Video clip comparisons: JVCs, Pan AG-1980, Mitsubishi

[2Bdecided]

Yeah you make it sound easy. Fine if it is talking with inbetween moments of silence, but what about background music/noise etc? If you're chopping up your audio track and dragging/stretching segments around and cross-fading and patching in moments of complete silence etc... Man that sounds like a lot of work.

With locked audio, and the same video, you need to match the start, and maybe the end. That's it.

If the audio is unlocked (I've done analogue cassette to miniDV), you can have far more work on.

That's not the case here - we're talking about the same video - the exact same number of frames.


btw, any processing in this regard doesn't need to "preserve" pitch - since if the audio is 0.1% too fast, it's also 0.1% too high in pitch - standard resampling is all you need.

Cheers,
David.

[vhelp]

I read into this discussion thinking something else. You see, I had initially thought that this was home video recorded and then transfered to vhs tape long ago. So I was thinking that this was going to be about restoring aged tapes back to good condition. And then after reading it several times, came to realize that this is about a commercial tape -> dvd, but in best quality possibe.

Hi Moxiecat. Sorry for comming in to this discussion so late. Oh well.

I have a tape that needs to be transferred to DVD for a local organization. To do the job, I first went to my trusty JVC HR-S9911U.

That tape played with jitter because of macrovision. Any tape that is commercial is macrovision protected.

This piece looks like one of those health educational type videos. I'm just guessing that about the tape. Its also in the SP playback speed. That always helps with the processing aspects, and if run through good equipment, the filtering aspects can be eliminated. In your case, and this tape, IMHO, you do not need to filter this tape for transfer to dvd. Heck, I did a nice transfer to xvid using that longer clip, got it down to 5.2mb size vs. your 23mb size. But then I realized that it was not from the same vcr that the "pan_ag1980_nor.mpg" came from and that upset me briefly because it (xvid) might of been even smaller. But, if you could post a larger sample (maybe even the 25 minute capture, from the same vcr "ag1980_norm.mpg" clip) that would be wonderful and a great challenge to encode to xvid. I was please with the initial test encode I did and want anothe crack at it vs. the orig size of the mpeg you would upload. I can D/L it when I head into work tomorrow morning. But that entirely up to you.

Regarding each of the sample demo clips you upload for our review.

I liked the "pan_ag1980_nor.mpg" clip, was the most cleanest and stable clip. The others either stretched or scruntched (aka, distorted) the video by some margin or was a bit too noisy. But, I fancy a bit of noise in my vhs because not all the noise is noise--its detail, but is under constant flux due to the machanics of the tape and its limitations, etc. So, I like to capture my tapes as raw as possible and then perform filtering if necessary. I am working on my own set of filter plugins for processing noisy video source, so its a hobby of mine not to mention a challenge as well. Most if not all the DIGITALL MASTERED commercial tapes make the best transfers. They seem differnt from the normal movie->vhs tape. I don't know exactly how these are done because no-one on these forum boards really know, though I've asked a few times, an no definative answer, yet. Anyway, these always come out the best. So if you have any movies that say "digital" anything, you know it will come out great. Just keep that in mind for future reference.

. . .

The other thing I wanted to bring up was with respect to the dvd recorder unit used in these demo clips. It was obvious to me that they exhibited noise reduction aspects as I watched the clips, I couldn't help but notice them. They were not bad, but the worse the vcr unit you used, the more noticable, prob because of the level of picture distortion and noise content of each vcr. The AG-1980 was the cleanest, so it was the least noticable. This is another aspect to consider when dealing with arciveing or transfering vhs -> dvd because you want it to be as transparent as possible. And with SP mode playback, the AG-1980 held its reputation. I would love to get my hands on one for all my commercial tapes i've been hording all this time until the right vcr came along. But before I proceed with this adventure, I have to deal with the other problem, macrovision. This devil induces all sorts of chaotic nonsense in a vcr. And its hard to find a perfect match--don't think there is one--that eliminates macrovision all-together and plays back the original "commercially recorded" tape w/out a smitten of distortion what-so-ever.

Also, a minor tip I'd like to add.. since you are transfering to dvd, I would go the extra mile to achive maximum quality, by chaning your dvd recorder's bitrate setup: go with CBR and highest bitrate your recorder allows. Give every pixel their maximum bits leaving no room for excuse. VBR is only good for those trying to squeeze a certain amount of content onto a finished medium.

. . .

Now, the next thing I would like to see from you (your AG-1980 vcr) is some demos of EP recordings. I've been meaning to see how well it handles that mode. I would consider one if I knew it handles those better than my current vcr, which happens to be the JVC S-VHS HR-S3910U from 2001. It does a wonderful job of my many EP recordings. I have lots and lots of them. Many of them used for the Summer and Winter Olympics that I recorded over the last 8 or so years.

. . .

just to add a few more things to note..

With all due respects, it is my huntch that the equip that did the actual "hard part" was the dvd recorder. I say that in all honesty because my TRV-22 dv camcorder has a similar function when copying video from vhs tapes. It has a unique noise reduction (low-pass) filter system and it does a wonderful job of vhs sources. The only problem with this is that I can not get the fullest *raw* material from the tape from this (DV) medium..too many limitations of this format that adds to the degrading aspects. Thats why (for critical materials) the absolute raw-est is essential. But luckily you, you are not in this situation.

-vhelp 5145

[moxiecat]

Hi vhelp, thanks for your input.

I disagree that the tape played with jitter because of macrovision. Doesn't macrovision usually manifest as a brightening/darkening? Plus, on the Panasonic samples, no TBC was used and the picture was perfectly stable. I've run across many "professional" tapes that transfer fine without a TBC and lack macrovision. I don't think it's present on every single commercial tape--or at least not ones like this that were not intended for wide distribution but rather for educational purposes.

Actually, when I did the final run, I removed my Datavideo TBC-1000 from the chain and the jitter I mentioned stopped entirely! (Note that the Datavideo was not used for the clips above, just on my first effort with the tape.) So the jitter was possibly caused by an interaction between the Datavideo and the JVC's internal TBC.

The videotape was created by a university's medical department, I believe. It appears to be about 15 years old or thereabouts. Yes, it is SP.

Unfortunately, I have finished the project and returned the tape, so I cannot send a full MPEG to you. (And even if I did have it, I don't have the server space or bandwidth to handle such a large file; I'm going to have to take down those shorter clips shortly as it is.) So my apologies about that, but thanks for your interest.

I agree that the AG-1980 was not bad, but in the end, I transferred the tape using the JVC 9911 on norm/auto. Most people on this thread did prefer that one, although the Panny you mentioned and the Mitsubishi came close in picture quality, in my opinion.

The DVD recorder used for all the clips is my Toshiba RD-XS35. It does have a noise reduction option, but for all these clips, I had it turned OFF. Any noise reduction you saw was therefore likely due to the TBC/DNR processing in the VCRs themselves. Whether or not the Toshiba still does some NR filtering when the option is turned off is an open question.

Upthread, I had explained why I did not use CBR and why I did not use the highest bitrate. It has to do with editing issues between Womble's Wizard program and Adobe Encore. So I take your point but there is a reason I don't do what you recommend.

Sorry, I have no interest in EP and haven't used it for years. But if it's something that intrigues you, you should go ahead and buy an AG-1980. There are tons on eBay right now, many for reasonable prices. Since you favor the clips from the AG-1980 so much in these examples, it would probably be a useful purchase for you.

Thanks again for taking a look at my examples.

[deuce8pro]

But, I fancy a bit of noise in my vhs because not all the noise is noise--its detail, but is under constant flux due to the machanics of the tape and its limitations, etc. So, I like to capture my tapes as

I disagree and ive heard people say on this board that they think if you use filters, you are gonna lose detail in the picture, when ive had grainy/noisy results before and it looks horrible and thats why ive come to this board to find equipment that plays tapes without a lot of the grain or noise. Which can be removed without sacrificing detail.
I also dont think people would be experiencing softening issues if they use excellent s-video wires (such as AR PRO II Series that I use) to get as much detail out of the picture as well as much color out of it.