Prime Image TBC/Freeze II loss of control?
 

Prime Image TBC/Freeze II unit has lost control of luminance gain and chroma gain. Suspect flash memory chip has partially failed. All other functions are normal. Seeking guidance or referral to repair firm

No advice on actual repair here...

... but I do think "is it worth repairing" needs to be part of the conversation.

These sorts of units are known to be very lacking in terms of being used for consumer formats (VHS, Hi8/Video8, etc). It's a broadcast rackmount unit, and expects broadcast sources. It chokes on consumer sources.

So what is this being used for?

For many years, these "pizza box" (huge footprint, bigger than VCRs) style units were on eBay, sometimes for as little as $10. But that's all they were worth. In fact, I'd say many were truly worthless, aside from the metal content for recycling. The components were shot, and the unit wasn't good even when in functional condition.

Getting back to the Freeze II unit, have you inspected capacitors? (Does it have any?)

Thank you LordSmurf. The Prime Image unit is one of five being used in a high-end broadcast quality facility with SVHS, DVCam and other tape formats. It is understood that it is not of the same caliber as the DPS-475/575 Framestore family, but the unit does have features that make it very useful in a post production and format migration situation. All five have performed flawlessly for over ten years and only this week did one exhibit a wonky behavior. A colleague has suggested that the likely failed component is an 8-pin flash memory chip for control functions. He suggests swapping the chip with a known working unit to confirm. Then to proceed to have the bad chip replaced and re-flashed with the data. Never having done that, finding a contact who could re-flash a memory chip is a first step. Ideas and referrals welcomed.

Ah, actual broadcast use, okay then. :)

A faulty memory chip seems unlikely, but not impossible. However, that quick swap will surely test that hypothesis. So do the quick swap, reply back.

Again, have you inspected capacitors? (Does it have any?)

Oh yes, several large radial mount electrolytics related to power supply and many surface mount on a mother board. To be clear, there are Seven 3-position toggle switches for control functions. (Up-Down) Only two of these have now ceased to function fully. One thought was the switches have failed, but they do partially activate some functions, so the conclusion reached is a software issue. Pulling a second unit and extracting/swapping the suspect control chip is a major hassle to be worked around a schedule. I’ll attempt after the holiday and report back.

If a cap blows/bulges on the TBC-1000, it often partially fails. For example, on a recent unit, the bulged cap ruins the image quality out of two of the outputs. But you still had two others, so not an issue for most people. In the case of the TBC-1000, the risk to replace the caps is somewhat too risky, when the others work fine. Better to have two outputs than none (especially since it's unlikely you'll need more than one).

The TBC-1000 isn't this TBC, but merely an example of bad caps in a TBC.