Hardware corrector or Software

[mark23]

Hi.

I have some VHS, S-VHS and, Umatic tapes to try and preserve to dvd or hard drive. I have the players, however wondering if it would be best quality to encode to software and do necessary tweaks with software, or to use something like a signvideo or other type of tbc, image enhancer/corrector.

I have a Canopus AVC-300 firewire capture with an imac for now. I have a professional grade Panasonic VHS/S-VHS vcr, and some umatic(sp) players and recorders as well.

I have been looking at the signvideo image enhancer and the signvideo procamp. Do not nkow very much information about them. Anyone with any knowledge of these and how well they work, or would it be better to by something used of better quality.

Thanks
Mark

[guns1inger]

Where possible you should try to do as much in the hardware chain before you encode digitally. This means potentially a time base corrector and one or more hardware video processors. More reading here

It all depends on the value of the tapes, and the amount of money and effort you want to expend. If you have only a few tapes that you want done well, it may be cheaper to get them professionally transferred by a service that has this type of equipment, and knows how to use it.

It is also worth remembering that not all problems can be fixed in hardware, just as not all problems can be fixed in software.

[mark23]

Basically these are old tapes from a community channel. Most of the tapes are relatively good shape, and are still the UmaticSP master tapes, some however were dubbed to LP speed on VHS tape and masters were thrown away or recorded over to conserve space. Shelves upon shelves of tapes were thrown out to conserve space before i arrived on the scene so those are lost for ever unless viewers tapes them at home.


Basically want to capture and restore (when needed) what is left to a digital format, either dvd or files. As the tapes are in Umatic and VHS, i dont think putting them to dvd would be loosing much quality if at all since the quality isnt dvd quality anyway, unless I am not understanding things totally. I have a Canopus AVC-300 along with a DPS-270 TBC, I do not however have waveform/vectorscopes, only software ones from an old copy of DVRack that i have sitting on a machine dedicated for that purpose. I have thought of the DR-1000 image enhancer from signvideo the most as it is not bad too bad a price and varily good reviews on this site.

I would capture to Canopus DV codec or another codec recommended and edit if need be.

Any other info would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

[vhelp]

Unfortunately, telling us what you have now is not enough to go on. Need more input.

It might be a good idea to post a few short samples of the captures you are curently getting from your equipment. This way we can get a general idea of the quality aspects you are getting now, and determine pros and cons and if your captures need any further improvement or not.

You could post a few images and if possible, some samples of your (untouched) capture avi's. By that, I mean, no re-encoded to xvid or mpeg yet, because these would influence the source in a negative way.

So in other words, if you are using the advc, then:

1. post some (png) images of possible problem areas (no jpeg or jpg)
2. post some samples of the advc dv capture avi's

Basically these are old tapes from a community channel.

From the sound of it, it seems the origin of the footage is "interlace" video.

-vhelp 5376

[robjv1]

I have the DR-1000 and it's a great unit for making the video look sharper and it doesn't degrade the signal. The SignVideo ProcAmp is also great.

I recently posted some images of the SignVideo DR-1000 in this VCR comparison. About 2/3 down the page on April 8th.

https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/319107-VCR-Comparison-JVC-SR-W5U-vs-JVC-SR-V101US