Components are not directly attacted to the metal casing so it does not provide any cooling per se. But the board / components don't seem to get very hot so it likely doesn't matter (12h on).
Picture is sharp and almost noise free (compared to my TBC-1000 this is a big improvement).
Thanks for sharing your experience! Very interesting information.
In my experience, TBC-1000 noise is caused by the electrical issues in the home or office where it's being used. It's apparently more touchy than some other TBCs out there -- I've had this experience, too. There are also some models from a few years there were softness was an issue (I've only seen this from submitted captures, never directly on equipment I've used).
My TBC-1000 issue might very well be due to what you said. It's from eBay and I don't know it's history. 110V/60Hz PSU was replaced by 220V/50Hz switching-PSU and that might play a role too. To be fair the softness issues don't affect luma -channel so much, only chroma gets blurred and that doesn't make correcting VHS chroma shift etc very easy.
Last night I tested 1T-TBC vs TBC-1000 with tapes who produce vertical jitter which has been problem for me from time to time. I'm to happy say that 1T-TBC performs better in that area. Compared to TBC-1000 the jumps are still there but the effect is a lot more subtle and I can only spot the jumps when watching frame-by-frame. This is only one test with one tape tho and time will tell more.
Colorbar generator was a really nice bonus. It wasn't mentioned in the spec sheet (atleast I didn't find it). It's activated when there's no signal input. Together with AGC this makes calibrating the capture levels easier (I'm using bt878 based SweetSpot/PDI Deluxe card).
1T-TBC was bought directly from AV Toolbox's UK store and cost 191 euros (VAT0). Very fair deal imho.
Hmm, interesting .... that appears to be the AVT-8710 in another shell. Same features from what I can tell.
Chroma does occupy less space than luma, in the 4:2:2 or 4:2:0 processing commonly used in these devices. So it can appear softer, but luma should create the "detail" of the scene anyway. It's definitely possible that the TBC-1000 you have is soft, especially if it were damaged earlier in its lifetime. But I would warn that sometimes a device that oversharpens can make an accurate device seem "soft" by comparison. Verify without any TBC, then compare both images with TBC, to see if one is really softer (or sharper) than the other.
That is good news on the jitter! In tests performs years ago, the TBC-1000 was better than the AVT-8710, so I now wonder if the 1T-TBC is a copy of the AVT-8710 or not. Or maybe the 8710 has advanced in the past 4-5 years since I last did A/B comparisons. (Or maybe it's just more kind to your particular tapes! So many variables to work with here.)
Electrical issue from power supply replacement are possible. Sometimes "fixing" the power electrical issue is as simple as putting the device on a UPS (uninterrupted power supply) that has voltage regulation. APC branded UPS, for example, has AVR (automatic voltage regulation). This works quite well in our setup, to keep the various systems and devices free of most electric noise. Direct connection to a wall outlet or basic surge strip tend to show noise on a VCR or TBC, best seen on a bluescreen or test pattern.
Indeed, the price looks decent, especially for that side of the pond. You made off well, getting a good new TBC for that price.
Double check the softness/sharpness issue, let me know how the three signals compare (VCR only, +TBC-1000, +1T-TBC).
Do keep in touch on jumping, that is interesting, and good to know. It's something not only potentially useful to readers/members of this site, but to me as well.
TBC-1000 softness was observed when comparing directly to the source without TBC. I will look in to the electrical issue some time, online filtering UPS's are quite expensive.
There seem to be some issues with 1T-TBC after observing some more. But I have to investigate this more thoroughly when I have time. I will post comparisons then. If you have some hints on generating test tapes / links to usable testcharts in downloadable format (like DVD or raw YUY2 etc) that'd help. So far I've observed client's tapes (my current occupation is to transfer old tapes, also my 'hobby') and colorbar generator.
Right now I need new heads for NV-FS200 and HM-DR10000EU (anyone? ), after those get fixed I can run some tests.
Hmm... My knowledge of VCRs does admitted get more rusty as the years past (use it or lose it!), but I wonder if the heads from the USA NTSC Panasonic AG-1980P would be interchangeable with the UK PAL Panasonic NV-FS200. They are essentially the same machines, PAL/NTSC aside. Those may be easier to locate, albeit more pricey to ship. There is the benefit, however, of having abundant units out there, especially "for parts only" sales.
Atleast in the case of HM-DR10000EU for which I bought service manual the "DRUM SUB ASSY (PDM2312E)" is the same part in many different models, including NTSC ones. Assuming this is the right part, I'm not 100% sure yet because the terminology changes a bit with different VCR's. I found NV-FS200 heads - again, if it's the right part - from http://www.donberg.ie/ and it seems to be compatible with AG-1980P too.
The JVC D-VHS series is supposed to share a lot of parts from the JVC S-VHS 7000 and 9000 series latter-generation models. For example, the 9900, 9911, SR-V10, SR-V101, 7800, 7900. I've never compared parts piece by piece, but this was something JVC confirmed some 5+ years ago.
So you may be able to gut a "for parts only" JVC deck, one where the heads are good, but maybe the board or PSU is bad.
Things took a different turn with 1T-TBC. Long story short; it didn't work so good with problem tapes, I lost my patience and sold it. Pretty horrid results (freezed frames for a long periods of time). The stripe problem was propably due to setting sharpness too high (aka the default). Setting it to lower position fixed it (propably, didn't test this one a lot anymore). I'm not saying it's useless. It works fine with many tapes but I rather have a device that works always when working with dozens of tapes a week.
This might've been PAL problem and it works better in NTSC? Who knows.
I must say I'm very disapointed with their tech support which touts being "the best in industry" but I haven't received single reply to my queries after several months.
Also discovered what's causing the problems with my TBC-1000. The input connector is somewhat borked and occasionally gives worse results. Slight push will fix it usually. I've ordered new connectors (and I'm going to throw away the 1->4 distribution amplifier and connect in+out directly to the TBC-100 -board).
I did a test regarding sharpness and comb filter at doom9 and the results might be relevant to readers here so I'll repost the images;
You know what!? I had never considered hacking apart a TBC-1000 and disconnecting the distribution amp. I wonder how many of the "vertical bars, vertical lines" and "softness" problems sometimes reported to this units may be related? After all, those same complaints are common with lower-end distribution amps. You never hear complaints about the TBC-100, which is a PCI slotted version with no amp.
The PNG for the 1T-TBC is awfully noisy. I see a bunch of compression artifacts, like JPEG/MPEG noise. If the PNG is truly 24-bit, and those are passed from the TBC, that's sad.
Not a bad doom9 thread, but it looks like you didn't get a lot of feedback. I did see once useful nugget of info on VCRs:
Good for remembering. I've been trying to track down rebadges on a lot fo the older and higher-end VCRs. That helps.
The 1T-TBC is really smeary, too. Ugh.
DataVideo TBC-1000 about as expected. There can be slight resolution loss on a TBC, but it's something you really have to look for in an anal-retentive kind of way. I see it when I eagle-eye it.
The PDI looks artificially sharp. I see ringing. Watch for that. "Nice and sharp" isn't always a good thing.
Thanks so much for sharing your results. This is great information for myself and other members/readers of this site.
Keep me posted on your experiences, it makes for good reading.
The PNG images are true 1:1 representations of the 4:2:0 capture.
Charts come from TVblink.com "test suite" and are played back using consumer DVD player. Both pose limitations to the actual testing as we can see. DVD suffers from MPEG2 artifacts which are amplified by the decoder in my DVD player. I've added "pure" versions of the screens decoded with DGMPGDec's "IEEE-1180 reference" iDCT algorithm + resolution chart with exaggerated luma;
About the smearing, this test was purely about comb filter, composite -> Y/C separation. When feeding with Y/C signal 1T-TBC works as expected. Altho it *does* add unwanted distortions to the image atleast with high proc amp settings like I've shortly described before.
PDI might be a bit too sharp. But I've compared it a lot with software decoded DVDs Vs captured ones and it doesn't add much ringing of it's own IMHO. What we're seeing here propably is due to DVD player/composite related. I just ordered Blackmagic Decklink Studio (found one slightly used for a good price) which should give a good reference to this all. It can output very decent test images and I really hope it can capture them well too . I didn't choose the ATI route that's often suggested here because I need all the inputs+outs up to component and SDI with balanced audio. If it doesn't play with my other gear / software I'll try AJA cards next. Painfully expensive.. but other options aren't much cheaper.
TBC-1000 with dist.amp. stripped should work quite like TBC-100 because it is one The circuit board inside is a PCI card with PC style 12+5V molex connecter and has "TBC-100" printed on it. Be warned, if someone reading this tries to connect his 12+5V power to stripped TBC-100 board, things might go wrong. It's missing a voltage regulator (I guess from the pictures I found about "real" TBC-100). And my version is missing 3/4 of it connectors. I don't really know why they left one RCA plug in place. There's absolutely no use for it inside the box.
I almost never used the RCA audio passthrough on the TBC-1000, I just wired around it unless I was specifically using the distribution amp (which wasn't too often as years went by).
Ah-ha! I told you. I've gotten pretty good at detecting false sharpening in recent years.
Good skill to have when editing, terrible skill to have when trying to watch TV. (Hard to enjoy something when you notice all the errors.)
I doubt you'll ever be satisfied with composite, especially not under analysis with test patterns. But as long as it;s "good enough", it will serve its purpose as the fall-back connection method, when s-video throughput looks bad or s-video is unavailable.
One trick I've learned is that sometimes -- even on the cheap $5 units -- the svideo>composite adapters can look better than native composite output. It only works in certain situations, but it works nonethless. I use one of those on the office TV, s-video out from DVD player, switchover adapter to composite, into the TV. Entertainment while I work on the no-brainer type projects.
I want to add an Aja Kona or Blackmagic card here, too. So your research is interesting.
By RCA I meant the connectors directly attached to TBC-100 board which are unexposed if you don't remove the metal cover. Anyway, I don't use the audio pass-thru either. Once when I measured my soundcards audio delay I checked how much effect the pass-thru had. Result was;
DelayAudio(-0.170) # Video TBC, Audio Direct
DelayAudio(-0.152) # Video TBC, Audio TBC
18 milliseconds delay compared to direct. (so I guess they compensate for the video delay)
After quick eyeballing BM seems to be exactly what they were advertising. No problems with VHS etc when using TBC-1000. Quality clearly better than PDI (which already was very good). Capturing thru VirtualDub works fine (I can use ffdshow's codecs with it like Huffyuv). The final test is to see whether I can drag all my hardware and software to Windows 7 and finally get all 6GB of RAM in use. I feel that AJA couldn't offer me much more personally. And AJA costs 2x as much if HD is a must. If you want some test etc with BM done just ask. This stuff needs it's own thread soon.
Windows 7? Good luck with that.
I might have to go that path on a system here soon too. Coincidentally, it would be the system that would receive a Blackmagic upgrade. So yet again, your research will prove useful.
AVT-8710 vs 1T-TBC vs TBC-1000 (TBC-100)
. I didn't choose the ATI route that's often suggested here because I need all the inputs+outs up to component and SDI with balanced audio. If it doesn't play with my other gear / software I'll try AJA cards next. Painfully expensive.. but other options aren't much cheaper. 
Linear Mode
