want to mpeg2 encode note that :

- When encoding a CDVC avi DV file in tmpGenc with "Output YUV data as Basic YCbCr not CCIR601" checked, or (exclusive) "Set equation for ColorSpace = CCIR-601" in the General environnemental settings, the luminance range of the resulting mpeg becomes correct (no fog).

Here’s a link to the tmpgenc environmental settings which shows the canopus box setting

http://www.afterdawn.com/guides/archive/advanced_tmpgenc_guide_page_3.cfm

Some have said its not a bug and others that this is not present in later non free versions of the canopus codec, but don’t mention which ones.

FixBrokenChromaUpsampling doesn't fix this chroma problem. You should use Reinterpolate411 here, because it reinterpolates the duplicated chroma lines (duplicated by the codec in YV12->YUY2).

The FixBrokenChromaUpsampling filter fixes a chroma problem in the MS DV codec:

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.ph...291#post693291
http://www.avisynth.org/FixBrokenChromaUpsampling

Btw, for clarity, both of these problems have nothing to do with the famous 'Chroma Upsamping Error'.

1) This is indeed an example of the famous CUE. In the YV12->YUY2 conversion point sampling is done by copying chroma from the other field, which results in the CUE. This happens with the free Canopus decoder, and more recent (non-free) versions don't seem to have this problem.


I have never used avisynth and can not see how I would put the code in to correct the luminance when I am using a video server pluging between premiere pro and tmpgenc. Also there seems to be some conflict of what should be done in Avisynth to remedy this anyway.

Hopefully there is such a codec available to avoid all this and improve the quality. Or maybe tmpgenc will now correct since I’ve changed the Tmpgenc environmental canopus settings.

Can anyone please advise. If we can sort this maybe it could then be moved to help others who walk in the sandy footprints of the canopus codec "He is the Messiah" Thanks Mod!

[uriel23]

GOD HAS ANSWERED, well Canopus really.

Let me just say I dissed them in my last mail not expecting a reply. The truth of the matter is they have been absolutely fantastic. They thanked me for doing all the exhaustive research from different sources on the web, They were trying to get hold of me at different numbers, but I have been out of the office etc. They wanted to talk personally as thought I was owed more than emails, so we could look into it further.

Here's the bottom line and how my ADVC100 was cured.

The new ADVC110 the white version had an upgrade to the firmware i was told to rectify the colour problem. I sent them proof of purchase etc and they sent me an RMA number. Boxed it up and off it went to Canopus. Today Good Friday, one week on and it arrived back safe.

Fault found - Hardware has been flashed successfully.

Captured some vid, and made a two minute test on DVD using tmpgenc. Put it in the Standalone machine.

Play - OH MY GOD YES YES YES what a difference!

Gone is the pixelated screen, when I paused previously I used to get lines all over the screen bleeding from colour as in the screen shots of the fantastic person who illustrated these interpolation lines. The frame would also be blured and play back just fuzzy.

Now its proper I tell thee. Pause it now fantastic good quality still image and playback very good!

Can't believe it I've had this since 2003 and in those years I'm gutted that I'd recorded and burnt so with the idea to keep and obviously deleted the original AVI's.

My second drive is full of stuff from the last couple of months.

Just need to learn how to use Avisynth now to correct them manually.

Hope this helps guys. I will post a link elsewhere to this thread

Uriel