VHS capture problems

[maeks84]

I can't get a good capture of this tape when played back from my JVC VCR.

Sample 1 was played on a Fisher VCR and captured with a PVR-150.
http://www.divshare.com/download/3593883-b27

Sample 2 was played on a JVC HR-S9900U and captured with the PVR-150.
I've tried with the TBC/NR on and off as well as with the video stabilizer on and off.
http://www.divshare.com/download/3593884-11a

When played on the TV, the JVC will play the tape (with video stabilizer on) back like the first sample from the Fisher VCR. In my mind, since it plays on the TV, the problem must be in the capture card? But other tapes will capture fine. Any ideas? A few other tapes have done this as well...

Thanks,
Matthew

[heman28]

Well for me it seems like a tracking problem with the tape as on the second one it jumps up and down. Your best bet is too try another vcr. I know you want to use the features of the jvc but sometimes you have to loose a a little quality. I have had tapes that did not track well thus is the reason why I have three vcr's to work from. If you have a panasonic dmr e 55 or dmr es10 model I think they are the ones that do a good job for helping with flagging and also the jumping issue. I have a dmr e50 and it does a great job for that kind of a problem. Hope that might give you some ideas.

[2Bdecided]

Looks like a full frame TBC might help, but why not just use the Fisher if it works?

Cheers,
David.

[classfour]

It may be time to clean the head on the JVC. The HRS7500 that I have was "flagging" the picture on some tapes, having a similar effect to your first photo on others. In general, the playback on a standard 10 year old Panny was better. After a careful cleaning with denatured alcohol (followed by a few hours drying time), the difference was spectacular. On a transfer for a friend, the quality was near DVD - quite good.

[maeks84]

What bothers me, though, is that the JVC plays the tape back fine on the TV. If I have the JVC outputting to both the TV and the DVR with separate cables, the TV shows fine (without that jumpiness), but the DVR capture results in the clip I posted. I can't see what the difference between the TV and DVR is that results in poor capture?

I'll the Fisher if I have to. I mean, like you say, use the one that does the best. However, could I play the tape on the Fisher and record it to a new VHS tape on the JVC. Then play back the new tape in the JVC using the TBC to further correct the tracking? Would it be worth an attempt?

I'll try cleaning it as well. Hadn't thought of doing that yet.

Thanks,
Matthew

[maeks84]

Here is a comparison of the situation. The TV and the Computer both connected via a RCA cable. I can't see why the DVR would be making such a difference on only certain tapes. Shouldn't the DVR be seeing each tape the same?

http://www.divshare.com/download/3600567-490

Sorry about the quality. I couldn't figure out a better way to show the difference and all we have for a video camera in the one built into our digital camera.

[rtkeen]

Shouldn't the DVR be seeing each tape the same?

Should they? Yes. Will they? No.

From my 25 years in the television receiver business, I can tell you that televisions are designed with better horizontal PLL's and vertical countdown windowing than are any video capture card. The folks in the PC industry really aren't concerned about VCR tapes that are on the hairy edge, but the television engineers had to worry about that, because that's their bread and butter. I can remember spending weeks on end with a library of marginal tapes, tweaking components and parameters so that all VCR tapes would play correctly, without sacrificing performance on weak and noisy signals. It's more an art form than a mathematical calculation.

Whenever we met guys who design PC capture cards, we found out quickly that they weren't interested in supporting VCR's, because the usage of VCR's was dwindling. If they tracked standard video (which VCR's aren't), they were happy.

[deuce8pro]

Well for me it seems like a tracking problem with the tape as on the second one it jumps up and down. Your best bet is too try another vcr. I know you want to use the features of the jvc but sometimes you have to loose a a little quality. I have had tapes that did not track well thus is the reason why I have three vcr's to work from. If you have a panasonic dmr e 55 or dmr es10 model I think they are the ones that do a good job for helping with flagging and also the jumping issue. I have a dmr e50 and it does a great job for that kind of a problem. Hope that might give you some ideas.

Does the es10 really help the flagging issue with you? Because it doesnt help with me. It definitely helps jitters but not flagging.

[orsetto]

Televisions are analog just like VHS tapes, they "understand" each other and can help conceal each others flaws. Digital is a whole nuther beast entirely. Many of us were quite surprised to learn a tape that plays fine on the TV can loop thru a capture card or DVD recorder and look absolutely horrible. I spent months trying to figure ways around some of those issues. Thing is, the signal from VHS is none too clean or stable to begin with, and while a television can inherently deal with this a digital encoder will choke to death and vomit all over noise that seems invisible when you play the tape direct on a TV.

The special VCRs with TBC/DNR like your JVC can be lifesavers at eliminating or reducing a lot of this invisible noise, sending a cleaner signal to your encoder, but they do backfire on a small percentage of tapes that have certain characteristics that somehow conflict with the filters in the VCR. The suggestion to scrupulously clean the heads is a good one but may not necessarily work for you. In the large majority of cases the TBC/DNR in the JVC just plain "doesn't like" some tapes, and there is no way around this short of turning the TBC/DNR off. Sometimes even that's not enough: parts of the TBC circuit remain "live" even when you switch it off and can still interfere with proper playback. With some tapes, you have to accept that you can't use the enhanced VCR but must settle for the merely adequate playback from a plain standard VCR. It may not look great but if it is at least watchable you've had a success. This is the result you are getting from the Fisher.

There are a couple of experiments you can try that may or may not help a little. First, borrow every other VCR you can get your hands on and see if another tracks the tapes a little better than your Fisher does (Fishers were never that great even when new, definitely you should try a Panasonic/Quasar/Magnavox and/or a Sharp if you can find one.) Another thing to try would be variety of standalone DVD recorders if you can find some to borrow. After doing a lot of my own experimenting I discovered surprisingly big differences in the sensitivities between different brands of recorder and even different models within a brand. For example, my JVC DVR reacts the worst to such oddball tapes: it is extremely sensitive and gets more so if I turn the VCR tbc/dnr on.

For really troublesome tapes I use my Pioneer 531 to capture. I had tried several different models of Pioneer, and found the older 510 and 520 were about as hypersensitive as the JVC. I got rid of those once I tried a 531 and discovered it has near-bulletproof input buffers that were optimized for dodgy VHS transfers. There is something in the line stage of the Pio 531-533-633 model series that really helps clear up jitter, flagging, tearing and chroma flashing from bad tape. I have found with really unstable tapes I get better results going directly from a cheap old Quasar VCR into the Pioneer 531 than I do using a capture card and external TBC or any other hardware combination. (The later Pio 640 etc models are almost as good as the 531 etc but not quite: the 531 is really amazing). Many folks on the forum recommend using a couple of older Panasonic DVRs as a buffer between your VHS and your DVR/capture card. They report results similar to what I see with my Pio 531. This may be something to look into if you can't find a 531 to use.

Unfortunately there is no magical combination of hardware that works for everything: each VCR, DVR and Capture Card has its own interactions. As great as my Pio 531 is with the nasty tapes, it isn't always the best choice for encoding very good tapes: sometimes I prefer using my JVC DVR for those. It depends on the program material and the tape quality. We all have differing luck with differing hardware, you have to make the best of whatever you can get your hands on. Hang out at Best Buy and make some new friends who'll let you borrow their stuff!

[maeks84]

@rtkeen
Thanks for that explanation. It's still a little fuzzy how, but I can kinda see what you mean. I'll just have to play it with the Fisher VCR. Maybe I'll do some looking for a better (external) TBC than what's built into the JVC.

Thanks again all,
Matthew

Edit - and to orsetto I'll look for some other VCR's as well. Makes it even easier to understand now.