Problems recording SVHS and camcorder made edits

[Ddanrr]

I have several home-made productions that were edited together with a SVHS vcr. I want to record these to DVD using my Pioneer 220 DVD recorder. Anyone who has edited with a SVHS vcr knows that the edits (scene changes, cuts) made are not always completely smooth and clean. The flying erase heads on these recorders (including VHS, and analog 8mm too) always seemed to make some of the edits with a slight glitch, and I remember trying to redo a lot of the edits over and over to get them clean. The problem I am having is that my Pioneer DVD recorder doesn’t like recording these kinds of edits. On about 75% of these edits, the DVD recorder adds its own digital glitch at the edit point. The result is a quick flash at the scene change, where it was virtually clean on the tape. I played the recorded DVD frame by frame over the glitch to see how it looks, and it looks like it flashes back and forth between the two frames. One frame it cuts to the new scene, the next frame it cuts back to the old scene, then the next frame cuts back to the new scene again and then proceeds. The result is a quick flashing between the scenes on normal playback (very quick but annoying). It looks like the digital converter is getting very confused by the edits on the tape. This also happens on all my 8mm camcorder tapes, wherever there was a scene change, like when you paused the camera for a new angle and restarted it. It really wrecks all my productions since the resulting edits all end looking glitchy and bad, where the original tape looked fine. I have not heard anyone else complaining about this. Has anyone else with a Pioneer 220 noticed this? Do other brands of DVD recorders do this also? I really like the Pioneer and would like to keep it except for this problem. Any solutions anyone can think of to help remedy this? I would really like to know if this a common problem, since a lot of people are archiving analog camcorder tapes. Just to clarify, its not the edits made by the DVD recorder itself, just its ability to record preexisting edits made by SVHS, VHS, and 8mm camcorders.
-Dan R.

[Quantum]

You could take the DVD Recorder footage after transferring (with the glitches) and digitally correct the flaws on a PC with software such as Adobe. This may not be a solution you want, but it exists.

[Frobozz]

I also wonder if a time base corrector between the SVHS deck and the DVD recorder will reduce or eliminate this glitch. My SVHS recorder used backspace editing rather than a flying erase head, so I haven't noticed this problem, but I'll look harder for it now. I always thought the flying erase head made a cleaner edit.

[Ddanrr]

Correcting the flaws with a computer is not an option for me, because my computer is older and cannot handle that kind of video processing. And the cost of a TBC is prohibitive also. Backspace editing eh? Hmmm Ive not heard of that one. My SVHS unit is from 1997 (a JVC 5200), and I haven't really kept up on the new releases. It would be great if they upgraded them to make cleaner edits. The edits made by flying erase heads in my vcr, and virtually all vhs, analog 8mm, vhsc, etc. did not make a perfectly clean edit all of the time. It was called a clean edit by consumer standards, which are a bit more lax. It often formed a slight glitch in the form of a white streak or squiggle, usually in the upper right hand corner of the screen. If it was big and noticable I would keep redoing the edit until it was minimized. But what is not very noticable to the eye is enough to interupt the sync to the DVD recorder, causing the extra digital glitch at the edit point on the DVD, at least on the Pioneer. What I am trying to find out if this also happens on other brands of DVD recorders. If I take the Pioneer back and try the Panasonic or the JVC will it still happen. Its not easy to test units out in the store, since they are rarely hooked up. As of right now, I think the Pioneer does a worse job recording than a VHS deck, since it can't record these edits without adding artifacts. Its great to record movies, but who wants to archive old camcorder tapes with extra glitches added in, making them look worse than they were before?
-Dan R.

[Frobozz]

Dan,

I don't know about other DVD recorders (I have the Pioneer DVR-510) but I know the same problem exists with the ADS USB Instant DVD for Mac. Whenever a bad edit is encountered its MPEG encoder goes nuts (my scientific terminology).

My reference to backspace editing is from a foggy part of my brain. My Toshiba S-VHS deck has the kitchen sink for features but not flying erase heads. I think they used the backspace term to explain why the last few frames of a video may be written over during an edit to make for a clean cut.

Lordsmurf is more technologically knowledgeable and may have something useful to share if he sees this post. My sense is you may find it easier to get a S-VHS playback deck with built-in timebase correction than a DVD Recorder that can handle these edits well. The advantage I have with the DVR-510 is recording to the hard drive where I can then cut out a few bad frames.

[Ddanrr]

As a follow up on this post, I was able to test out a Panasonic E55 at a store. I used the same tape causing the problem on the Pioneer, and the Panasonic recorded it cleanly with no problems. A better encoder? Built in TBC? Not sure but it really records better than the Pioneer. So I'm going to return it and get the Panasonic instead. But now I'm wondering if it would be better to wait for the new Panasonic ES10 coming out in April for the same price. Sounds like its going to be an even better machine.