[Problem] Quality VHS to Firewire scan via Camcorder

[pablitooo66]

Hello, to all

I want to digitize VHS tapes with a camcorder. Everything works sound and image, but the image is deteriorated compared to the simple reading on the tape. There are artifacts and the image is in black and white noise.

Material:

Sony DCR-TRV345E

Sharp VC-MH68FPM

Here is the quality of the image captured on Premiere pro (same material used):


[Attachment 68359 - Click to enlarge]


[Attachment 68360 - Click to enlarge]


[Attachment 68361 - Click to enlarge]

In both cases the image is buggy, even if for the capture via S-Video the image is slightly better.

However, when playing another tape with connection number 1. Everything works, why?
Hypothesis:

-The duration of the VHS tape (3h30 against 1H30)
-Brand : Sony, the others not.
-Content: the one who works: hi8 video copy
the others : hi8 video copy + TV recording (copyright protection ?)

If someone has a solution
Thanks for your answer.

[pablitooo66]

By retrying the acquisition on the non-functional VHS
I changed the CLR format in the VCR menu. Switching from AUTO to SECAM to PAL.

Indeed, in SECAM it affects the quality, the image is less blurred but still in black and white.
It seems that my camcorder can not decode the SECAM format correctly.

[pablitooo66]

Are there any VCRs that can read SECAM and PAL VHS and convert this output signal to PAL?

[dellsam34]

If your tapes are SECAM you need a SECAM VCR, Conversion is not the best way to capture your tapes.

[Skiller]

Are there any VCRs that can read SECAM and PAL VHS and convert this output signal to PAL?

Yes, many mid 90's to early 2000's VCRs by JVC (PAL models) have an option to convert SECAM color to PAL color in their option menus.


What happens if you play that tape on a TV?


Edit: I have to correct myself. Those may output MESECAM tapes as PAL.

[Eric-jan]

As far as i know SECAM is not recorded onto the tape format,(tuner format only) maybe it's MESECAM ? you should try any other player, to determine if the recording is PAL or not, do you know for shure, the recording is non-PAL ? The recording itself has color information ?
It also depends if the recording is made on a VHS VCR or in a VHS camcorder….
Is the camcorder you're using a PAL or (ME)SECAM one ? these devices can have incompatible recording/play features, try an other passthrough/conversion device in your setup.

[Skiller]

There exist SECAM VHS tapes, especially in France (this variant is also called "SECAM-West"), but most are MESECAM. Many PAL VCRs are able to play MESECAM but not SECAM tapes (with color).

See Wikipedia on (ME)SECAM on tape.

[Eric-jan]

There exist SECAM VHS tapes, especially in France (this variant is also called "SECAM-West"), but most are MESECAM. Many PAL VCRs are able to play MESECAM but not SECAM tapes (with color).

See Wikipedia on (ME)SECAM on tape.

Exactly, (but i doubt the tapes are real SECAM) i guess trying other equipment in the setup should give more answers…. Don't know if SECAM-L is in play here.
Placing a DVD-recorder as passthrough between camcorder and VHS recorder could be an option, and see if this has any effect.

[dellsam34]

The OP has a PAL camcorder and a SECAM VCR, to top it off he uses Premiere to capture, nothing good can come out of this combination regardless what tape format is.

[dellsam34]

Exactly, (but i doubt the tapes are real SECAM) i guess trying other equipment in the setup should give more answers…. Don't know if SECAM-L is in play here.

Wikipedia is a little confusing, SECAM was indeed a home recording format not just MESECAM, I had VHS-C SECAM home videos, Although it is referred to as SECAM-L but it is just SECAM, Letter designation is for broadcast stations, L being the France main channels, In VHS there is only one SECAM format and that is SECAM. MESECAM was never part of the VHS specifications, There are only 3 main formats NTSC, PAL and SECAM, all other hybrid formats are a combination of 2 or more of the 3 main formats.

Here is one of the SECAM camcorders widely used in France.

[Eric-jan]

The OP has a PAL camcorder and a SECAM VCR, to top it off he uses Premiere to capture, nothing good can come out of this combination regardless what tape format is.

Yes, also true, i checked some manuals, but i see only little referrence to any SECAM format, yes, the equipment used in tne recent setup could be anything just like the tapes, all could be of different regions, even recordings made on same type of equipment, could be incompatible, if not played back on original recording device, reading the troubleshoot guide of one of the manuals, using S-video should give best results, maybe using DV/Firewire is also an extra failpoint in this case, IRE could also be different on any device… on a ADVC100 one can set IRE only for PAL or NTSC, don't know if this is in play in any way with (ME)SECAM…. should be 0.0 i believe…
A multi-system combo recorder should give a fair chance , A Panasonic device comes into mind for that...

[dellsam34]

If the VCR is PAL and the OP has SECAM tapes that explains the weird colored noise, But usually when a member posts little to no information it is going to be all speculations.

[pablitooo66]

Thank you all for your answers!

My VCR is able to read PAL and SECAM except that I can't force the output signal be in the format I want.

That's why my camcorder can't decode the signal and the video is so bad. I also just learned that most camcorders can only read in PAL format.
I just need to add a SECAM to PAL converter to my setup. I know some VCRs can do this, but it's too expensive for me.

Apparently the cheapest solution would be to use a DVD player with RCA input able to convert SECAM to PAL at the RCA output.

[dellsam34]

You don't need to convert, you need a SECAM capture device, Most if not all USB/PCIe capture devices capture native SECAM video to computer, Then use Vdub to capture the video not Premiere.

[pablitooo66]

I use the camcorder as a "pass through" so we have to impose a PAL for the digitalization. My card is PCI firewire.

[dellsam34]

You don't have to pass through, Converting SECAM to PAL is a complicated process and incur a huge loss of chroma quality which is weak to begin with, not to mention that the resulting DV files have to be then encoded to another lossy format for playback. Just capture SECAM using USB or PCIe capture card to lossless AVI then de-interlace and encode if you need smaller size files.

If you insist to go with your messy process keep the tapes when you decide later to do them the right way.

[Skiller]

We found that the often recommended Panasonic DVD-recorders (European models) silently accept SECAM as input but would always output standard PAL. So that would be what you are looking for.

[Eric-jan]

We found that the often recommended Panasonic DVD-recorders (European models) silently accept SECAM as input but would always output standard PAL. So that would be what you are looking for.

Some of the later models even have an DV input, since it's not NTSC footage, you won't notice any color "loss" is my guess, both PAL and SECAM have better color bandwith.

[Skiller]

When people on this forum talk about color loss with NTSC, it is because of the 4:1:1 subsampling that DV uses for 480i/60 Hz.

Looking at just the actual analog color baseband signals, NTSC actually has the best color resolution out of all analog color modulation schemes. The main reason is NTSC does not do any averaging of adjacent lines, which is ironically the very reason why PAL was superiour for analog over the air broadcasts, because this averaging eliminated tint errors and some color noise – at the expense of some loss in color resolution.
But when you just want to connect two pieces of local equipment, the averaging is not needed and even causes the infamous downwards color shift in PAL VHS and other analog tape formats.

[dellsam34]

I've expressed my opinion recently about 4:1:1 vs 4:2:0 and I believe that both PAL DV and NTSC DV have their strength and weaknesses in saving bandwidth while keeping the minimum chroma quality. I don't truly believe that NTSC DV is worse than PAL DV. PAL looses temporal resolution, so in an interlaced point of view you can say PAL has the full vertical resolution, but it is field resolution not frame resolution. While NTSC has separate chroma value for even and odd fields.

[Skiller]

There is a good reason it was done this way. It was in hindsight of how the underlaying analog color modulation schemes work.
Analog NTSC has full vertical chroma resolution while PAL inherently cannot. So it's natural to use 4:2:0 for PAL and (ideally) 4:2:2 for NTSC, but to keep the bandwidth about the same, 4:1:1 had to be used.

[oln]

For SD video represented as the usual 720 px wide, 4:1:1 is technically enough to cover the whole NTSC broadcast color bandwidth (1.3 mhz for the I channel and 0.4 mhz for the Q channel) and even more so the much more limited color bandwidth on VHS and most other videotape formats. Though, due to lossy DCT compression, noise etc it might not represent something from e.g a tape source as well in practice.

[Eric-jan]

So understanding this all, the OP should have good results capturing/transfering with locally bought equipment, and locally recorded footage, could the camcorder still be the deal breaker in both of his setup's ?
is that the recordings are done in NTSC…. or….. the camcorder is a NTSC model… the camcorder is bought online ? (outside the EU?)
Or also even more likely:
Wikipedia, about camcorders in France, (maybe has effect on passhrough function) quote:"Although the older analog camcorders (VHS, VHS-C) were produced in SECAM versions, none of the 8 mm or Hi-band models (S-VHS, S-VHS-C, and Hi-8) recorded it directly. Camcorders and VCRs of these standards sold in SECAM countries are internally PAL. The result could be converted back to SECAM in some models; most people buying such expensive equipment would have a multistandard TV set and as such would not need a conversion. Digital camcorders or DVD players (with the exception of some early models) do not accept or output a SECAM analog signal. However, this is of dwindling importance: since 1980 most European domestic video equipment uses French-originated SCART connectors, allowing the transmission of RGB signals between devices. This eliminates the legacy of PAL, SECAM, and NTSC color sub carrier standards" end quote,
Notice also the difference mentioned about "high band" meaning SuperVHS and Hi8

Only metioning SCART in the camcorder context i do not understand, no SCART is used on camcorders, even DVD players went from composite/s-video to component and later HDMI. (no RGB for CRT tv's maybe only RGB passthrough in case of DVD recorders)
I guess DVD's in France were also PAL….while the broadcast standard was still analog, or MPEG2 (DVB)
It comes down to the camcorder which is "the weakest link" in this case/setup: replace it with a Panasonic dvd recorder like a DMR-ES10(PAL) (for it's VHS fresh feature)
@ OP: do you have a PAL VHS tape to playback ? this should work with colors showing, and you know then, that you should replace the camcorder.

[Skiller]

Yes, camcorders never use Scart (maybe they came with an accessory RCA to Scart adapter but there is of course no RGB this way, just Composite over Scart).

even DVD players went from composite/s-video to component and later HDMI. (no RGB for CRT tv's maybe only RGB passthrough in case of DVD recorders)

For North American DVD-players, yes; not correct for European DVD-players. Virtually any DVD-player with Scart may output RGB over Scart (in addition to Composite for legacy).
European CRT TVs do display RGB over Scart since about 1995. I have a super cheap bottom-of-the-line, tiny CRT TV bought in 1999 that can do RGB over Scart. It's nothing special.

I guess DVD's in France were also PAL…

There is no NTSC/PAL/SECAM in the digital domain (such as DVDs) because these are analog color modulation schemes. Confusion arises because these terms are often used synonymously to descibe their digital equivalents, which should really just be called 576i and 480i.
This also means when stored digitally, PAL and SECAM are the exact same because both are 576i YCbCr data.

[Eric-jan]

@pablitooo66 : where did you buy the camcorder ? > camcorder is the problem….
Like i already said:replace it with a Panasonic dvd recorder like a DMR-ES10(PAL version) (for it's VHS fresh feature) the DMR-ES35V (PAL version) will also work as player for VHS or as passthrough. (i know the ES35V will also work fine in real/true NTSC mode, should this be needed)

There is no NTSC/PAL/SECAM in the digital domain (such as DVDs) because these are analog color modulation schemes. Confusion arises because these terms are often used synonymously to descibe their digital equivalents, which should really just be called 576i and 480i.
This also means when stored digitally, PAL and SECAM are the exact same because both are 576i YCbCr data.

correct, sorry for that…. DVD discs in France are the same as in the rest of the EU and UK

[Bwaak]

There is no NTSC/PAL/SECAM in the digital domain (such as DVDs) because these are analog color modulation schemes. Confusion arises because these terms are often used synonymously to descibe their digital equivalents, which should really just be called 576i...

...which can also be 575i...

and 480i.

...which can also be 483i or 486i or 487i.

Which is why I prefer good old 525/60 and 625/50 nomenclature, which is also used in Rec. 601.