MacroMaster - any good?

[Vantage]

I saw an auction on Ebay.co.uk today for a box called a 'MacroMaster', that says it will stabilise video - has anybody any experience with this unit? I have some oldish VHS tapes that have a lot of stability problems when I try to record them into my Pinnacle Movieboard (no fault of the MovieBoard) and I was hoping this unit might fix them. It's only £40.

[Nelson37]

That would sound like a device to remove Macrovision, a specific type of issue.

It sounds like what you need is a real TBC, which are around $200.00. The cheaper devices do not really "stabilize" problem VHS, they just make copying possible. Worthwhile for new tapes that play well, waste of cash for older, flaky tapes.

[classfour]

I'm with Nelson37: TBC's make a ton of difference.

MV elimators seem to apply a greenish cast to the video, even a nicer one like the GoDVD can do it.

[thecoalman]

There's good exlanation of waht a TBC does here: https://forum.videohelp.com/topic246006.html#1115672

The difference between a TBC and a "corrector" is significant. A TBC does correct things, A "corrector" doesn't do more than remove and replace.

Without a TBC you wouldn't have a fighting chance of regularly capturing from various tape sources with any measure of success. If the sync issues didn't eat your lunch, the color shifts and raggedy vertical lines in the picture would ..assuming the signal wasn't MV-protected. If it was, you'd need to rely on a signal-degrading filter, such as a "corrector" or "Stabilizer" which do nothing to correct timing ...they just notch out the MV signal, and usually some of the legitimate signal as well