Thinking of getting a Time Base Corrector -

[ironwood321]

Compounding of sync or error is when you say for example make a copy of a copy and you do it say five times afterwards running it through something like a TBC and expect it to fix all the sync errors.

As a result of multiple copies of copies you have made errors on errors which you can't remove as they now part of the footage.

A home brew TBC for anyone good with electronics
http://www.astro.uu.se/~marcus/private/newvidproc.html

This explains how a TBC works and what these compounded Timebase errors I was on about http://www.questronix.com.au/info/info_tbc.htm

[FOO]

It only takes me 3 or 4 screwups before I notice
and do something about it..

[painkiller]

somebodeez

If I'm not me????

I know some folks I work with that wish I weren't.

Me, that is.

Well, if you decide on a TBC let me know how you do with it.
I'd be curious to hear of your results.

[somebodeez]

somebodeez

If I'm not me????

I know some folks I work with that wish I weren't.

Me, that is.

Well, if you decide on a TBC let me know how you do with it.
I'd be curious to hear of your results.

Yeah, I read that back and saw that I didn't write that very well,
Maybe you better check - make sure you're you :P

I think I'm going to go with the one I linked to in my first post. It's got a 30 day money back guarantee.

I borrowed an old "Archer Video Enhancer" (this thing is like from the 70's). I hooked up my VCR to it than hooked that up to my mini DV camera (had to - didn't have any more regular cords so had to use the camera cords). While it did help with the picture quality (no more pixelation and less cropping to do from the bottom and no cropping at all to do at the top), I only got sound coming out of one speaker. That was odd since it does have L & R in/outputs. I checked all my cords - looked to be connected properly...

Any way - I was really hoping someone would be able to give me some feedback on the TBC I linked to and tell me if they use that together with passing through a camera or use it by itself

[somebodeez]

Ordered the TBC - should be here in a couple of days

[Marco33]

Let us know how it comes out. I realy would like to know about, how well they work on realy old worn out VHS home movies.

[Dr_Layne]

I too am converting some home made VHS tapes to DVD. I use a DAC-100 analog to DV device (similar to the Canopus ADVC device) to capture the analog source to DV. If the source tape (and laserdiscs) are in first generation tapes the captures work flawlessly. However, I have some live concerts from back in the VHS trading days that have tracking issues, multiple copy sync issues and the like. I realize the flaws cannot be "fixed" but I am considering using a TBC to keep the DAC-100 from "stopping" whenever the video tape hits a spot it cannot handle. From what I understand a TBC will generate a sync signal to the DAC-100 even if one does not exsist on the tape at the flaw.

[somebodeez]

Let us know how it comes out. I realy would like to know about, how well they work on realy old worn out VHS home movies.

I will

My tapes are the originals (not copies of the originals) but there are spots on them where the camera was paused during recording or stopped altogether until the next time filming was resumed.

[painkiller]

Somebodeez.......

Spend dat moolah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Seriously, I hope this helps you. I gather you have a lot of VHS tapes you don't want to lose out on in the future.

TBC.....
The Big Cheese????

[chaseru]

Yes, I am currently passing through my Sony mini DV camera from my VCR - that's been great as far as not dropping any frames (haven't dropped a single frame!) but my old tapes tend to jitter up and down at times and sometimes I'll get a blue screen for a second or 2 (on the camera screen) then the video will come back and sometimes a bit of pixelation for a couple of seconds.

I've seen this happen with Sony dv devices. I used a Sony GV-D200 to transfer my collection of Video 8 home movies to DVD. On the tapes in poor condition I would get what I called the Sony Blue Screen of Death ("SBSD") at start or stop points. The SBSD's caused artifacts that you described as well as frame dropping during firewire capture. I have never had dropped frames when capturing from a dv device through firewire except when I has SBSDs. My solution was to play the bad Video 8 tapes on a analog camcorder hooked up to a JVC HR-DVS2U. The JVC had no problems dealing with the SBSD tapes.

Both the Sony and the JVC had TBCs. For some reason the JVC was able to handle the old tapes better. Hopefully your new TBC will work.

As I've mentioned in other threads, my TBC in my JVC VCR defeated all macrovision including StarWars tapes. However, I always disabled noise reduction features on the JVC; they seemed to make things worst. Instead, I cleaned up video noise with filters in VirtualDub.

[NightWing]

Darn good thread!

Esp the homemade TBC. Wonder if the people that bough out Play Inc will do anything with the TBC they created in software for that snap shot device they use to make? It did a greate job.

[somebodeez]

Somebodeez.......

Spend dat moolah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Seriously, I hope this helps you. I gather you have a lot of VHS tapes you don't want to lose out on in the future.

TBC.....
The Big Cheese????

Oh you should watch me work sometime
Just ask The Big Cheese

Yes, I do have a lot of tapes. You know those home movies can not be replaced if anything happens to them.
I didn't do a *lot* of home work but I did find 1 place that will transfer from VHS to DVD at $9.95 per DVD. I figured at that price I'd be spending what would equal the amount of at least 2 TBCs so...

[somebodeez]

I've seen this happen with Sony dv devices. I used a Sony GV-D200 to transfer my collection of Video 8 home movies to DVD. On the tapes in poor condition I would get what I called the Sony Blue Screen of Death ("SBSD") at start or stop points. The SBSD's caused artifacts that you described as well as frame dropping during firewire capture. I have never had dropped frames when capturing from a dv device through firewire except when I has SBSDs. My solution was to play the bad Video 8 tapes on a analog camcorder hooked up to a JVC HR-DVS2U. The JVC had no problems dealing with the SBSD tapes.

Both the Sony and the JVC had TBCs. For some reason the JVC was able to handle the old tapes better. Hopefully your new TBC will work.

As I've mentioned in other threads, my TBC in my JVC VCR defeated all macrovision including StarWars tapes. However, I always disabled noise reduction features on the JVC; they seemed to make things worst. Instead, I cleaned up video noise with filters in VirtualDub.

Come to think of it, I don't recall seeing those problems when playing the tape normally so maybe my Sony camera was the culprit but even though I got the SBSD ( ) DVIO said I had dropped 0 frames...
My VCR is a Sharp 4 head HI Fi Stereo s-vhs Quasi playback (whatever the heck that means)

[somebodeez]

Darn good thread!

Esp the homemade TBC. Wonder if the people that bough out Play Inc will do anything with the TBC they created in software for that snap shot device they use to make? It did a greate job.

NightWing - I had a Snappy back when we had Windows 95.
That was my introduction to working with videos

[NightWing]

Darn good thread!

Esp the homemade TBC. Wonder if the people that bough out Play Inc will do anything with the TBC they created in software for that snap shot device they use to make? It did a greate job.

NightWing - I had a Snappy back when we had Windows 95.
That was my introduction to working with videos

I still got mine. I then they went to version 3 of the software and had limited motion video but the TBC part of the software was outstanding! I think they even patent it. It was slow but wow did it work!

This thread has me thing wonder if a cleanup pice of software could be written that you could scan through a video and adjust it so to speak up or down and or copy parts of previous section to fill in bad sections. Then frame serve into Tmpge or what ever you want. Wonder if that comand line program a lot use here could do this?

I get a few frames that "shift a line" when I go full with my DC10 capture card.

Be nice to have a software bases one but this may be where hardware is the best solution.

[lordsmurf]

my TBC in my JVC VCR defeated all macrovision including StarWars tapes. However, I always disabled noise reduction features on the JVC; they seemed to make things worst.

Which one? The JVC 7900 and 9800 are TBC/DNR on or off, not separate. I've got several years experience with these machines? What kind of errors are you experiencing when using the JVC DNR?

[chaseru]

Which one? The JVC 7900 and 9800 are TBC/DNR on or off, not separate. I've got several years experience with these machines? What kind of errors are you experiencing when using the JVC DNR?

I used a HR-DVS2U. You're right; I was wrong. TBC and DNR are turned off and on together. I was thinking about the Digital R3 feature, which I didn't think helped much.

[somebodeez]

Was all happy and all excited because according to the tracking, my TBC was due to arrive today. Felt like a kid on Christmas

Well, it did arrive just a little while ago (yay!)
but now I have a question - there is absolutely no input/output for audio
How am I suppose to capture the audio

[somebodeez]

NM - I think I've got it
Well (takes a deep breath) here I go!

[somebodeez]

Preliminary tests are showing very nice improvement in the capture quality using the TBC & passing through my video camera
I picked on of the worse tapes I have to test with.
No more pixelation or blue screens and I don't have to crop out the lines at the bottom anymore. I think it's a keeper

I did notice the sound drifting just a tad out of sync as I played back the film on my PC though, the further along into the film I went.
However I had this problem before which seemed to be solved by stopping the capture at the half way point and capturing the last half as a new capture so I'm going to try that next.