Can I "feed through" a JVC VCR with TBC??

[Lscman]

I am hoping to set up a poor man's TBC. Can anyone offer advise??

I have a bunch of Super Beta & 8mm tapes that play "decent" on their respective players, but I'm trying to capture them thru an ADS Pyro A/V Link. Frame dropout is a big problem on about half of my tapes. The digitized picture basically freezes for a couple seconds every minute or so. This symptom occurs when my analog monitor shows a momentary video noise glitch or tracking problem. Certain tapes are watchable on analog but the digitized capture is worthless.

Can I use my 5 year old JVC SVHS VCR as a "feed-through" device for 8mm or Beta players to take advantage of it's time base corrector?? Will this improve my Analog to AVI capture quality? This premium JVC Super VHS machine supposedly has built-in R4 time base corrector and video noise reduction circuitry.

[lordsmurf]

No.

However, you can copy the Beta to S-VHS in SP mode, then capture from those. It'll still look good, most likely.

Hard to give solid advice not knowing more about the tape problems.

[Lscman]

I will try to explain the tape problem. My current issue is with a handful of 8mm tapes. Murphy's law says this issue mostly involves a tape of our grandparents who died 5 yrs ago. These tapes were recorded with a bit of dirt on the head & this problem was discovered about 7-10 years ago, the first time the tapes were played back. These tapes have not deteriorated in storage. "Light" horizontal video noise (streaks) come and go during playback, almost like a friggin hair or dirt speck was moving around the record head & it causes the sound to drop out. There are many periods where the picture is perfectly clear. The analog picture does not lose sync, tear or roll on playback, but the digital captures freeze any time the analog pic is not 100%.

Could you explain your "No" response about the pass-though idea a bit? It sounds like the JVC SVHS TBC circuitry is only functional when a VHS tape is played in the machine. Are you saying the TBC circuitry within the JVC VCR's can not be exploited via pass-through?

If so, I have a followup question....

My 8mm analog camcorder is a 1 year old Canon ES8600A and mfr literature states it has built-in TBC. Since I'm playing my old 8mm tapes into my ADS Pyro thru this newer player with a built-in TBC, do you feel dubbing to my JVC SVHS with TBC is fruitless? I noticed that the LCD viewer on my Canon 8mm looks real good when playing these marginal tapes. Bouts of horizonal video noise are evident, but the picture is very watchable. Audio does drop out though. My Ulead AVI signal seems to freeze a lot on tapes with any defect.

Thanks for your advise.

[tdan]

Could you explain a bit? It sounds like the JVC SVHS TBC circuitry is only functional when a VHS tape is played in the machine. Are you saying the TBC circuitry within the JVC VCR's can not be exploited via pass-through?

Correct. the noise reduction and TBC on the JVC only operates on the tape being played.

You mention that the 8mm looks good on the LCD. Have you tried playing the tapes by hooking up your camera directly to a TV with the audio? If it plays back fine, then I would start looking at your PC/Capture setup as the source of your problems. Can you capture from other sources without problems?

[Lscman]

Could you explain a bit? It sounds like the JVC SVHS TBC circuitry is only functional when a VHS tape is played in the machine. Are you saying the TBC circuitry within the JVC VCR's can not be exploited via pass-through?

Correct. the noise reduction and TBC on the JVC only operates on the tape being played.

You mention that the 8mm looks good on the LCD. Have you tried playing the tapes by hooking up your camera directly to a TV with the audio? If it plays back fine, then I would start looking at your PC/Capture setup as the source of your problems. Can you capture from other sources without problems?

A perfect tape captures perfect. For example, I just captured 1 hour of 8mm tape with no dropouts. A tape that plays with minor noise glitches captures terribly. Both of these tapes are about 10 years old, same brand and they were recorded on the same TR-81 Sony camcorder. One simply has a bit of dirt on the head when it was originally recorded. The problem with this tape was evident long ago. When I said the tape looked "good" in the LCD, I meant it was very watchable. Sorry for confusion.

Well...the LCD screen on my camcorder does, in fact, show horizontal noise lines and momentary loss of sound when the capture is freezing. Frankly, these tapes have minor record head dirt defects. My frustration comes from the fact that the analog playback is "watchable" while the digital captures are not. I was hoping to reduce the digitial freeze durations. One disturbing thing I noticed is an analog noise hit may be 1 second, but the AVI pic freezes for about 5 seconds. The analog pic goes back to normal real quick (sometimes less than 1 sec of noise), but the ADS Pyro is very sluggish at re-syncing and re-establishing it's "motion video" output. As a result, the analog defects are multiplied by 5X to 10x when I use my ADS Pyro to digitize.

[lordsmurf]

I don't really know. This is where testing comes into play.

[ZAPPER]

Ooh scarry! Try copying to VHS then to PC a part with glitches to see what happens. The scarry part may be that the dirt is still on your tape and could cause further damage. The built in TBC should help with the glitches, but you are adding another small degrading by going to another tape. Keep an eye on your heads, dirt transfers

[edDV]

I will try to explain the tape problem. My current issue is with a handful of 8mm tapes. Murphy's law says this issue mostly involves a tape of our grandparents who died 5 yrs ago. These tapes were recorded with a bit of dirt on the head & this problem was discovered about 7-10 years ago, the first time the tapes were played back. These tapes have not deteriorated in storage. "Light" horizontal video noise (streaks) come and go during playback, almost like a friggin hair or dirt speck was moving around the record head & it causes the sound to drop out. There are many periods where the picture is perfectly clear. The analog picture does not lose sync, tear or roll on playback, but the digital captures freeze any time the analog pic is not 100%.
....

If it's just a few tapes, you can have them dubbed cheaply at a video dub house or captured to DV or MPeg2 at a video service bureau*. Ask that they use the higher end 8mm/Hi8 desktop prosumer players that have more sophisticated TBCs with dropout compensation. A quick call could get you a price quote.

Another approach would be to borrow or rent a Sony Digital8 camcorder that will play the tape directly into a DV stream over IEEE-1394 so you can record it to a DV-AVI file at the computer (using Windows Movie maker 2 or another editing program). This may or may not work with the damaged tape.

*They will be able to use equipment like this to paly the tape.
http://www.broadcaststore.com/store/model_cat.cfm?id=443%2C907