Restoring VHS tapes with a mix of NTSC and PAL-M encodings?

[leon43]

Hi all,

I've got a number of 15-year-old VHS tapes that I'm intending to convert to DV. Those old VHS tapes contain a mix of NTSC and PAL-M recordings from a Panasonic NV-J38 VHS VCR, and NTSC recordings from a Panasonic PV-520D VHS-HQ camera (I was unable to find out on the Internet if the output of the PV-520D is really NTSC, but I think it is, can anyone please confirm?).

I bought a Datavideo DAC 100 conversor on ebay, which accepts S-video as input, both PAL and NTSC, and outputs as DV via a firewire port to my computer.

Now, the tricky part. Since the tapes contain a mix of NTSC and PAL-M encodings, I'm not quite sure which VCR type I should use. Certainly a VCR that understands both formats would work, but I see none in the list of recommended VCRs at https://forum.videohelp.com/topic347374.html that I was planning to use when choosing a VCR, only VCRs that understand either NTSC or PAL-M.

The datavideo A/D conversor understands both NTSC and PAL. Therefore, does it really matter if the VCR is NTSC or PAL? I'm planning to plug the S-video output of the VCR to the S-video input of the datavideo conversor. Will the VCRs on that list just act as a pass-through, or will they try to decode and therefore garble the signal where the tape encoding doesn't match the VCR's?

What about DVHS boxes? I was rather inclined to buy either one of JVC HM-DH30000U, HM-DH40000U, HM-DH5U or Mitsubishi HS-HD2000U DVHS on ebay, as recommended in the list, since there seems to be here widely agreement on them as being less used and in better shape in general than the older SVHS players. Would they support a recording containing a mix of NTSC and PAL, or at least not garble the S-video signal I will be feeding to the datavideo conversor in case there's a type mismatch in the recording tape?

Anyone has any thoughts, or experience on these issues??

Thanks a lot,

Leon

[hech54]

does it really matter if the VCR is NTSC or PAL?

Absolutely....especially if you are capturing. With a normal, everyday VCR
that you can buy nowadays in Europe....you can "watch" NTSC tapes without
much problem at all....but capturing or recording to a recorder is not so easy.
Most (90% maybe?) capture cards and recorders need a genuine signal...and
many only capture ONE signal....not both.
This Datavideo DAC 100 thing might accept both NTSC and PAL....but you need
to provide it with both.

Can't you use the cameras themselves as an output(provided you still own both)?

[2Bdecided]

Does the Datavideo device really do PAL-M?

I have no idea - but most things that just say "PAL" mean PAL-BDGI, not M. Read the specs carefully.

Cheers,
David.

[Caple]

Most (or some) NTSC capture devices, like Canopus ADVC products and Hauppauge PVR (I had both) work with PAL-M video.
I never had problems.

[danno78]

Capture card with Philips cipset Saa713x + DScaler has suport for Pal M. I guess old boards ATI (All In Wonder and VIVO with Rage Theatre and Theatre 200 cipset) also have support in driver for Pal M.

[2Bdecided]

Caple,

I thought Canopus said specifically that their ADVC range does not work with PAL-M (or any other "rare" format) - i.e. it just does USA/Japan NTSC-MJ, European PAL-BDGI, and French SECAM-L - but as you're in Brazil, I guess I'll believe you!

Cheers,
David.