Panasonic DVD recorder passthrough settings (DMR-ES10, DMR-ES15, DMR-ES25)

[Skiller]

i see not much value in a HDMI connection, when both s-video and component are available,

Unlike analog connections, HDMI gives you what the unit is working with internally. Any analog connections just adds losses on top of that, plus it introduces whatever "character" the receiving capture card has on analog inputs.
HDMI, being a digital connection, just gives what is there and it does not get better than that.

don't understand why comb filter is always on in NTSC system mode. in PAL mode you can turn it off or on.

There is always is some sort of comb filtering going on with CVBS because otherwise there would be no color at all. Although it suggests so, this setting is not an on/off setting but more like a "aggressive: yes/no" setting. More aggressive comb filtering can bring a better horizontal resolution – but only if it is there to begin with. It can amplify cross-color and dot-crawl artifacts as an unwanted side effect (hence the choice). For NTSC it just happens to have only one strength setting.

[Eric-jan]

The conversion is from analog to HDMI in that case, is still an extra step, (a consumer HDMI has also HDCP active) and seems only "better" because there are almost no good capture devices/cards that do a good job to digitize the analog video footage, (HDMI adds no extra quality to the existing recording)
and you still depend on the A/D conversion of that combo or dvd/hdd recorder electronics or calibration of the manufactor of that brand…. a more recent analog to HDMI/SDI converter will do a better job, like BlackMagicDesign, or even one of the "gamers" converters i noticed in my tests, the converter should not upscale to 1080p/i which means you still need a TBC or a vcr/combo/dvd-recorder with the VHS-fresh feature…... HDMI or SDI recorders are not that rare anymore, because these are also used for DSLR/micro 4/3 camera's or game play recorders. the last one named only record directly to h.264/265 the others also to ProRes for relative small and editable files, good enough for vhs quality.
the difference in blacklevels like said, is USA IRE=7.5 Japan and PAL IRE=0.0
Much more depends on the quality of the recording it self, watching it on a LCD/flatscreen may be very different to the capture/transfer quality depending which output/input is used for monitoring. (there are good HDMI capture cards for the computer, but you don't need a computer to record HDMI )

[Skiller]

The conversion is from analog to HDMI in that case, is still an extra step

Assuming one would, in any case, have a Panasonic DVD/HDD in the chain for the known benefits, it is not an extra step (quite the opposite!). (See last paragraph for more details on this.)

and you still depend on the A/D conversion of that combo or dvd/hdd recorder electronics or calibration of the manufactor of that brand…

Well, yes, of course, as with anything that digitizes analog video.

(HDMI adds no extra quality to the existing recording)

Yes, but it's about avoiding further losses at that point as the video is already what we want – digital.

a more recent analog to HDMI/SDI converter will do a better job, like BlackMagicDesign, or even one of the "gamers" converters i noticed in my tests, the converter should not upscale to 1080p/i which means you still need a TBC or a vcr/combo/dvd-recorder with the VHS-fresh feature…...

First, BlackMagicDesign's products are useless for analog input, especially with wonky VCR signals.
Second, that's the whole point! If you are using a "VHS-fresh" feature you are avoiding another lossy conversion to analog by grabbing the video digitally off the machine (using HDMI). See all of these features only work by digitizing the incoming video. The signal is not just "passing through" as some call it. It gets converted to bits and bytes to work on it. And you might as well transfer that to a computer as it is because it is only going to get worse from that point if it runs through a digital to analog converter to output S-Video or Component or Composite.

It's not about using HDMI or SDI because they may or may not be superior in terms of... whatever it is. It's about avoiding that redundant conversion to analog again after the processing.

[Eric-jan]

the so called "VHS-fresh" (i guess) feature is available on composite, s-video, and component, in case of the DMR-ES35V, it has a stable video output, (any internal conversions will have no effect on the resolution of VHS, and is only nitpicking) and works fine here with BMD converters,
The problem starts with rare TBC's (without using genlock) and non existing good consumer capture devices and the worst consumer analog video systems VHS/Betamax,(HDMI on consumer devices still need HDCP stripping) there's nothing wrong with BMD products, aside they maybe run hot sometimes, but this only noticed because it is routed to its casing in a good fashion to get rid of it.

[Skiller]

Not sure, but if you are saying that losses added after the (for example) DMR-ES35V by using an analog connection (and in conjuction with a reasonably well working capture card) is minor and neglectable – fair enough, I respect that, but that does not change the fact that if you were to transfer the video off the thing via HDMI (if it had it) there would be a loss of zero. Take into consideration that with many capture devices out there, the losses may be much more pronounced than what you get with your setup. There comes my recommendation for HDMI. It avoids one potential problem in the path. HDCP is defeatable (but a pain in the butt, yes).


BMD works alright with stable signals, such as after the DMR-ES35V, but if you ever try connecting a BMD product straight to a VCR you will find that it produces unwatchable garbage.

[Eric-jan]

Not sure, but if you are saying that losses added after the (for example) DMR-ES35V by using an analog connection (and in conjuction with a reasonably well working capture card) is minor and neglectable – fair enough, I respect that, but that does not change the fact that if you were to transfer the video off the thing via HDMI (if it had it) there would be a loss of zero. Take into consideration that with many capture devices out there, the losses may be more pronounced than what you get with your setup. There comes my recommendation for HDMI. It avoids one potential problem in the path. HDCP is defeatable (but a pain in the butt, yes).

so > HDCP = no signal, and yet another hurdle to take which is not needed when using component, and avoids Macrovision in progressive mode, but no digitizing feature in some setups, which makes lots of setups very different, without the complete picture of a user asking questions… while many already have their answers ready
that's why I still think a computer(MAC or Windows) makes the capture process too complicated, i do have a DeLock converter with HDMI passthrough, which works on the output of a DVB-T2 tuner with FTA (only) channels, but that's already digital, will try with a (HDMI) Panasonic DVD/HDD recorder an experiment soon, but still have to connect the VCR output (s-video) on that input of the Panasonic recorder… to record it, i still have to output it interlaced, unless i would record it with the Intensity Shuttle, which has progressive setting in it's software. The cheap HDMI dongles only record in mono or the frame-rate is not constant, the Elgato Video Link does not passthrough audio i've read, but seperate audio device is also a good option i guess, what would be a good HDMI input device for a computer ? because that's what you need using a computer, this would be new to any newbee…..

[Skiller]

what would be a good HDMI imput device for a computer ?

That's where the BMD products shine. I use a Blackmagic Intensity Pro to transfer via HDMI off my Panasonic (with some Chinese HDMI splitter inbetween to get rid of HDCP). But there are other good options besides BMD that provide uncompressed and unaltered video off HDMI. The "gaming" related products pretty much all suck because they don't do uncompressed and are fixed to HD resolutions and 30 fps.

Also I do not recommend the progressive output settings of the Panasonics because the deinterlacing is mediocre at best and it is good practice to capture the native interlaced format that's on the tape.

[Eric-jan]

Then you're just in time, the Intensity Pro version is out of production i believe, the follow up 4K version has some drawbacks that i've read about it…
also some BMD hardware does not work with M1 on MAC, windows should be no problem, OS version wise…
I guess a HDMI passthrough device should not give any losses…
I'm using the NK-P60 between my ES35V and Hyperdeck Shuttle HD it's a component to HDMI (only) converter, works fine, no scaling, so no aspect ratio problem.
btw. HDMI is also slightly masking, cropping, and transforming, (HDMI PAL720x576i/p NTSC720x480i/p) i noticed, i guess "over/underscan" will be different depending the analog source, i guess what an "analog" capture already made clear to view, using an HDMI output isn't a capture i guess, but will have a constant result if not altered in post, i try to do as little possible in post, because HDMI does not bring any noise in to the "capture/recording" any other capture method (s-video, composite) did, and the vhs recording has noise from it's own, most of the time, so conversion to lossless HDMI isn't a bad idea, but the encoding is mostly done to input it into the MPEG2 encoder, depending the electronics, it will be tapped at a certain point to the analog output… or not. (MPEG2 was also used for DVB)
Interlaced is also no problem when you set your (media)player to de-interlace
HDMI passthrough output is always uncompressed ? not MPEG2 ? how can one tell/check that ? how can one describe HDMI interlaced, since there are no fields anymore ?

[Goggen240]

Quick post:
I bought a Panasonic DMR-ES10 (EU) and I did a little test you might like.
No S-VHS machine, no proper capture card or anything, and uploaded to YouTube for convenience (and mangled by their compression), but the benefit of an ES10 is quite noticeable:

https://youtu.be/xihMWvlSbyc

That is all, feel free to carry on with your discussion...

[Alwyn]

I was too engrossed in the movie to notice (I might get that and watch it)! Having that title split down the middle is great at showing the effect of the ES10. Thanks.

[Skiller]

Great comparison with all the titles.
And it shows – no surprises here – that the ES10 helps with the usual VHS defects whereas others don't bother. Quite impressive how much better it handles the large drop outs in the last 15 seconds of the clip!

[Xhumeka]

Just wanted to post a quick message of thanks to this forum, and in particular, this thread, for the info and advice on the Panasonic ES10. I was looking for an inexpensive solution to help with some Betamax transfers, and the ES10 seems to do the job nicely! I was able to find one at a local pawn shop 20 minutes away.

Here's another comparison video for those interested... this example is using a cheap Toshiba VCR and Elgato capture card - you can really see how well the ES10 works when still images are being displayed in the video... without the ES10, the images jitter all over the place. I used the suggested ES10 settings from page 1 of this thread:



and here's a 2nd example of a TV football recording from 1995 at EP speed:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HKIDpK5xAg

[Goggen240]

It actually handles the dropouts quite poorly, it just drops those frames entirely and the audio goes out of sync. I assume it would also drop the audio to stay in sync if I had captured audio from the ES10 instead of from the VHS player, but I'd kinda want it to drop as little as possible...

[Alwyn]

It actually handles the dropouts quite poorly

It's all relative. Not much else would do better unless you forked out serious dollars. In any case, that part of the tape is obviously damaged.

[Goggen240]

It actually handles the dropouts quite poorly

It's all relative. Not much else would do better unless you forked out serious dollars. In any case, that part of the tape is obviously damaged.

Oh, I'm not complaining (not much, at least). The frames it dropped were obviously corrupt, and dropping them is usually the best choice.
But I just wanted to make it clear to anyone coming along later, that it doesn't actually recover badly damaged frames, in case anyone has a project that relies on good audio sync...
...Which I coincidentally do for my project, so it was very nice to know that I have to look out for frame drops, and may have to capture twice.

[Eric-jan]

I think even the capture/transfer without the ES10 isn't that bad… which kind of inputs has the Elgato ? and outputs to USB3 ?

Just wanted to post a quick message of thanks to this forum, and in particular, this thread, for the info and advice on the Panasonic ES10. I was looking for an inexpensive solution to help with some Betamax transfers, and the ES10 seems to do the job nicely! I was able to find one at a local pawn shop 20 minutes away.

Here's another comparison video for those interested... this example is using a cheap Toshiba VCR and Elgato capture card - you can really see how well the ES10 works when still images are being displayed in the video... without the ES10, the images jitter all over the place. I used the suggested ES10 settings from page 1 of this thread:



and here's a 2nd example of a TV football recording from 1995 at EP speed:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HKIDpK5xAg

[Eric-jan]

Movie clips are not a good example… because the two fields in a frame are exactly the same, but the ES10 does indeed an excellent job making the analog video stable.

Quick post:
I bought a Panasonic DMR-ES10 (EU) and I did a little test you might like.
No S-VHS machine, no proper capture card or anything, and uploaded to YouTube for convenience (and mangled by their compression), but the benefit of an ES10 is quite noticeable:

https://youtu.be/xihMWvlSbyc

That is all, feel free to carry on with your discussion...

[Eric-jan]

i see not much value in a HDMI connection, when both s-video and component are available,

Unlike analog connections, HDMI gives you what the unit is working with internally. Any analog connections just adds losses on top of that, plus it introduces whatever "character" the receiving capture card has on analog inputs.
HDMI, being a digital connection, just gives what is there and it does not get better than that.




.

the internal or external converter gets the same cleaned up signal, only difference is which one does a better job. , while an external one still has options to adjust when needed. but both are better than a analog to pc capture dongle/card.

[Xhumeka]

I think even the capture/transfer without the ES10 isn't that bad… which kind of inputs has the Elgato ? and outputs to USB3 ?

I'm not sure why I called it a "card" in my post, typo I guess. It's a USB capture device, but I'm not sure if it's 2.0 or 3.0 (the online specs don't seem to specify). I've used it as a capture device in VirtualDub, and captured to Huffyuv lossless codec with 0 dropped frames, so if it _is_ only 2.0, it's still fast enough for that purpose. It has both composite inputs as well as s-video.

I'm currently going through over 200 vhs and betamax tapes from my family's collection, and there's home movies intermixed with recorded television on the same tape and not everything has been indexed properly. My work flow is to capture it all in a first-pass using the Elgato and default capture software (which captures to h.264 mp4 640x480) and then once I have it in digital format and can review/index it properly, re-capture the important stuff using a higher-end JVC or Panasonic VCR (with built-in TBC) or a high-end Betamax with Panasonic ES10 in-line. In both formats I'll use the Elgato's s-video input and Virtualdub/Huffyuc.

[lollo]

Movie clips are not a good example… because the two fields in a frame are exactly the same

They are not the same, you probably meant that are from the same moment in time, as opposite to interlaced fields. They contain the even and the odd lines.

[Skiller]

the internal or external converter gets the same cleaned up signal, only difference is which one does a better job.

No, it is not the same identical signal (or rather: data, bits and bytes). The difference is, as I tried to explain before, with "HDMI -> capture device (USB, etc.)" the transfer is completely digital, grabbing the very bits and bytes off the Panasonic machine that it produces in it's processing, while with other interfaces the digital data is converted back to analog (S-Video, Composite, Component) to then output it to whatever capture device one uses.

It is not necessarily a big deal – depending on the capture device and other factors, but it's there.

With the ES10 for example, there is no choice as it does not have HDMI. So it the end you choose the "lesser evil".

All I'm saying is: there are potential benefits in using HDMI, as it is lossless (with proper capture device), unlike analog connections, which per definition are always lossy to some extend.

[Eric-jan]

No, it is not the same identical signal (or rather: data, bits and bytes). The difference is, as I tried to explain before, with "HDMI -> capture device (USB, etc.)" the transfer is completely digital, grabbing the very bits and bytes off the Panasonic machine that it produces in it's processing, while with other interfaces the digital data is converted back to analog (S-Video, Composite, Component) to then output it to whatever capture device one uses.

Also No, HDMI is no magic, HDMI does not have TBC functionality, to get a HDMI signal the analog signal needs to be made stable before it goes direction HDMI, before it gets digitized, the stable analog signal goes to the analog s-video, component, and composite output, so there's no HDMI to analog converter for the analog outputs, like you suggested, it would be stupid, no manufactor wants to spend extra money for parts that are not needed, when a suitable signal is already there.

One does have the advantage to choose the output which is most suited for which capture device one has, the way i see it, the HDMI output of a consumer device still needs a HDMI passthrough device, while a component video output does not, component video output can also output interlaced or progressive like HDMI, not much difference there.

Also you don't have to capture HDMI because it's already been digitized outside of the computer, you can record/transfer it also with any HDMI recorder even the cheaper ones give good result, because of it being digital.

Movie clips are not a good example… because the two fields in a frame are exactly the same

They are not the same, you probably meant that are from the same moment in time, as opposite to interlaced fields. They contain the even and the odd lines.

Yeah, sorry, what i meant is, there's no movement between the 2 fields, because the two fields are a scan from 1 film frame.

[lollo]

Also No, HDMI is no magic, HDMI does not have TBC functionality, to get a HDMI signal the analog signal needs to be made stable before it goes direction HDMI, before it gets digitized, the stable analog signal goes to the analog s-video, component, and composite output, so there's no HDMI to analog converter for the analog outputs, like you suggested, it would be stupid, no manufactor wants to spend extra money for parts that are not needed, when a suitable signal is already there.

I suspect you did not understand what skiller meant. Sorry if I am wrong.

If you use a DVD-Recorder as passthrough because its "TBC" features, it is bettere to choose a model where you have HDMI putput available. Internally the signal is digitized to perform the processing, and is useless to convert it back to Y/C or Composite for a "standard" capturing. Better to send the processed signal to the digital HDMI output, avoiding the not necessay D/A conversion of the first scenario, and capture, or better dump, from HDMI.

Somebody rised a concern if such a HDMI output respect the SD standards for video, i.e. Rec 601, but that's another story.

[Skiller]

Thank you, lollo. That sums it up.


It appears to me that Eric-jan assumed the analog video signal coming from a VCR going into a DVD-recorder for the TBC-functionality does not get digitized if one is using one of the machines analog outputs, and only does get digitized if one uses HDMI. That is not the case. Any signal always gets digitized to be processed. It can't do any of it's processing in the analog realm. And the point is, once it's digital, there is no good reason for converting back to analog, as all it does is introduce losses (potentially minor and neglectable, but still).

[Alwyn]

Some comments/questions if I may:

- So where does the ES10 > EH-50 stand? They don't have HDMI Out but are recognised as the best cheap external TBCs. Are the later HDMI-Out models, by virtue of their Analogue>Digital conversion for the HDMI output, going to achieve the same TBC effects?

Do we go down the later model-HDMI path or earlier model/TBC-S-Video path?

- I have a Pana EZ-48 and have used the HDMI output into a Startech USB3HDCAP. Defeating the DHCP (on my own recorded tapes) was a nightmare. I don't know for sure this was because of the EZ-48, the Startech or something else.

- The capture quality of an HDMI source verses Component verses S-Video (from the EZ-48) was almost identical. It certainly was not obviously better. Are you people finding something different? I understand your theory, but practically?

- What is a good quality HDMI capture device and how much? Since it appears to be a "digital transfer", is the cheap stick that @Leanoric uses in this post going to be OK?

Somebody rised a concern if such a HDMI output respect the SD standards for video, i.e. Rec 601, but that's another story.

Why? In relation to 601/709, is it OK to capture SD video from HDMI or not?

[lollo]

Once more:
an ES-10 and your ES-15 digitize the input analog signal to do their processing, and then convert the cleaned signal from digital to analog for Y/C or Composite output.
If you take the equivalent models of ES-10 and ES-15 having HDMI output (I do not remember their name), you can output the cleaned signal to the HDMI port and avoid the lossy D/A conversion.

There is for sure a degradation in the first scenario. With low resolution material it can be barely visible, but it depends on the video source.

Some users like dellsam34 and others (IIRC) had a doubt about the conformity of that HDMI signal to SD standards. I cannot conclude because I never captured from a DVD-R HDMI output, and I try to reduce the usage of my ES-15 to minimim needed, so no plan for further investigation. But on the doom9 German forum, where many experienced users developed and used this technique, there are many positive feedbacks about it, and I trust them. Users Skillers and Bogilein from that board, and active here, can further explain better than me if the doubt has foundation or not

[Eric-jan]

The way i see it now, is, when you do the conversion from the "digitized" analog signal like component, s-video, or composite, with a seperate analog to HDMI converter, you don't have to deal with HDCP, what's in almost every consumer device in it's HDMI output,(ES10/15) but macrovision is still a problem, extra disadvantage of trying to get rid of HDCP is, that most HDMI passthrough converters convert only to 16:9 aspect ratio, then you still have to correct that in post, or have software that correct this during capture, (some converters can change the aspect ratio, but you get 4:3 with side bars into 16:9)
In this case the converter is also a scaler, this would mean you also have a very cheap way to convert from analog directly, the scale function, has a kind of TBC feature this way, and a cheap vcr can be used for "digitizing" is my experience, only the aspect ratio needs to be corrected, but like said... it's a cheap way out, when you don't care about that.

btw. "lossy" is the term for loss you get by using compression like MP4, or has "lossy" a different meaning in this case ?

[lollo]

I do not stick to your methodology (cheap VCR, HDMI converters, scalers, 16:9, on-fly deinterlacing, component output) in any way, sorry.

In the scenario of HDMI capture I was referring to, you do not need a HDMI converter, but a HDMI splitter, just to remove the protection. The parameters of the video will stay unchanged.

btw. "lossy" is the term for loss you get by using compression like MP4, or has "lossy" a different meaning in this case ?

In this contest, "lossy" is inherent to any A/D or D/A conversion, whatever codec you use. In addition to the conversion, if you compress to h264 instead of HuffYUV (for instance) you introduce an additional loss.

[Skiller]

- I have a Pana EZ-48 and have used the HDMI output into a Startech USB3HDCAP. Defeating the DHCP (on my own recorded tapes) was a nightmare.

For anyone having trouble with this, I recommend to get a cheap "1 in 2 out" HDMI splitter off some Chinese online shopping page. The cheaper, the better. For example, after around 5 minutes of searching I found this: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005002066785798.html
In one of the reviews someone explicitly writes that it removes HDCP.
It doesn't include a power supply, but as it uses USB for power, you can use a phone charger.

- So where does the ES10 > EH-50 stand?

Assuming excellent analog (S-Video) capture hardware after the ES10, this would rank very high up. Maybe 9.5 out of 10 or so.
With crappy capture hardware after the ES10 – and there is plenty – this would rank pretty low.
Although I haven't used the Startech USB3HDCAP myself, it is among the recommended capture hardware in forums so I'd say you are good.

Are the later HDMI-Out models, by virtue of their Analogue>Digital conversion for the HDMI output, going to achieve the same TBC effects?

[The following is PAL-specific and probably does not apply exactly the same to NTSC machines]
Compared to the ES10, later models (with or without HDMI) have slightly less strong line-TBC capabilities.
My source for this information is the German Gleitz forum where we tested a bunch of DVD-recorders for their quality of A/D conversion and line-TBC capabilities. At least for PAL machines, the ES10 is unique. It straightens lines the most. But the later models are not too far behind and still do a good job, plus we found the ES10 is slightly more prone to losing vertical sync and have the picture "jump".
So the conclusion of that is, either get any Panasonic with HDMI, or the ES10.

Do we go down the later model-HDMI path or earlier model/TBC-S-Video path?

I'd say that's a matter of preference. With the right hardware, the "S-Video path" is very good, maybe with some tapes even the slightly better choice, assuming the ES10 is used (and maybe with others not).

One should also keep in mind the ES10 is getting old (~17 years) and gets harder to come by. Finding virtually any used Panasonic DVD or HDD recorder with HDMI is easy.

- The capture quality of an HDMI source verses Component verses S-Video (from the EZ-48) was almost identical. It certainly was not obviously better. Are you people finding something different? I understand your theory, but practically?

To be expected with good capture hardware. Just confirms everything I wrote.

- What is a good quality HDMI capture device and how much?

Anything that lets you capture 576i and 480i uncompressed. The cheap ones, to my knowledge, all don't.

Since it appears to be a "digital transfer", is the cheap stick that @Leanoric uses in this post going to be OK?

Unfortunately not because these dreaded things don't just dump the video off HDMI into USB, they intervene and do their own processing on top (they deinterlace and rescale to some HD resolution, often force 30 fps).

Somebody rised a concern if such a HDMI output respect the SD standards for video, i.e. Rec 601, but that's another story.

Why? In relation to 601/709, is it OK to capture SD video from HDMI or not?

I think it was about HDMI not supporting Rec 601 color space which is wrong, it does (and if it didn't, we would have noticed by now ).

[lollo]

I think it was about HDMI not supporting Rec 601 color space which is wrong, it does (and if it didn't, we would have noticed by now

Sure. As I said I trust (most of ) the experiment you guys in the German forum did in the past years