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  1. Originally Posted by dvd3500 View Post
    I never understand the hate the ADVC 300 gets...
    Simple. The ADVC-300 filters are "always on" and make quality worse. Often much worse. The 50/55/100/110 models are better. Still DV, so blah quality, blocky, color loss. But not messy like the 300.


    I screwed up the quotes bahh...

    Yeah I know DV is not perfect but I thought you could switch all the stuff off on an ADVC 300...
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  2. Video Restorer lordsmurf's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by dvd3500 View Post
    Yeah I know DV is not perfect but I thought you could switch all the stuff off on an ADVC 300...
    Nope. The "on/off" is essentially a low/high type setting. Many companies think you're too stupid to know what you want, or need. So you're nannied. The outcome is that certain aspect are hidden from you. This is the case with this consumer device. I guess they figured you paid for the 300 model because it was marketed as "better", so it has to be forced to be "better". Unfortunately, it's not better whatsoever. Overpriced, less quality. Double punishment. Triple punishment, considering it's just low-end DV. Just an overall crappy device based on mid 90s tech, digital video in its infancy, from the Pentium III era of computers.
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  3. Hmmm... wasn't aware of that. It is a sign of the times though,. I HATE cloud software even though I work at a company that sells it. The number of times something, let's say, like CTRL-C making a copy all of a sudden just doesn't work really annoys me.

    Same with cars, people rely so heavily on the tech they really aren't driving anymore.

    I have to say I went for the ADVC300 because I had to capture nearly 100 hours of video. With it I never had a problem with video/audio synch. The quality was good enough that when I burned DVDs it didn't look any worse than when viewed directly on the TV from the original device (HI8 or VHS, always the actual device that did the recording in the first place).

    All the other devices I had tried up to then always got out of synch (Pinnacle and other "grabbers"). Also I found the real-time tweaking of the picture easier than post-processing the video which took literally days on my then Pentium 4.

    I have read many many many threads on here but to be honest I don't think I have seen a decent, affordable solution for the "prosumer" who wants the best quality at an affordable price.

    It is clear that it can't compete with professional conversion but if visually it look the same (or dare I say better) after digitization as the original when played on its own device where is the problem?

    I still ave all the originals and the devices so I am willing to do it all again but I would want to be sure the better quality would be worth it.
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  4. Capturing Memories dellsam34's Avatar
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    Analog to DV to DVD (mpeg-2) ? Yikes!!
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  5. Originally Posted by dellsam34 View Post
    Analog to DV to DVD (mpeg-2) ? Yikes!!
    Dude I actually first made VCDs out of them in the beginning! Now THAT was hideous!!! I only did it a few times but even for back then it was barely tolerable.

    It was the mid to late 2000s. YouTube didn't exist and wanted to make seeing the videos as easy as possible. Everyone had a DVD player. I also had to jump between NTSC and PAL. I literally was mailing DVDs around the world. My deceased grandmas seemed to appreciate them (N.B.: they did not die because of bad video quality!!! )

    I first made VCDs, then SuperVCDs and finally DVDs when that was feasible. Heck back then VideoLAN didn't exist so just getting a format that everyone could play was a pain!

    Like I said, if you hooked up the camera/VCR directly to the TV there was hardly any difference. I checked often because I was afraid of "over correcting" things.

    No blocking, tearing, or crushed blacks.

    Granted back then the TVs were sometimes still analog and/or not very big and to be fair I have not dug them out and looked at them on a 42" OLED.

    But still, unless someone can show me a real-world difference I am struggling to see what the problem is other than a purely theoretical one.

    Now I know that with today's tech I should digitize losslessly but with what?

    The devices I have found on the forum either no longer exist or are well above my pay grade. It could be I just didn't click on the correct link though. I

    I don't expect things to look better but so far I have not seen them look worse. Caveat is of course I have to admit I have not looked at these in years on modern equipment.
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    Hi Guys

    Thanks for everyones input in this problem.

    So like dvd3500 says, the ADVC 300 is a crappy device?

    I just got my VCR back from service with videoheads cleaned.
    But the result is still messy, like the video I uploaded before.

    Lets look at the connections. Im forced to go with a scart-adapter.
    Then via firewire 4 pins to 6 pins.

    Image
    [Attachment 64222 - Click to enlarge]


    I´ve tried a handfull of different softwares on the computer, but the crappy signal is instant.

    I got a newer VCR with HDMI-output, would that be a better solution, with hooking it up to the ADVC?
    Or should I just dump the ADVC and look for a better converter?

    I´m struggling, guys.
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  7. Member DB83's Avatar
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    I am always willing for people to pick holes in my content so I just did a short home-VHS recording using my ADVC-300.

    All settings are done via the picture-controller software (if you do not have it then there is a link earlier in the thread). But most are actually set to default


    This VHS must be 15+ years old. Like I said, the device is not perfect but it is not as bad as some will state.
    Image Attached Files
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    Nothing wrong with that DB.
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  9. Thanks.
    Why on earth do you have a recording of a rock band on the German Hessen regional TV channel?
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  10. Member DB83's Avatar
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    ^^ Long story. But I have had European sat tv for many, many years and recorded as much SQ as I could find. These recordings typically ended up on dvd for trading purposes.
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    Originally Posted by DB83 View Post
    This VHS must be 15+ years old. Like I said, the device is not perfect but it is not as bad as some will state.
    The VCR used may or may not emphasize this – it looks quite strongly denoised to me (well, it obviously is). It's not bad but it's not my cup of tea.
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  12. Originally Posted by dvd3500 View Post
    It was the mid to late 2000s. ... Now I know that with today's tech I should digitize losslessly but with what?
    Um, the Dazzle DVC100 was released in 2006, it sends uncompressed 8-bit 4:2:2 over USB2+. The TV/FM/Composite/SVideo card in my 2008 Windows machine captures uncomressed video. The latest Avermedia CE310B capture card that accepts analog SD video is released, I believe, in 2015, and its chipset is from 2008 (I have one on order, eager to try it). So, not exactly today's tech.

    I cannot comment on the results presented here without seeing the original, although the very first screenshot presented by Dario77 is a bit noisy. I am easy to please as long as the video does not have interlacing artefacts, is in proper aspect ratio and is not very noisy or blocky. I can accept muted colors or softness or even wavy lines in a sort of artsy-fartsy lo-fi way (how many people say they hate HD because it looks TOO REAL and praise any badly shot and processed Super8 as high art?) For the record, I was quite pleased with capturing VHS through a Canon DV camcorder - chroma resolution could have suffered, but I liked the skin tone, and saw no macroblocking. Canon licked out its DV encoder, unlike Canopus I guess
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    The advc 300 is a real "bear" to open with no prior experience without damaging it.

    So I wouldn't recommend trying this yourself, until you've had a little practice or talked with someone who has experience doing it.

    But unless your repairing one there isn't a lot of reason to open one anyway.

    Its a two board "system" with a dedicated Time Base Corrector and Full Frame Synchronizer, and 2D or 3D Comb Filter (for Composite) or by-pass for S-Video and Component (D1) signals.

    the all in one "chip" that contains the TBC and Full Frame Synchronizer is the;

    Panasonic (Masushita) MN673744 ( this is the "earlier" 2003 chip which does not support WSS among other things)



    The MN TBC chips were widely available in Japan for their "Power Stabilizers" today we would probaly refer to them as "Video Stabilizers" but we used up that term in North America to refer to Macrovision scrubbers and AGC stabilizers. So instead we developed the terms "TBC" and "Frame Syncs" which seem to confuse people on the Japanese video blogs from those years.. they didn't seem to understand what we were talking about in the original Japanese.

    Canopus / Grass Valley (after the purchase) imported the ADVC line into North America and Europe.. and I'm a young person compared to the other experts here on these forums.. but I think they were both the most popular and only way (other than a high end DVD recorder) to get these chips outside of Japan until the end of NTSC and PAL in 2009 et. al.

    To my untrained eye.. the card looks very similar to what was used in early DVD recorders from Panasonic sold world wide.. very similar.. except that in the ES10 and ES20 the precise part numbers seemed obscured or re-indexed so they couldn't be quickly recognized by a casual inspection.

    This is a simple Block diagram from a flyer for this TBC/Frame Sync chip



    Commenting about the rest of the chips on the mainboard, the "fan" covers and obscures what I think is the main computer processor controller which ran the firewire interface and switched inputs and outputs and controlled the NEC µPD64011B 3DYC Separator Video Decoder on the bottom of the TBC/Frame Sync card

    The µPD64011B provided the separate functions of proc-amp, 2D/3D Comb Filter and video decoding.



    note: all those Surface Mount electrolytics !!! Yikes

    Many of those caps are going to be nearly 20 years old, even the best cap doesn't last forever.. and slowly raises its ESR value which blocks signal "attenuating it" making the picture grow darker.. and the details fuzzier.

    I wouldn't haul out and replace them all, but I bet the video picture captured 20 years ago was a crisp bright sharp image compared to what is still possible today.

    I don't know "for sure" but its possible since the S/N ratio is going to decrease as signal levels fall, the ability of the TBC/Frame sync chip to distinguish sync from noise will also get worse over time. One way of combating this might be to put a video amplifier in front of the Input and increasing the GAIN artificially, like with a proc-amp .. or replace the caps.. but circuit card work with Surface mount components is rather hazardous to the card.

    Here is a simple Block diagram for the µPD64011B chip



    The later MN673747 chip would bring all of those function onboard into one single LSI chip (Large Scale Integrated Chip, not LSI Logic "the brand") and support WSS signals natively.. it was the 1st generation of HDTV.. which Japan had its own terms for that too.. but thats another tangent.

    The important thing to learn from this is the ADVC-300 is made of some of the best parts ever put together by NEC and Matsushita.. and they did not skimp on the memory either. Since its not all in one chip its easy to understand and follow the flow of how it worked.

    But one of the reasons for shrinking down and bringing all these separate pieces into one chip in the next generation is vulnerability to noise and interference. Using glue logic and external components drove up cost to manufacture and made them more vulnerable to aging external components like external capacitors.

    The ADVC-300 compressed video down to DV (Digital Video) with the associate color loss of that format, 4:1:1 but high resolution in the Luma.

    Later standalone MPEG-2 devices would improve on this as PCI cards and USB2.0 capture devices using even fewer chips.

    I tend to think the over use, or default setting of 3D Comb may explain a lot of "flashing" and uneven brightness during capture.. and overall general blurriness.. I would respectfully encourage to always use s-video or component when available.. and never use 3D Comb filtering at all with VHS or S-VHS capture.

    One thing perlexes me a bit.

    The MN tbc/frame sync was "capable" of performing Comb filtering and digitizing, but they also included the NEC chip.. why?

    that's a lot of duplication or overlap of function..

    I can only guess since Toshiba chose NEC exclusively for most of their DVD recorders.. the NEC version was considered superior.. until NEC completed designing their TBC/Frame sync chip in 2005 and starting including its functions in their all in one MPEG-2/DVD recorder chips .. but that is a total guess.

    I saw something similar between Analog Devices chips and TBC/Frame syncs and Texas Instruments video decoders years later.. it seemed they were competitors.. but there was always a design choice between "cheap" and "best" at particular instances in time.

    In the year 2004 when the ADVC-300 was designed, using the 2003 TBC/Frame sync chip from Masushita appeared to make the most sense.

    ---

    One other thing about the ADVC-300 some of the settings can be accessed from the Dip switches on the bottom of the unit, some can not. The Windows XP and Mac 10.6.8 "firewire" picture control software is the only way to change some settings.. which are then saved to the non-volatile ram on the ADVC-300.

    If you have never downloaded and used the "Picture Control" software, you may be running the unit with only the Dip switch settings and benefiting/(or suffering) from either the factory settings, or the last settings made by the last user of the device.

    In particular, I have seem some "ringing" on the Left hand side of video captured using 3D Comb filters.. it may occur in other situations.. but in theory the SCH and Phase of the Horizontal timing controls may be able to cancel this out.. I have not experimented with this.. but having control over these settings when using Comb filters seems to be a $5000 feature in some old scan converters.

    But pay attention to all of my caveats above.. I don't know what I'm doing.. I am no professional.. I'm mostly just an observer.





    There is a "whole lot" of English versus Japanese ('cultural') interpolation to those dialog boxes.. but I'll leave it there..

    Simply don't try to interpret the Alphabet and use of words precisely verbatim when changing those settings..

    They made a great product, but English was not the translators first language.. so make "allowances" for interpolation

    Example:

    Y/C Separation [_] 2D(W) [x] 3D(H)

    "Literally" this means prioritize 3D or 2D Comb filtering when breaking a Composite signal down into Chroma and Luma.

    Only selecting [x] 3D(H) will enable the 3D Comb filter, otherwise it will default to using 2D line Comb Filtering or less

    "W" refers to "wide" or the horizontal "line" filter.. imagine a person waving their hand like the wings of an airplane to explain the meaning

    "H" refers to the entire "field" or "frame" from Top to Bottom, since 3D Comb filtering works by comparing two fields or frames.. its a temporal comparison not spatial.. but sorta kinda.. gets the meaning across.. awkwardly

    You can't unselect 3D and not select 2D or vice versa.. so they used "radio buttons" in the interface to represent the choice

    (to me this is very confusing.. but after thinking about it for a long while.. you sort of get the "gist".. of what they were trying to communicate to the user).. that is, select 2D or 3D Comb Filter priority

    Noise Reduction, 3D Comb Filter "sensitivity" are topics of their own.. but I think they don't need a lot of explanation

    Same for Edge Adjustment

    The Video AGC is very robust, giving you control over the trigger value for Chroma and Luma separately, or to just turn it off entirely

    AGC and 3D Comb are at odds.. and I "think" confuse a lot of people.. until I dug into the maths recently I didn't know they were entangled and linked.. its easy to get them confused as doing what the other is doing.. using them together is the worst case scenario

    The ADVC-300 Users manual.. is in Japanese, roughly translated into English and a few other languages.. long before Google Translate.. when few people understood video capture or analog to digital conversion.. so it comes across as kinda "rough".

    Basically most of the sections on Picture Control, recommend.. "if you don't understand this manual, try turning the settings off and on watching the effect on your capture" which is sort of a catch all for.. "if you don't understand our English, then try this???"

    It was a good product in its day.. apparently a lot of people didn't mind a little puzzle solving.

    Other people just got frustrated and re-sold them
    Last edited by jwillis84; 11th Apr 2022 at 21:00.
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    DB83, be a nice fellow and do a quick run with your Hauppauge Live 2 for comparison.

    JWillis, wow, thanks for that.
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    Let me throw in my negative 2 pence, garbage in garbage out, go ahead flame me, I may deserve it (I'm on my second martini). Everything depends on the source to begin with, step 1, A number one. An AVDC-300 is some bad hardware to start with (people with far more knowledge than me stated and as you've already been bombarded with enough). The source is probably compromised. What do I know? My ancient DV tapes look amazing compared.
    It's not important the problem be solved, only that the blame for the mistake is assigned correctly
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  16. Capturing Memories dellsam34's Avatar
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    Not so fast, If the ADVC-300 has a passthrough capability like the Edirol VMC-1 and some DVD recorders it could be used as a TBC, I know it's been mentioned here before that it doesn't have passthrough capability but I have yet to see some proof, A lot of members here own them why can't they try them in a such way so we can confirm this.
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    well.. I wasn't gonna say this.. i babbled on for quite a while there.. but

    since this has "two" chips that work on raw analog signals for their Input

    the TBC/Frame Sync "must" feed the Second stage NEC proc-amp some way

    whether that's through a D to A converter, or a sideways "tap" of some kind

    I do not know

    But its freaking weird to have two separate high power chips in the same device like that

    (I guess) the simplest thing would be to tap the Input pin for the NEC chip to get a TBC/Frame Sync cleaned up version of the signal

    You would be effectively using it totally for its raw TBC/Frame sync capability, and need to route that to an Uncompressed Video Capture card or device.. or Compressed video capture device downstream

    Seems like a lot of work however

    I'm not as motivated to chase repurposing the ADVC-300 as I used to.. especially after seeing so many large Surface mount Electrolytic caps under the board. I have a strong feeling those will be effecting nearly everyone's current device this long after manufacture.

    I am a little curious as to measuring their current ESR values in circuit just to see how high some of them might be by now

    I did not screen cap some of the tabs in the Picture Control software.. its very clear they were directly adjusting the NEC chips processing parameters by their choice of words to describe those settings and the number of choices which appear in the block diagram

    At that time in history.. they simply had to build a two chip two stage design.. it was the only work flow available to them..

    I do not like that they obviously had to make "two" A-to-D conversions.. first through the TBC/Frame sync chip and then through the NEC proc-amp chip.. its no worse than stringing together a work flow of a separate time base corrector (like a TBC-1000) and a separate proc-amp (like a Signvideo PV-100) but the one-step SDI options available have spoiled me.. they're just really freaking expensive out of Grass Valley.. even today

    I keep poking around Blackmagic design converters and SDI embedders thinking some place they must have offered a TBC/Frame sync capable device.. but so far.. nope

    Blackmagic for its marketing and sleek, cheap designs.. is pretty bare bones.. I can easily see how they keep their costs down and profits high.. not saying thats a bad thing per sec .. they are easy to get.. but you have to pair Blackmagic with a high end AV Receiver with a 7842 or something to get the separate benefits of time base or frame sync.. I am just starting to think that is what they kind of were refering to in their online forums.. and people just didn't catch the drift .. "if your looking for a cheap solution.. you can't afford the solution"

    This Surface mount cap problem with existing standalone TBC devices, even DVD recorders that have TBCs is a ticking time bomb and really concerns me.. for any low cost option that involves surplus or recycled gear.. those caps are not going to instantly rejuvenate.. they are going to fail silently, slowly.. and be hard to detect without measuring their ESR values directly

    I may be over thinking it.. but it might explain why some people report great success in the past with old gear that was New back then, and later.. many years later.. other people report failure.. and blame the source tape, or the VCR.. those could contribute to the problem.. but I just don't know how to assign weights to their contribution

    I don't think manufacturers share design life charts for their Caps anymore.. but Nichion did at one time.. it looked more like commissioned research.. and they projected accelerated aging to predict lifespan for their Caps to be about 5 years, 7 max, and warranted them for 3 to 5 years max.. Canopus GV ended production of the ADVC-300 over a decade ago.. all of them should be beyond their designed lifespan

    sorry to be a wet blanket

    here's a cheery thought

    A new Capacitor in parallel will have lower ESR and fresh reliable capacitance.. it might be possible to solder or paste a radial Cap over or around the same Caps to "test" if the Input signal is improved, or TBC/Frame Sync works better than before < this is totally speculative and theorectical.. its more like a "craft experiment" .. than a repair.. but it might prove the point, and even offer a way out to restore full functionality

    For an s-video input thats only two caps

    For a composite input thats only one cap

    ---

    rattling on just a bit longer.. regarding "pass-thru"

    "end-loops" or "loop-backs" were popular on broadcast equipment, but not so much on consumer gear

    consumer gear was a lot noiser and harder to tolerate simple unbalanced "loops"

    i would lay odds the ADVC-300 could be used as a pass-thru, but

    it may only pass-thru when the device is actively processing frames, not "passively" as many people would like

    I have seen this with Matrox MXO2 and several other consumer/prosumer devices

    it is a nice experiment to try out

    But also, if it is active only pass-thru, and not a tap or loop-back, then it will be just as vulnerable to cap decay as I suggested above

    Heck even passive pass-thru that was processing, would need those same input caps to be working perfectly

    .. weird thought running two computers for capture.. one to keep the ADVC-300 processing frames, another to take advantage of the pass-thru and capture video.. geez.. what a thought experiment
    Last edited by jwillis84; 12th Apr 2022 at 03:37.
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  18. Member DB83's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by Alwyn View Post
    DB83, be a nice fellow and do a quick run with your Hauppauge Live 2 for comparison
    I guess, but do confirm, you mean a raw capture (no ADVC filtering) of the same source.


    In an earlier thread I actually did that*. Not the same source but a commercial VHS and B&W. The consensus was then that the ADVC result was better.



    *link to that comparison


    https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/401454-Best-settings-using-Virtual-Dub-to-correct-...-capture/page2 Reply #43
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  19. Capturing Memories dellsam34's Avatar
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    Does anyone have the ADVC-300 diagram where it shows all the paths between chips including the DV encoder chip? Has there been any published?
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    Originally Posted by dellsam34 View Post
    Not so fast, If the ADVC-300 has a passthrough capability like the Edirol VMC-1 and some DVD recorders it could be used as a TBC, I know it's been mentioned here before that it doesn't have passthrough capability but I have yet to see some proof, A lot of members here own them why can't they try them in a such way so we can confirm this.
    I have. And the results were posted in the link above.


    Back in the day, through trading, I received many a crap 2nd or even third generation VHS copy. Needless to say that it was practically impossible to capture them. However, when I did obtain the ADVC the situation improved drastically. You have to take my word on this since I gave away to a collector all these tapes, DVDs etc which I had amassed and, despite my 'love' for the band I would hardly watch them again as my interests had evolved.
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    I honestly can't recall if I have or have not seen the full ADVC-300 circuit diagram.. maybe is all I can say

    But its not a hard a path to trace out

    The connector pins from Composite will connect to Ground and Signal

    The Connector pins from S-Video will have two Ground, one Y and one C (not that much harder)

    The traces on the circuit card are rather large and they do not appear to be multi-layer boards

    .. i mean its almost childs play

    you know.. the subsequent, ADVC-500, ADVC-1000, ADVC-3000 and the ADVC G1 and ADVC G1a probably followed suit as well and included TBC and Frame sync stages

    all made in Japan, but they didn't advertise TBC/Frame sync because like I said.. they were confused by the way we talked about it.. to them it was obvious you needed those features for consumer gear

    GV also acquired Snell and they also had single board "do alls" with tbc and frame sync, but they preferred the Analog Devices chips

    man lots to think about
    Last edited by jwillis84; 12th Apr 2022 at 04:00.
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    Originally Posted by jwillis84 View Post
    I do not like that they obviously had to make "two" A-to-D conversions.. first through the TBC/Frame sync chip and then through the NEC proc-amp chip.. its no worse than stringing together a work flow of a separate time base corrector (like a TBC-1000) and a separate proc-amp (like a Signvideo PV-100) but the one-step SDI options available have spoiled me.. they're just really freaking expensive out of Grass Valley.. even today.
    I told you before, once you go SDI you never look back.


    Originally Posted by DB83 View Post
    I have. And the results were posted in the link above.
    So that confirms the ADVC-300 works in passthrough outside DV compression and I can see the line TBC is indeed active compared to the other sample with line wiggle. I wonder how the frame sync works, But since it prevents audio from drifting one would assume it is working as well.
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    studying this ADVC-300 tbc/frame sync card a little more;

    the NEC µPD64011B is a member of a "family" of chips that not only has an Analog Input path, but (also) a Digital 10 Bit path, and can access a shared SDRAM memory.

    so that means using the Matsushita (MN674744) chip did (Not) have to pass the signal through A/D twice

    in fact I found a Japanese article referring to NEC being very proud that their NEC chips would be used in the "new" Toshiba RD-XS DVD recorders, their modular structure included the 10 bit Digital or SDRAM interface to avoid multiple A/D conversions when stringing these chips together

    sad to say.. it looks like the ADVC 500, 700, 1000, 3000 and beyond.. specifically did not include a TBC/Frame sync chip.. but I also have not had an opportunity to see what chips they did use
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    Are you suggesting that the ADVC-300 is doing A-D-A and A-D-A across two chips? I highly doubt it, it doesn't make any economical sense, Based on few similar DV devices my guess would be, it digitizes the analog inputs via an ADC chip and apply TBC, then feeds to the proc amp chip for digital processing and audio timing, from there to the DAC for analog outputs, the other branch from ADC goes to the DV encoder chip and out to the firewire port, This is a common design.
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    Originally Posted by dellsam34 View Post
    Not so fast, If the ADVC-300 has a passthrough capability like the Edirol VMC-1 and some DVD recorders it could be used as a TBC, I know it's been mentioned here before that it doesn't have passthrough capability but I have yet to see some proof, A lot of members here own them why can't they try them in a such way so we can confirm this.
    I can re-confirm this with new samples, if needed. In terms of TBC, this device is a do-nothing.

    Originally Posted by dellsam34 View Post
    But since it prevents audio from drifting
    This is false. DV has a feature known as "locked" and "unlocked" audio -- but is has nothing to do with drift. Furthermore, the feature is almost never used (consumer DV, DV25), and all audio is unlocked. The Canopus marketing machine didn't talk to engineering, and thus inferred BS about the (then common) issue of audio drift from dropped frames. But the Canopus box can still drop.

    Another 2000s myth that will not go away.
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  26. Capturing Memories dellsam34's Avatar
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    From DB83's link it does have a line TBC and it seem to be working and the frame is stable, As to the audio, I don't now about the ADVC-300 but when I had the Edirol VMC-1 the locked audio feature produces zero audio lag for as long as you let it capture, I confirmed it myself with long captures, I just didn't like DV encoding.
    Last edited by dellsam34; 25th Apr 2022 at 05:18.
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    Originally Posted by dellsam34 View Post
    From DB83's link it does have a line TBC and it seem to be working and the frame is stable, As to the audio, I don't now about the ADVC-300 but when I had the Edirol VMC-1 the locked audio feature produces zero audio lag for as long as you let it capture, I confirmed it myself with long captures, I just didn't like DV encoding.
    The exact text of the VMC-1 is "the locked audio function prevents video and audio from drifting out of synchronization which often occurs when converting from analog to digital." and "the VMC-1 is also equipped with a 3D Y/C control and the built-in Time Base Corrector & Frame Synchronizer will ensure that you never lose a frame of your video in the conversion process."

    But that's heavily misleading.

    Audio can only be "locked" within the unit itself -- not to correct sync before input, nor after output. And it appears to heavily rely on TBC for that to happen. However, lack of TBC is not the only reason for drops. A main reason, yes. But only reason, no. And once the output is changed analog again, no such locking exists. The claim of "locking" appears to be a mishmash of TBC+DV, but again noting DV is unlocked for consumer/DV25.

    More marketing, less truth.

    By those definitions, all TBCs lock video to audio. Pretty much everything that does A>D (or A>D>A), including all capture cards, is "locked". But that's silly.
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