Capturing VHS using DVR passthrough with Pioneer 545-HX

[eXtremeDevil]

Hello, I'm trying to capture a VHS with the best quality possible. My VHS only have SCART output. Someone at doom9 forums told me about the passthrough "technique", which consist on connecting the VHS to a DVR, then the DVR (in passthrough mode) to a capture device, to reduce the VHS wobbly effect (I believe it is called TBC).

I only have a Pioneer 545-HX, but I don't see any passthrough options on the menu. Is this possible with this model?

Will I get the same quality with these connection combinations, or will one of them be better than the other? What would you guys recommend?

SCART out -> SCART to composite adapter -> Composite in
SCART out -> SCART in
SCART out with SCART to composite cable -> Composite in

Thanks in advance!

[dellsam34]

Depends on the quality of the cables/adapters, no one can give you an answer, you will have to experiment yourself.

[eXtremeDevil]

Depends on the quality of the cables/adapters, no one can give you an answer, you will have to experiment yourself.

And what about the passthrough mode??

[The_Doman]

Will I get the same quality with these connection combinations, or will one of them be better than the other? What would you guys recommend?

SCART out -> SCART to composite adapter -> Composite in
SCART out -> SCART in
SCART out with SCART to composite cable -> Composite in

There is no special "pass-through" setting, you just routing/passing the video through the recorder.

All connectors are using composite, so normally they should give the same result.
But what you should try is to use the S-Video output of the recorder and use that for your capture device, that could possible give you better results.
Also if your Pioneer recorder will improve/stabilize the image, you just have to try it?

I've found that the quality of a recording done with my VCR connected to a DVD recorder which outputs S Video is higher quality than if you use composite

Well yes exactly that is what i am also always doing when recording from composite.
You would expect the DVD recorder doing a better job separating/filtering the Y/C signals instead of most (simpler/cheaper?) capture devices.
Also of course combined with the stabilization and optional noise reduction of the recorder it can improve composite recording significantly.
I have several S-VHS/TBC decks too but often prefer capturing with a regular VHS through the Panasonic DVD recorder.

[eXtremeDevil]

There is no special "pass-through" setting, you just routing/passing the video through the recorder.

I thought it was an special setting, since I've read some things like "most DVRs are capable of doing VHS passthrough..." and such. But, since this VHS capturing technique consist on just connecting a VHS to a DVR, then capturing the DVR output... wouldn't literally all DVR be capable of this so called passthrough? Or maybe I got it wrong, and the passthrough can be done with any DVR, and the TBC stabilization is the thing most DVRs are capable, but not all, am I right?

All connectors are using composite, so normally they should give the same result.
But what you should try is to use the S-Video output of the recorder and use that for your capture device, that could possible give you better results.
Also if your Pioneer recorder will improve/stabilize the image, you just have to try it?

Thanks, I guess it would all depend on the cables quality after all, the combination shouldn't affect the final result.
Yes, of course, I'm usins S-Video to connect my DVR to my capture device.
And yes, on a first quick test, the image seems more stable, I will do more extensive tests tomorrow. The funny thing is that, my cheap capture device only outputs B/W signal when used with S-Video in a Linux OS (driver issues, I guess), but not on Windows. I does output color on Linux when using composite, but the Windows driver seems to give lower quality. So I will try this to compare:

VHS directly to capture device with composite, Linux
VHS directly to capture device with composite, Windows
VHS to DVR to capture device with composite, Linux
VHS to DVR to capture device with composite, Windows
VHS to DVR to capture device with S-video, Windows

Sorry for all the details, part of them are for myself, to not get lost with all the different tests xD

[oln]

No there isn't any special setting, all dvrs (at least that I'm aware of) will digitize the video signal and then output a stable signal on the output. (Compared to say a vcr which will just pass the video signal straight through directly without going via any processing other than maybe going via the automatic gain control circuit that might screw with the video levels if the tape has copy protection).

The "capability" is more about the capabilities of the video decoder ICs in the DVR, where a few contain extra functionality for horizontal stabilization. Panasonic dvd-recorders are most well known for it but pioneers from 2005 and newer (DVR-_30 and newer, the _30 models might differ slighly from the later ones) also work relatively well though not quite as well as the panasonics (though they are a bit more configurable and don't have the issues with bright clipping of the panasonics.) So this model should work well.

The dvd-recorders that don't work well will also digitize the input and output a stable video signal but have video decoders that lack the capabilities to stabilize the input particularly well so you end up with vidoe that's wiggly and/or with video that drops out on issues that might not be any better than the capture device directly (though even some of the pretty mediocre ones might work better than a lot of the capture devices since most capture devices handle direct vcr input really badly.)

[eXtremeDevil]

Thanks for the info! What is a video decoder IC?

[Sharc]

IC = Integrated Circuit, aka "Chip". A hardware component.
Video Decoder IC: A chip which does the decoding of the video signal.

[eXtremeDevil]

Thanks!

[eXtremeDevil]

I've been capturing with different combinations and two different capture devices, this is what I tried (connection from VHS to DVR is always done with a SCART/Composite cable and adapter):

August - VHS to DVR with Composite to Linux
August - VHS to DVR with Composite to Windows
August - VHS to DVR with SVideo to Windows
August - VHS with Composite to Linux
August - VHS with Composite to Windows
Hauppauge - VHS to DVR with Composite to Linux
Hauppauge - VHS to DVR with Composite to Windows
Hauppauge - VHS to DVR with SVideo to Linux
Hauppauge - VHS to DVR with SVideo to Windows
Hauppauge - VHS with Composite to Linux
Hauppauge - VHS with Composite to Windows

And here are the results:



Another frame:



Here are my conclusions:

The VHS direct connections were just tests. However, the Hauppauge capture has less wobble effect, I guess it has a built-in corrector for this.

I would prefer August -> VHS > DVR (Composite) > Windows over August > VHS (Composite) > Windows, since the image is way more stable. But, I would say the first one has a bit more of detail.

Between August > VHS > DVR (Composite) > Windows and August > VHS > DVR (SVideo) > Windows, I would say the first one has a bit more of detail, but has color bleed compared to the second one.

Comparing August> VHS > DVR (SVideo) > Windows and Hauppauge > VHS > DVR (SVideo) Linux I see almost no differences, but maybe the later has a bit more detail?

I would appreciate your opinions, it would help me decide which option to choose. Here are the samples uploaded:
https://mega.nz/file/wZZjgaRA#N9ez71ClDjUy6NT4ptw6fG0t6qY-xl6EIM0vGEFjexg

My DVR also has a HDMI output port, would a cheap HDMI capture give me a significant difference, given the analog source and connection from a VHS player and tape? I guess the analog-to-digital conversion would be done on the DVR instead on my cheap USB capture devices, right? Would that improve quality?

[Sharc]

No ambition here to inspect and analyze all your thumbnails etc. (and they seem to be ok at a first glance) so just the bottom line again:

As you currently have a VCR with SCART/Composite and no TBC, and as you are using USB dongles for capturing, the recommended configuration is:

VCR SCART Composite OUT -> DVD Recorder SCART (or RCA) Composite IN -> DVD Recorder S-Video OUT -> Capture device S-Video IN

If your DVD Recorder has a setting like "2D/3D Comb Filter" or "Y/C filter" or similar (depending on the model) it should be enabled (ON), because is separates the luma from the chroma, means converts Composite to S-video sloppy speaking. Hence the DVD recorder performs 2 functions:
- It stabilizes the horizontal line jitter ("line TBC")
- It makes a decent luma/chroma separation preventing DotCrawl and Rainbow artefacts which are typical for Composite with inferior Y/C filters in the capture device (like your USB dongles).

This is independent of Windows or Linux.

I don't know your Pioneer DVD recorder, but you may take a look here as guideline and hints for settings:
https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/403635-Panasonic-DVD-recorder-passthrough-settings...5)#post2636157

In a next step you may want to learn Avisynth basics to analyze your captures using histograms and waveform monitors. Plenty of posts and tutorials in this forum.

[lollo]

My DVR also has a HDMI output port, would a cheap HDMI capture give me a significant difference, given the analog source and connection from a VHS player and tape? I guess the analog-to-digital conversion would be done on the DVR instead on my cheap USB capture devices, right?

As complemet to what Sharc properly said, if you want to explore the alternative flow you should capture the HDMI out of the DVD-Recorder with a quality device (not a cheap one degrading the quality). A guideline here: https://gleitz-info.translate.goog/forum/index.php?thread/47572-tutorial-hochwertiges-..._x_tr_pto=wapp

Would that improve quality?

No. We recently had a comparison here: https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/416184-Which-VCR-for-PAL-VHS-capture-(Composite-an...e2#post2754408

[The_Doman]

I've been capturing with different combinations and two different capture devices, this is what I tried (connection from VHS to DVR is always done with a SCART/Composite cable and adapter):

August - VHS to DVR with Composite to Linux
August - VHS to DVR with Composite to Windows
August - VHS to DVR with SVideo to Windows
August - VHS with Composite to Linux
August - VHS with Composite to Windows
Hauppauge - VHS to DVR with Composite to Linux
Hauppauge - VHS to DVR with Composite to Windows
Hauppauge - VHS to DVR with SVideo to Linux
Hauppauge - VHS to DVR with SVideo to Windows
Hauppauge - VHS with Composite to Linux
Hauppauge - VHS with Composite to Windows

And here are the results:

I not have analyzed all the capture that closely, they they all look pretty fuzzy to me.
Possible you can change some playback settings (sharpness) on the VHS player?
Or it could be just this recording.

But if you are testing/comparing, you can also try recording with the Pioneer itself?
It can write/transfer to all media (DVD-RAM/+-RW)
Could be interesting to compare.

Also that recorder has some really useful feature: recording of PAL-60.

So I recieved my Pioneer DVR-545HX deck today. I purchased a used one for £25 and the results are positive.

I was able to play an NTSC tape in my UK VCR which displays the picture in PAL-60 format and feed the signal into the Pioneer deck which recorded it in true NTSC format.

The transfer results are brilliant and to my amazement much better than the professional video transfer company I used.

So guys - Pioneer DVR-545HX can handle NTSC played as PAL-60 and records it as true NTSC.

[Sharc]

I not have analyzed all the capture that closely, they they all look pretty fuzzy to me.
Possible you can change some playback settings (sharpness) on the VHS player?

Usually a bad advice IMO because all the "sharpeners" in VHS players I have seen produce noise and halo artefacts.
If sharpening at all do it in post processing (after denoising).

[The_Doman]

I not have analyzed all the capture that closely, they they all look pretty fuzzy to me.
Possible you can change some playback settings (sharpness) on the VHS player?

Usually a bad advice IMO because all the "sharpeners" in VHS players I have seen produce noise and halo artefacts.
If sharpening at all do it in post processing (after denoising).

We don't know what VHS player is used what settings are available?
We still just testing/comparing things here.
Just you not want to capture a (unnecessary) fuzzy picture to start with.

Here is the video with combfilter on in the EH50 and also with the VCR sharpness at its default of 9, i believe the other capture i did may have had the sharpness set to 1 (it goes upto 15, and 15 makes it very grainy).
DMS

Well that looks already way much better watchable then that first (soft/fuzzy) recording (2.avi) you posted earlier.
I was thinking it was recorded from a badly tuned aerial broadcast.
Logically the best VCR sharpness is about the middle (if you not have any special edit settings), oversharping with VCR (or capture card) gives only undesirable results.
With my dazzle DVC100 i can set the sharpness up to 15 but that sharpness it is only artificial and looks horrible, so i turn it off at 0 or sometimes at 1.

[lollo]

We don't know what VHS player is used what settings are available?
We still just testing/comparing things here.
Just you not want to capture a (unnecessary) fuzzy picture to start with.

There is no (old) VCR with (old) hardware filtering able to outperform a (modern) software approach. Whatever thing you wish to test/compare.

[The_Doman]

There is no (old) VCR with (old) hardware filtering able to outperform a (modern) software approach. Whatever thing you wish to test/compare.

But with that logic the picture quality of the player does not matter (much) and you can solve all with filtering?
Well, just do whatever works best/gives best result of course.
But i not want to go into another discussion debate.

[lollo]

The opposite. The picture quality of the player is the most important element (together with the condition of the tapes). What we are talking about here is the “quality improvement features” of the VCRs, that are nowadays obsolete. Use edit mode and turn off all features for a better capture.

[eXtremeDevil]

I don't expect you guys to go through all the tests, but at least I would like you take into account my conclusions and comment them:

I would prefer August -> VHS > DVR (Composite) > Windows over August > VHS (Composite) > Windows, since the image is way more stable. But, I would say the first one has a bit more of detail.

Between August > VHS > DVR (Composite) > Windows and August > VHS > DVR (SVideo) > Windows, I would say the first one has a bit more of detail, but has color bleed compared to the second one.

Comparing August> VHS > DVR (SVideo) > Windows and Hauppauge > VHS > DVR (SVideo) Linux I see almost no differences, but maybe the later has a bit more detail?

About Windows/Linux, I can see obvious quality change only by using the different OSs. I guess it is a driver thing. You can see it for yourself.

I don't see any extra options on the VHS or the VCR, so I guess it is what it is.

I have some Avisynth knowledge, so yes, the next step will be restoration.

As complemet to what Sharc properly said, if you want to explore the alternative flow you should capture the HDMI out of the DVD-Recorder with a quality device.

Would that improve quality?

No. We recently had a comparison here: https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/416184-Which-VCR-for-PAL-VHS-capture-(Composite-an...e2#post2754408

So? What is it then? Only an expensive HDMI capture device would make any difference, you mean?

[lollo]

So? What is it then? Only an expensive HDMI capture device would make any difference, you mean?

Not completely. Did you read the guide and the linked comparison?

The DVR does the A/D conversion with its own quality, which is not better than the standard workflow when using one of the recommended capture card.

You then need a proper HDMI capture device to preserve the digital 4:2:2 uncompressed interlaced video streamed out of the HDMI connection (such the one suggested in the guide), because many cheap HDMI capture toys alter the architecture of the fields, deinterlace on the fly, compress to mjpeg or h264 and all this sort of defects.

[eXtremeDevil]

Noted, thanks.

[lollo]

You're welcome

[rgr]

My DVR also has a HDMI output port, would a cheap HDMI capture give me a significant difference

No, because cheap devices usually convert to MJPG, drop frames, etc. I know because I have one
You can buy a stationary recorder that records to H.264/H.265 on a memory card.

I guess the analog-to-digital conversion would be done on the DVR instead on my cheap USB capture devices, right? Would that improve quality?

Yes, if your VCR is of average quality (no TBC). It will stabilize your image. Of course, it depends on which DVR.

[eXtremeDevil]

Thanks!