SECAM-L TBC; Diamond VC500 frame waviness FYI; AVerTV 507 better results

[psittacus]

As single purpose hardware TBCs have dropped off the face the Earth regarding availability (other than super-expensive professional units), I've been searching for options to do TBC frame correction for a French source VHS film.

Found this unit today:

https://www.samstores.com/product-com-world-cmd-hdx75-palntscsecam-hd-video-converter-19713.html

I don't particularly need upconverting to HDMI 1080. My purpose is archival preservation of the source material.

Perhaps upconverting will degrade the material, even while the frames may be straightened out.

But I don't see any available TBCs which will do TBCing without also doing upconverting - now, re current availability of hardware to purchase anywhere.

Note that this separate crap unit fails to retain color info for SECAM-L signals, even though the page for the unit claims it does:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07RHQKHWD This little box is available in many areas on Amazon, all the same unit apparently.

Hopefully the unit at https://www.samstores.com/product-com-world-cmd-hdx75-palntscsecam-hd-video-converter-19713.html won't also fail to deal with SECAM-L color properly. But let me know know your thoughts on upconversion & archiving.

Maybe in 1000 years someone will have a good software TBC or etc.

Pioneer DVR-RT602H connected to a Diamond VC500 USB Capture device:


[Attachment 51386 - Click to enlarge]

Pioneer DVR-RT602H connected to an AverTV 507 PCI capture card:


[Attachment 51387 - Click to enlarge]

Looks like the AverTV 507 is doing some frame correction. But I wonder if the AverTV 507 is really capturing and exporting as much picture detail as the Diamond VC500? I'm using the AverTV software that it came with to export to uncompressed AVI files. When I zoom in on the 507 version image I'm seeing less artifacts compared to the VC500. VC500 weirdness (waves seen):


[Attachment 51389 - Click to enlarge]

AVerTV 507 less weird (less wavy):


[Attachment 51390 - Click to enlarge]

The VHS tape looks like a capture from film, based on the artifacts I'm seeing when playing. But still I want to get the best results I can, without having to spend $1000+ on a professional TBC. Plus I need SECAM-L support.

Would you consider the AVerTV 507 to be doing TBCing itself?

The VC500 device waviness results are lame enough to cause me to just want to return the device to Amazon.

My 507 won't capture audio through it's audio port though. Stereo pooped out and it will only capture one channel. However with the AverTV software I caused it to input audio from my PC's built in audio input jack. So the bottom line is that the 507 is an old card, and not completely working audio capture wise. But I did capture audio OK via the noted workaround.

Is it worth my time to buy other capture cards which claims to support SECAM, bearing in mind that my old 507 card is mostly-functional since I can capture audio. Do you think these cards would do a better job compared to the Av 507?

EZMaker SDK ExpressC725B
https://www.avermedia.com/professional/product/c725b/spec

Hauppauge WinTV PVR 150
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Hauppauge-WinTV-PVR-150-PAL-B-G-I-D-K-SECAM-26559-MPEG-2-Hard...g/264389775203

More comparisons between the 507 and the VC500:

VC500 waves on the left edge of the frame:


[Attachment 51391 - Click to enlarge]

Lack of similar waves with the AVerTV 507:


[Attachment 51392 - Click to enlarge]

[oln]

Would you consider the AVerTV 507 to be doing TBCing itself?

Depends what one considers TBCing, a video decoder chip has to decide where a line starts or ends in some way. I think the AverTV is a bit better at putting the start point of the lines at the right place compared to the VC500, but I dont' think it's fully buffering and resizing a video line to the correct length offset and variation like the TBCs in VCRs and some DVRs are capable of doing. The philips chips used in the AverTV are much better at handling unstable video than the chips used in the VC500.

The Pioneer DVR-RT602H seems to have similar hardware on the DVD side as Pioneer DVRs, which are able to correct wiggle, at least for PAL and NTSC. If you have another VCR with SECAM-L playback you could try to pass the video through the Pioneer and see if it works. On some DVR-recorder/VCR combos it's also possible to cheat the unit into getting the video output to to through the internal digital circuit by putting it in some dubbing mode, but I don't know if it's possible on this one.

The PVR 150 is mpeg2-only, don't think it would work any better otherwise, don't know about the ezmaker.

[Brad]

Note for other readers: this thread is a continuation of...

https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/394510-SECAM-L-VHS-to-digital-via-whatever-means

https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/394560-SECAM-L-VHS-TBC-alternatives

Option to consider:

https://hackaday.com/2018/06/23/digitizing-domesday-disks/#comment-4653738

My own company ( https://www.geckoandco.com/ ) has digitized about 16.000 video tapes (consumer and professional and analog or digital ones)/40.000h during the last 8 years (and much more than that when i was working for other companies before). And most of them where for INA (Institut National de l’audiovisuel = french National Audiovisual Institute).