AVT-8710 owners, what settings do you use?

[myoung08]

Just wondering what other fellow AVT-8710 owners set their devices to when doing transfers -- brightness, contrast, sharpness, etc. I suppose it's somewhat subjective as not every tape source is going to output the exact same. Though I've read some threads stating that the AVT-8710 outputs a picture a little bit too bright and that stepping the brightness down 2 steps is a good idea. I understand that getting things as correct as possible before the video is encoded to DV is best as recompressing DV will result in further picture loss.

In some limitied frame comparisons I've done so far with the AVT-8710 and a Video 8 source, I've seen cases where the brightness between a AVT-8710 outputted frame and a raw source frame are brighter and other cases where they are darker. It seems like there's some contrast loss, shift in color, and softening with the AVT-8710 as well, though I suppose that's to be expected and is a trade-off to the benefits of a stable picture for problematic footage. Do others experience these losses as well? I'm using Vegas 8 Pro and muting parallel video tracks to compare frames.

I also have to wonder just how subjective the settings on the AVT-8710 are. I'm hoping to do more experimentation with what works best with various sources of mine -- SVHS, VHS, Hi8, and Video 8 -- though just curious to what others use for brightness, contrast, sharpness, etc. Thanks.

[lordsmurf]

Read this: AVT-8710 what are recommended settings ?

Already covered.

[myoung08]

I stumbled on that thread before. It doesn't really go into specifics of what to set the AVT-8710 at. Maybe that implies the settings are subjective? I was wondering what AVT-8710 users on this forum set their boxes at. Do you all just leave the settings at their default? Do you have special settings you use all the time (I recall someone stating to turn the brightness down 2 steps)? Do you calibrate it with unprocessed, RAW, non-TBC'ed footage for every tape you capture?

[mikel]

I use Brightness -2 & Contrast +2 as base settings, then tweak the rest if needed, to eye. (for VHS tapes)

[lordsmurf]

Yes, the settings are subjective. The best setting is default (off, 0).

[myoung08]

In toggling raw video verses TBCed footage synced up I see some pretty disturbing things. In one part of my test footage the camera tilts up to a bright statue set back against a bright, overcast sky. On the raw video footage the picture remains punchy as the camera closes its iris, exposing for the bright sky. On the TBCed footage the image goes very dark and very slowly picks up punch. I assume this is the AGC of the AVT-8710 in play. So now it seems that all footage passed through this device will have gain all over the map. Where am I going wrong with this analysis if at all? Is there a way to turn AGC off on the AVT-8710 or is this just another trade-off to using this device verses capturing raw footage?