Newbie advice needed - Capturing PAL VHS

[Gameshow Host]

Line TBC fixes scanning lines, Full frame TBC fixes frames, Either or both may have some other filters such as chroma filter to get rid of chroma noise, If your magnetic tapes are in good shape, no wear, no edge feathering, no frame jump on the TV screen, you may not need a full frame TBC, But a line TBC is a must, It straighten up scanning lines, No matter how good a VCR is there is always mechanical errors in the scanning drum. You can always turn it off if you want to.

That's really helpful, thank you My tapes probably aren't all in the best of shape, so I'm guessing you are recommending I get both kinds of TBC? I'll certainly be getting myself a DVD recorder line TBC based on what you said.

[DB83]

But surely the pass-thro line TBCs in certain dvd-recorders are only damaging the image with that Noise Reduction. I am sure that can be turned off.

Like I said, try without one - if you have a bad VCR then additional equipment is not gonna help at all. The capture is only one part of the process. Much can be achieved after-capture with the use of filters.

[victoriabears]

Dear me-I have not been on this forum for years and the VHS issue is still with us and I hear they are reintroducing music cassettes, why is my question.

Where in the world are you?

So onto my vhs conversion story of over 5 years ago, I could not master computer capture so I got one of these:-

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/276891-REG/AV_Toolbox_AVT_8710_AVT_8710_Multi_St...ime_Base.html#!

or if in the UK

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Electronics-PALM-SIZED-TIME-BASE-CORRECTOR/dp/B0015M48RS

and one of these:-

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Panasonic-DVD-Recorder-Freeview-HDD/dp/B015341TLG/ref=sr_1_1?s...s=dvd+recorder

I actually used a JVC dvd recorder but these are as old as the hills now and probbaly very fragile used, but if you insist-here is one in the uk:-

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/JVC-DR-M10-DVD-Recorder-DVD-R-DVD-RAM-DVD-RW-DV-Input-Remote...EAAOSwOfxXA6x7

as to a vcr the best is to use the machine they were recorded on, so your camcorder if you still have one, if not:-


http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/JVC-HR-S7900U-SVHS-VCR-PLAYER-RECORDER-W-REMOTE-TBC-TIME-BAS...YAAOSwAvJW-HlZ

or:-

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/JVC-HR-S9911U-S-VHS-VCR-Built-in-TBC-Digipure-Technology-rem...UAAOSwQYZWyWie

The digipure technology really helps and will get the best out of your images. I had a whole bank of VCR;s one of the best was a basic machine :-

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/SHARP-VC-MH705-Video-Cassette-Recorder-VHS-6-HEAD-VCR-FULLY-...YAAOSwOfxXBSGf

considered sacrilege but if you started with one of these and were happy with the results, why not?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Panasonic-DMR-EZ45V-Freeview-upscaling-playback/dp/B000JC9DWU/...d+vhs+recorder

Do not use a multi system vcr that does ntsc and pal, they are largely crap.

Good luck, I did not find s-video connections necessarily better than good old av, seriously there are so many factors.

The main advice I would give you is the expectation of results, be patient and get the best you can, it will not be HD will it, but do the best and play it on your dvd player or media player as many TV's do enhance what you play.

[Gameshow Host]

Dear me-I have not been on this forum for years and the VHS issue is still with us and I hear they are reintroducing music cassettes, why is my question.

Where in the world are you?

I am in the UK and that was very helpful, thank you Victoria! Your recommendations confirm the hardware I was thinking of buying, thank you (By the way, I didn't know women had any interest in this kind of thing?)

[dellsam34]

Do not use a multi system vcr that does ntsc and pal, they are largely crap.

Good luck, I did not find s-video connections necessarily better than good old av, seriously there are so many factors.

The ones that convert from standard to another are indeed crap, But the others are just multi standard that switch between different circuit boards inside, There are good ones and bad ones just like the Unistandard VCR's, One of the best ones is the JVC HR-S7600AM S-VHS deck, It has multiple circuit boards inside for different standards that switches between them, It literally switches itself from a US VCR to European VCR and vise versa, It doesn't have any conversion circuits inside, I own one and the quality of playback is phenomenal on all standards especially if the TBC is ON. It does PAL 60 which is not really a conversion, but it is an option that can be selected or deselected.

Playing back VHS tapes thru S-Video looked better to my eyes, Many of the pros here in this forum recommend capturing VHS with a S-VHS VCR.

[victoriabears]

I am a male unit btw, and don;t be sexist
[Attachment 36460 - Click to enlarge]

[DB83]

Victoria ,

Could you confirm to the OP if you were capturing commercial tapes or plain, home-movies ?

[victoriabears]

Mostly vhs recorded from TV, very good quality but still not HD obviously.

The biggest problems I had were the NTSC (Never the same colour)

[DB83]

^^ Ah, Yes. NTSC >> Never Twice Same Color

I will confess that I have never used a full-frame TBC in my capture process. My old PCI card ignored MV if I needed it and my ADVC sorted out the 'tearing'.

[DB83]

From the rules:

Other
No Political, Religious, or War related discussions

There is also an earlier reference to 'sexually related material'

Just my opinion that you got rather close to these although they might not be so interpreted such. Best to leave it there.

[Gameshow Host]

Well it looks like someone has tidied up here.

I apologize for touching upon issues which may be considered political or religious, and therefore against the rules. For the record when I read "no political or religious discussion" that doesn't register with me because I have zero interest in either topic. I know whom the Prime Minister currently is, but other than that, I couldn't name any other politicians. And religion is totally alien to me as I have never been a member of a religion. I don't understand religion at all. I usually take "no politics and religion" as shorthand for "no heated arguments", and again that is of no interest to me. I can't stand arguments. If anyone wants to argue about religion, I would walk away every time. The issue I raised was a moral one, though I respect that the forum does not want to discuss moral issues here and will know in future.

[lordsmurf]

Dear me-I have not been on this forum for years

Whoa! Hey there, old timer.

So here are my 7 questions…

1. Don't confuse 'date written' with 'outdated'. CTB-100 in UK, perhaps. Can of worms there, due to bad chipset units.
2. It depends.
3. I use free cables that came with the TBCs and S-VHS VCRs. Monster is for suckers. Note: s-video cables do go bad.
4. See dFAQ guide.
5. Depends.
6. 720x576
7. I doubt you have "plenty" at 35gb/hour lossless. That's not really an archive format. I prefer Blu-ray/broadcast 15mbps MPEG-2.

More questions? You know where to find me.

[PuzZLeR]

I figured much of this was covered, but will input a bit more.

Which TBC?
Thank you for your recommendation of DVD recorders such as Panasonic ES10/ES15. Though I am still unsure about this.

I did a little searching about Panasonic DVD recorders and read some bad things about Panasonic DVD Recorders like the ES10. Apparently, they have built-in DNR and it is quite aggressive, which causes softening of images and ghosting. I also read that they even posterize the image (ie reduce the color palette)! This all sounds pretty scary to me, and sounds just as bad as the problems you listed for "full frame" TBCs.

Yes, this does sound scary, and I as well initially suspected as such. However, all were proven unfounded with the ES10/ES15 models.

There is no MPEG (re)compression, or anything associated with it, such as DCT ringing, 8x8 blocks or blockiness, and no posturization. Maybe it records that way, but who cares anyway as I haven’t tried this option, but it may have confused some. But “recording” is not synonymous with “pass-through”.

Also causing confusion is that other DVRs do indeed cause such artifacts this way. This, I have noticed, when attempting my Pioneer DVR-520H in pass-through – not good, but – in comparison - and seeing the difference, it further re-iterates my certainty - the ES15 is not guilty of such evils.

Yes, the DNR can cause damage, but you can disable it.

Maybe the colors are, say, 1% off, but can be easily corrected on the fly with a proc amp, or a touch of software adjustments after. Maybe also a very, very, slight loss of detail, but I could be wrong, and it could be just noise. At any rate, I had to see this on a magnified frame to 200%+ in two instances of VirtualDub and had to squint real hard, if indeed there was some image loss. Then again, such minor circumstances should be all moot anyway with VHS since it's so chaotic anyway in the digital realm

However, the benefits of the ES10/ES15 are tremendous - good signal correction, great line correction, and awesome for flagging. Very stable and reliable (unlike the 8710 from the bad Q/C).

(Please, don't get me wrong, just because the 520 doesn’t offer such a VHS pass-through feature, it’s still an excellent product. I’ve been using it to record SDTV for 12 years now, and it performs fabulously, and even does DV. Again, recording is a different matter.)

Further, I did some reading about "full-frame" TBCs (like the AVT-8710 and TBC-1000) and found that the overheating problem only affects the AVT-8710 (which has a flimsy plastic case and overheats after a few hours). While the TBC-1000 is very robust and doesn't overheat. I also read that the TBC-1000 does soften the image but this is due to the amp, and can be prevented by disabling the amp (not sure how that is done but I will try to find out!). I also read plenty of happy customers with the full-frame TBCs - the problems would seem to be the exception not the norm and are often caused by problems with the original tape/VCR.

The 8710 suffers from Q/C problems, and it depends on which era, particularly the later, the worse it gets. Costs seem to have been cut down at the plant, soldering, etc, and some units have problems.

I can get past the overheating problem by tightening my workflow's cycle. I can even handle the checkerboard patten too by a power cycle (which mostly happens most likely due to an onscreen menu, or something else it didn’t like, that it attempted to “filter” and “correct”, but got thrown out of sync). It’s a pain to redo this capture since you may only notice this after the fact, but, at worst, it’s a fixable problem with a re-cap.

But I can’t get past that “morphing”. Shuffling a few VCRs may solve it, but it’s still a huge problem.

The 1000? I would say this one is rock-solid in all ways, but I just couldn’t get past the softening. I just couldn’t.

Unless you have MV or serious false positives, you likely will not need these full-frame models. Again, I’d just get a Grex for this. But line correction (such as with the ES10/ES15) is quite essential.

(I am also not a fan of onboard VCR TBCs. I will only use them, in that very minority case, as a total last resort, when nothing else works.)