#1  
10-18-2021, 01:14 PM
zwillia3 zwillia3 is offline
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I've been piecing together a workflow for a while and I think I've hit a snafu. I am still occasionally getting sync issues when using my ES15/DVK-100 which I thought pointed to an issue with the frame sync from the DVK and the possibility I had it cabled in incorrectly. I don't have a full test bed of tapes so I just grabbed your friendly neighborhood Disney tape and went to town. I am using the recommend Hauppauge USB capture card to look at my results since I cant seem to get any of my VCRs with s-video to take in the signal from the DVK.

I started by hooking the s-video out from my ES15 and running it into each of the CAM ports on the DVK and taking the output as s-video. When I use RW and FF I still see the tell-tale signs of the white pulses in the blanking space. I also tried hooking up the ES15 into the background port but it still shows the same white pulses. The video looks "okay" when I initially look at it but from experience I know the sync can start to slip when I try to capture older, degraded material.

Any suggestions for how to properly hookup the DVK to make use of the weak TBC it includes?
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  #2  
10-18-2021, 01:50 PM
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lordsmurf lordsmurf is offline
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The DVK is a weak frame TBC, but it usually removes anti-copy (artificial video errors).

A main "issue" (user error + undocumented feature) is that you can wire the unit wrong. It has both a route that passes through TBC, and a route that bypasses TBC. You've hit the bypass.

Best of all, the DVK varies. So the engage/bypass isn't always the same. There's at least 3 variations, but may be more. The TBC-1000, for example, has at least 6 versions, and some apparent subversions. I often see "new" TBC-1000 hardware combinations, meaning DataVideo probably used whatever was available, and made on-the-fly changes to units to maintain integrity -- something that failed for Cypress, hence the bad "black" era 2010s units.

Some settings may also cause bypass.

This is a complex unit, and lots of effort for a mere weak TBC. It costs less money, but it costs more time. This is why I preset units, lock it, and block ports that shouldn't be used.

Each channel has in+out. Sometimes out engage, but it usually bypasses.

BG always bypasses.

The main output usually engages, but not always, I've seen it bypass (and use channel out instead).

And again, none of this is documented. DataVideo was really bad about documenting how their units worked. If you ever take apart their gear, you'll notice jumpers, DIPs, and pots, none of which have documented instructions. I had to figure all of this out by experimenting, risking the pricey gear. The key is I knew what I was looking for, something most newbie users do not.

BTW, ES15 is a DVD recorder, not a TBC. Yes, it has a line TBC, but the distinction must be made. The TBC is crippled, it has "holes" bored into the TBC function, to allow anti-copy. It can cause the ES15 to trip up. And those errors would then be passed to the DVK. Anti-copy is not always like a natural error, though still artificial.

Also don't forget that condition matters. These units are now all 10+ years old, and can be defective. So a random eBay buy can quickly turn into a paperweight buy, especially since it's often 30+ days later that you start to realize problems. This is a huge issue with VCRs and TBCs, when you're new to all of this gear, and don't really yet understand what's going on.

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  #3  
10-18-2021, 02:20 PM
zwillia3 zwillia3 is offline
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I knew what I was getting into with this thanks to all the good posts here. I had a chance to get an ES15 on the super cheap with the ability to test it so went with it since I didn’t want to put thousands into a full workflow initially. A non TBC VCR with the ES15 have dealt with 90% of my home tapes fine but now I’m looping back to deal with the remaining 10% that looked to need more. I went with the DVK because it would get “close” and I definitely fell for the “confirmed working” on eBay since I didn’t see any in the marketplace. I did some initial testing to make sure it appeared to be functional but missed the fact I wasn’t engaging the TBC since the tapes were mostly clean until I started getting to the tougher ones. I will be trying what should be the bypass to see if that can engage it and if not I’ll be hitting you up in the marketplace come December looking to grab a big boy TBC and probably a JVC line tbc vcr as well.
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  #4  
10-20-2021, 09:55 PM
zwillia3 zwillia3 is offline
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So got the DVK working after trying way too many iterations. It does have to go through the cam ports on mine to engage the weak TBC but it is now striping out the macrovision. Now to move onto running some of the rougher tapes through it to see if it is correcting other things. Thanks for the explanation and the ideas to try.
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