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  1. Multimedia storyteller bigass's Avatar
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    Hey, gang. I've seen this dropout happen a few times in recent days when capturing.

    In this instance, it's VHS, and it's done the same on VHS-C.

    AG1970 to TBC-1000 to USB3HDCAP to Virtaldub2.

    It resolves when I power cycle the TBC.

    Any insight into what's happening here, how I might prevent it from happening again, and ... y'know, smarten me up the way you do. Thank you!
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    Bigass, could you re-encode your example into a more normal codec? Even VLC Player can't open it.
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  3. Only a guess (because like Alwyn I can't play your sample), but its possible you're simply suffering from the typical issue of the seriously crap wiring harness inside the TBC-1000 physically shorting on an intermittent basis. The small plastic multipin sockets connecting the harness between TBC board and distribution amp (outputs), and input jacks to the TBC board (esp the front S-Video jack) are prone to working themselves semi-loose from the boards. As the unit heats up, or you touch it to power on/off or plug/unplug your VCR or PC, these sockets can move slightly: just enough to interrupt the video signal intermittently. The solution is to open the cabinet, find the most stable position for the braided wiring, secure it in place, close up the cabinet, and avoid touching the unit as much as possible.

    Sometimes the multipin connectors need to be re-soldered, and sometimes a capacitor bleeds out. Such repairs are a bit more involved, but any good consumer electronics or computer technician should be able to fix those.
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  4. Multimedia storyteller bigass's Avatar
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    Sure thing. It was MagicYUV. Here it is in Lagarith.

    Thanks, orsetto. I might be misremembering, but I vaguely recall one of the four outputs 'burning out' like this, which led to me using....a different one this whole time since. Maybe I've got two good ones left. I dunno. I did a quick search and found a Youtube video of a fella rehabbing one, so I'll see if the fixes in that and what you're suggesting are within my circle of Things I'm Willing To Screw Up By Trying, or whether the local VCR repair guy is about to get a lot of my business.
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  5. Video Restorer lordsmurf's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by bigass View Post
    but I vaguely recall one of the four outputs 'burning out' like this, which led to me using....a different one this whole time since.
    No. The VP-299 are paired. If one goes, both go.
    But there is 2 sets, 4 outputs, so obviously you can use the other pair.

    Originally Posted by orsetto View Post
    you're simply suffering from the typical issue of the seriously crap wiring harness inside the TBC-1000 ... and input jacks to the TBC board (esp the front S-Video jack) are prone to working themselves semi-loose from the boards.
    Not just that. The design of the TBC-1000 sucks, and the wiring on the input board is being pushed down badly. Over time, the solder points give, and you get touchy luma. I have a TBC-1000 that can only be used with the lid removed, for this reason. See also: why a lot of TBC-1000s appear to have an image that's too bright. Open it, fiddle with front board connections, and it will darken up properly.

    Originally Posted by bigass View Post
    Hey, gang. I've seen this dropout happen a few times in recent days when capturing.
    Any insight into what's happening here, how I might prevent it from happening again, and ... y'know, smarten me up the way you do. Thank you!
    Either caps, or the input board -- hopefully.
    TBC-1000s started to age badly in 2019, and it got much worse in 2020, and into 2021. I never saw a bad unit for 15 years, and then in recent years it's gotten insane with how many I see. Worse yet, junk for $1k+ on eBay, usually from know-nothing sellers that think it works because the LED lights came on.
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  6. Would still love a write up on proper testing and diagnosis on datavideo TBC units, lordsmurf. Now more than ever this information is super important to those of us using this old gear.
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  7. Video Restorer lordsmurf's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by nicholasserra View Post
    Would still love a write up on proper testing and diagnosis on datavideo TBC units, lordsmurf. Now more than ever this information is super important to those of us using this old gear.
    You'll be pleased to know that I'm amassing an archive of data for most of the TBCs out there, very detailed, lots of minutia, but it just takes time. I'm also waiting for a specific benchmark to happen before that info gets released.
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  8. Multimedia storyteller bigass's Avatar
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    Ugh. Ok, thanks for the background. IIRC, I got mine within the first few years they were on the market ... early 2000s. So it's an old sample from an old line. After seeing the repair video with all the chubby caps, I would not be surprised if mine's on track to shit itself. Time to make friends with the VCR repair guy in town and start getting my best pieces rehabbed so I can keep working. Meantime, maybe I'll get a fan for it like I used to have for the Hauppauge HD-PVR which would seize up if it got too toasty -- or so went the superstition.
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  9. Originally Posted by lordsmurf View Post
    Originally Posted by nicholasserra View Post
    Would still love a write up on proper testing and diagnosis on datavideo TBC units, lordsmurf. Now more than ever this information is super important to those of us using this old gear.
    You'll be pleased to know that I'm amassing an archive of data for most of the TBCs out there, very detailed, lots of minutia, but it just takes time. I'm also waiting for a specific benchmark to happen before that info gets released.

    Amazing! Can't wait. You've spoken before about your method for testing transparency, I look forward to reading about that. I'd love to be doing periodic checks on my TBCs to make sure they're performing correctly.
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  10. Multimedia storyteller bigass's Avatar
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    Howdy again, gang. I couldn't resist temptation and opened the box up to peek around inside and see if anything obvious was afoot. I found nothing obvious to me, anyway, but I'm out of my element when electronics get naked like this. I realize the only way to diagnose bad bits is to test them, but I shot this in case there was anything remarkable about this unit, or something obviously wrong that I could work toward fixing.

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  11. Capturing Memories dellsam34's Avatar
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    That capacitor on the small board looks iffy to me.
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  12. Video Restorer lordsmurf's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by dellsam34 View Post
    That capacitor on the small board looks iffy to me.
    The tan power board caps look normal. If those go, the VP301 card won't turn on, no flashing red light, no signal passing.

    But as I wrote on his Youtube video, the large caps on the back board, the VP299 board, near the AC adapter, look suspect. Early caps bulging is not obvious, will be faint.

    However, that said, I'm still fairly certain it's the input block. This precise error is caused by it, not caps that I've ever seen.

    TBC-1000 can be damaged, no repair possible. In those cases, parts must be replaced, usually from donor TBC-1000s.
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  13. Multimedia storyteller bigass's Avatar
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    Thank you for having a look, guys. I'll get someone to have a close look at it.
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  14. I doubt that you messed anything up, by peeking inside. One thing you could try: While the unit is open, power it up, and pass a video signal through it. Gently jiggle the wire harnesses, and see if this messes-up your video output. If moving the wiring harnesses results in dropouts, that means you have a bad connection on that plug---most likely a bad solder joint.
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  15. Video Restorer lordsmurf's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by anachronon View Post
    I doubt that you messed anything up, by peeking inside. One thing you could try: While the unit is open, power it up, and pass a video signal through it. Gently jiggle the wire harnesses, and see if this messes-up your video output. If moving the wiring harnesses results in dropouts, that means you have a bad connection on that plug---most likely a bad solder joint.
    Yes, do this.
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  16. Multimedia storyteller bigass's Avatar
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    Ok, I've just done this. And what anachronon suggested is exactly correct. The unit goes futzy if I touch the wiring harness or wiggle the plugs. Like it was all held together with chewing gum and the gum dried out over twenty years. With the lid off, the wiring is so flakey, it feels fragile. Even when it doesn't glitch the on-screen picture, I can see on the vdub histogram that Ok, this sucks. Better than a bunch of oozing capacitors, but still a PITA.

    Anyone remember what the blinking red LED is about? Or the yellow RCA jack? Remnants of its PCI-card history?

    My girlfriend got me a TV1 TBC for Father's Day. There's surprisingly little about it on the web, but from what I gather, it was not well-regarded here. But I might have to give it a try while someone with knowhow rewires the TBC-1000.
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  17. Video Restorer lordsmurf's Avatar
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    The blinking light means nothing.

    TVOne is a brand.
    Which exact TBC?
    Very likely, what you have a flawed-chip Cypress, and it has worse problems that what you face now.
    You'll miss it on a glance with Panasonics, but it's there.
    With a JVC VCR, it's easy to see on the menu pages, total messy signal.
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  18. Capturing Memories dellsam34's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by bigass View Post
    My girlfriend got me a TV1 TBC for Father's Day. There's surprisingly little about it on the web, but from what I gather, it was not well-regarded here. But I might have to give it a try while someone with knowhow rewires the TBC-1000.
    Will you be able to open the lid and note the major chips ID's, Do you have the one with Gen-lock or the one without it?
    Accoring to the manual it seems to work with PAL/SECAM/NTSC
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  19. Multimedia storyteller bigass's Avatar
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    I'm curious, too. So I just opened it up to peek. Here you go. I haven't looked up any of the ICs yet, but I assume someone will recognize the guts.

    This is the tvone-Task 1T-TBC. I/O has one each of S-video and BNC composite.
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  20. Looks quite different to this one, that does have the problems similar to the avt-8710 (though the stuck/ghosted fields also roll on this one). Judging by the version number on the (presumably) ROM chip, I assume the one bigass has is a bit older. The newer one uses a FPGA chip and a large single memory chip while the older one seems to be more similar to the AVT8710 variants. They do all use the same video chips still.

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  21. Capturing Memories dellsam34's Avatar
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    Here is a picture of my black AVT8710, The older version chip of the TVone could be the key to being better:

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  22. Multimedia storyteller bigass's Avatar
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    I see the same 440B frame buffers, two of them. The square chip at IC1 looks same. But yeah, the programming of whatever gets changed version to version, that can make things better or worse. We see it in software all the time. Some people swear by one particular long-ago version of their favorite program because after that one, it was garbage. So, with so much variation under the hood under the same product name, while being fraternal twins with products from another line, I guess I'm just going to have to try it and see if it's groovy or not. Meantime, I'm babying the wires in the Datavideo like the power plug in my old ZX81.
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  23. Yeah I suspect what caused the newer ones to act weird is that they screwed up the firmware/programming of the CPLD/FPGA on the newer ones in some way after it was changed/redesigned.
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  24. Originally Posted by bigass View Post
    The unit goes futzy if I touch the wiring harness or wiggle the plugs. Like it was all held together with chewing gum and the gum dried out over twenty years. With the lid off, the wiring is so flakey, it feels fragile. Even when it doesn't glitch the on-screen picture, I can see on the vdub histogram that Ok, this sucks. Better than a bunch of oozing capacitors, but still a PITA.
    So, it was as I suspected in an earlier post: probably the most common fault cause in these units.

    The short term fix is to leave the cabinet open and jerry rig some sort of support/pressure system on the cable harness and points of board contact to ensure a steady signal (I use custom carved balsa, foam blocks, plastic zip ties: anything that works). Long term, the solder points need to be redone. This can be tricky due to the fragile nylon connector blocks being so close to the solder points: best left to an expert electronics tech (if they melt, you're hosed).
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  25. Video Restorer lordsmurf's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by bigass View Post
    I'm curious, too. So I just opened it up to peek. Here you go.
    That's a 100% guaranteed flawed unit. You may not notice without watching the captured content, but it will have all sorts of issues, from random frame sticking to random ghosting. It's a dud. These are all over eBay, lots of suckers buying them. Lots of returns, too. Those get passed around.

    Originally Posted by oln View Post
    Yeah I suspect what caused the newer ones to act weird is that they screwed up the firmware/programming of the CPLD/FPGA on the newer ones in some way after it was changed/redesigned.
    Yep. And we'll probably never know why, exactly, because it's bitlocked.
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  26. Originally Posted by lordsmurf View Post
    Originally Posted by bigass View Post
    but I vaguely recall one of the four outputs 'burning out' like this, which led to me using....a different one this whole time since.
    No. The VP-299 are paired. If one goes, both go.
    But there is 2 sets, 4 outputs, so obviously you can use the other pair.
    Which outputs are paired with each other?
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  27. Video Restorer lordsmurf's Avatar
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    Vertical paired.
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