[ENDED] For sale: cheap TBC, black AVT-8710 clone
 

I don't suggest this TBC, and you will have quality problems. But if you want a cheap TBC, for capturing small video segments for Youtube, or those weird/neat analog video art projects, this may work. Don't get this for capturing anything of substance, it will fail badly at that task.

Only $<removed.

This is what these EOL units sold for new on clearance taxed/shipped.

Who wants it? :hmm:

Again, NOT FOR ALL VIDEO PROJECTS. I cannot stress this enough.

NOTE: My actual black AVT-8710s are being used for site R&D. This is just an extra clone. The clone has variables that make it unfit for R&D use.

Actually they are not that bad at least they are somehow transparent with a little bit of luma tweaking which are equipped with a proc amp, I once used to use it for recording to VCR since I couldn't get rid of a greenish chroma artifact at the top of the frame and this got rid of it.

- Luma has nothing to do with this.
- And nothing can be tweaked.

The flawed chipsets cause frame/field sticking/freezing, frame/frame repeating/stuttering, and other various on-screen image glitches. That's the problem with these black units. You cannot record anything important, for any length of time, without running into these issues.

But in an era where TBCs are somewhat costly, and you just want a TBC for your Youtube clips, or art project, or whatever -- well, here you go. And at the original price, 10+ years later.

The black unit I have has that frame artifact only if the menu is displayed, It captures video with no problems, The only complaint I have is that it is a little brighter. Not that I use this type of workflow but I'm keeping it for occasional testing.

There are multiple sample clips posted in various threads in this forum, and on various other sites, showing the field/frame sticking, repeating, and ghosting problem. It's not imagined. I do know that Cypress attempted (and re-attempted) correction of this via on-chip software tweaking (as per conversations with TVOne), so there are variations in how frequent it occurs from unit to unit. But it never goes away. It's due to the chips in use, not software. And the tweaking had other ill effects, weakening the quality of the TBC entirely.

There are some EOL green units that did have menu-only issues. Very rare to come across one of those, I've only seen two ever. But it still mostly used the "green era" chipsets. The black era had vastly different chips, everything from RAM to FPGA.

We're still trying to locate exactly where the flaw lies, but every new avenue has new roadblocks. It may be a lost cause. Our idea is to find the rogue chip, and try to swap it with something else. Obviously Cypress tweaking firmware did nothing. So extreme refurb and modification. The units do have some bitlocked chips, so if one of those chips is the culprit, it could be difficult to impossible to resolve.

At very least, these bad units have minimal use for short clip transfer. Something often done for Youtube, maybe documentaries. Or those analog video art projects, etc. Anything but a quality transfer of more than a few minutes in length (because you can quickly watch the entire result for errors, and errors will present).

If this TBC was good, with only menus being the issue, it'd be worth more, and more folks would want it.

I used it for recording two hour tapes and didn't exhibit any issues, S-Video out from media player to S-Video in TBC to VCR S-Video in, I didn't try long captures though but now that you mentioned it I will capture a VHS tape with it and report back.

I actually do have one of these supposedly "flawed" units too, but like latreche34, mine never really showed any signs of being defective like the captures we see in the forum here. It's true it has the JVC menu issue, but it adds no ghosting/other bad effects even for long captures. It even corrected some jittering and the tiny proc amp helped improve the capture.

(I still don't fully trust it though...)

Still available.

The mixed results make me wonder if it is a thermal problem; a marginal design, with chips pushed past their reliable thermal limits meaning some falter, others don't depending on individual chip-to-chip variances?

Its probably been investigated already but I ask because I recall reports from ~20 years ago of somewhat similar behavior with some video mixers that was minimized by adding external cooling (forced air) to the case openings. Users essentially placed a muffin fan under the mixer.

I read several times that the cypress TBC (at least the variants in plastic cases) are known to run hot after few hours of use and they start to act up as if it was a defective one. But I think the problem here with "defective" units is probably different as the issue happens even when running in normal temperature.

I had a black unit branded TVOne that freaked out on JVC menus and on one tape in particular of 8mm home movies transferred to VHS I would get bad frame stuttering and repeating. This was right at the beginning of the tape. The unit hadn't been on for more than a few minutes, so heat definitely wasn't a factor. It was simply defective. I lent that unit to LS for research/autopsy/cannibalization.