Datavideo TBC repair experience?
I've looked at some "for parts" TBCs on eBay. I'm pretty good a SMD soldering and I have an o.scope I can use (if I could find the service manuals).
Datavideo products seem to pop up the most. Those with experience, what are common faults in the Datavideo TBC-1000 and are they typically fixable? |
Some faults cannot be repaired.
Service manual is under NDA. |
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...or is it basically worthless if you can't fix it? :depressed: I'm trying gauge my ability to resale "for parts" if I can't fix them. |
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I've actually offered my pre-refurb units to others in the past, where the last step was the recap. But you have to realize I've already pre-refurb'd these, which often entailed swapping parts, non-cap repairs, customizations, or serious cleanings. In a few cases, I gave it a cosmetic repaint with OEM-match paints. So I'm not giving them away, but it is with a generous discount. And right now, I have such a unit. The units when received were trashed. Some actually did come from eBay; not bought by me directly, but via others sending them here. I generally did a trade-in, something I'm no longer accepting. But many more came from other sources, offline and online. It usually requires "frankensteining" VCRs/TBCs these days, to get a good end product. Rarely can you buy a single bad unit, and create a single good unit from it. Not typical. In terms of botched repairs, or truly faulty irreparable units, that's what the parted out units are from. Those really have no value as such. The VP299 is probably the best pricing benchmark if the VP-301x card (TBC-100) is hosed, and the 299 generally go a couple hundred bucks max. What makes the TBC-1000 valuable is when it's a working TBC, not a box of parts (or e-waste). |
NDA on repair manual? That's insane. Why would they care anymore?
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There's stuff I've worked on over the years that's probably stuff under NDA but frankly, I doubt anybody actually cares but there's probably stuff I have on old HDDs that would be deemed either under NDA or at least 'commercially sensitive', but unless (hardly cutting edge) amplifier design in various ion-selective process instruments from twenty-odd years ago is your bag, I can't help! I'm almost certain if I approached some companies I've worked for though, although the models are dead-and-gone they would not let me redistribute the literature. The world is just a cruel place like that, it's often just easier to say 'no'. Doesn't mean it's right or fair, but just a reflection of how it is. |
What are you asking for the pre-furb TBC 1000? Also, are the caps surface mount that need to be changed?
Thanks, Marty Davis |
Currently have 3 tbc1000s that I'd love to send to someone to recap and do the distribution plate bypass. Messaged the dude who is selling the crazy modded ones on ebay with no response. Messaged a dude on youtube who said he did these mods and never heard back.
At this point i'm looking for anyone with electronics repair experience and experience with these to refurb them :( Also now that the dude with the modded ones is listed them at $2700, everyone thinks the 1000s are now worth 2k for even the junk ones. At this point they're totally out of reach of normal folks. I know our lord smurf is adamant on TBC being a "required" part of the workflow, but I just don't see it being possible for normal people anymore. Need to go hit up my electrical engineering friends and figure out a long term solution here. Some kind of new hardware or something. |
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I'm still working (when I get a moment) on an ARM STM32 based USB ADC with field and line TBC, it's entirely feasible in 2022 to make a relatively cheap box (say $300) that does everything with open software so it can be a community project. Nothing may come of it but I'm about to open a discussion in 'another place' with my barebones project for input. The prices for prehisotirc stuff that's failing though, I agree, it's pricing a lot of people out. |
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If you're interested in having it recapped and/or having a cable made, just PM me and we talk about price. What's your use case for these TBCs? Quote:
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Things have moved on a lot since the 'recommended' hardware was developed, FPGA based solutions are now in the realms of even dedicated amateurs, rolling custom silicone to accomplish what is essentially 'simple' digital signal processing has its merits I'm sure but much of it can now be done with off-the-shelf hardware if you're keen enough. Don't conflate this with it being 'simple' just surely possible. I've got 32-bit ARM STM microcontrollers sitting here that cost a few pounds each, that was bleeding edge stuff twenty years ago at eye-watering cost. A whole 32-bit dev board costs about £20/$25US here. In the analogue realm (I've just ordered some sync' separators this morning funnily enough) ICs are available, for how long I wouldn't like to postulate, but as it stands today they're off-the-shelf from RS Components (or Mouser, Digikey, Element 14, Farnell as you prefer) - although they're creations of the 1990s. We have USB-3 now too, which makes USB devices actually feasible for quality DA conversion. @Diopter_Doctor, judging by your handle, don't fancy taking a quick question by PM about my keratoconus do you? |
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I guess it's how effectively you can restore a Y/C from composite, I've been doing some reading but to be honest, a lot of it is rapidly defeated by mathematic abilities at the moment. It's a bit curious why Y/C is omitted though, if anything it's easier to deal with than a composite signal <- I'm only just learning about this though, so there's a good chance I've massively overlooked something. |
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I'm 99% sure that BNC modded version -- which I do not suggest -- is a ghost listing. That guy has been MIA for many months now, and the eBay listing just renews itself. Odds are, if it ever sold, it'd never be shipped. I'm quite glad I didn't send him a TBC-1000 to be modded, which he wanted me to do. But I don't trust nobodies with TBCs. Quote:
"Normal people" were never the targeted demographics. Normal people need to take their videos to a competent service, and done. Video gear is for the DIY'ers, the hobbyist, the semi-pro, and the pro. People that have a desire to do it, and are willing to budget the needed amount to acquire the tools. It's really no different those who shop at Home Depot, and those who call the plumber. (FYI: some plumbing tools a crazy expensive. But that's the cost of DIY, hobby, pro.) What you refer to as "normal people" are not normal people. Those are cheapskate DIY'ers. The same person might, as an example, spend $2500 on a handful of vintage action figures to put on a shelf to look pretty/cool. But then scream bloody murder at the cost of an essential tool to do a task (be it video or plumbing). As my mom used to say, they don't have the priorities straight. So I find these sorts of comments quite easy to shuck off. There are corner/cost-cutting methods, what I refer to as TBC(ish), but I also let you know what the downsides are. So if you just don't have TBC money, then you can level down expectations, and still arrive at a decent outcome. Not ideal, not best, just decent, hopefully. With lots of caveats and exclusions, because TBC(ish) isn't TBC, and there is a fail rate. Quote:
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It's not old and worthless tech. We have lots of truly "prehistoric" crap that is pure e-waste, not even useful as a museum piece. Quote:
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That's not to say it's easy, but I think you're just glibly discounting something - who knows what will happen? |
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FPGA is only part of it. With most video info online, I've been very open, share, help, etc. But with this exact topic ... can't do that. Must be vague. What you're suggesting is actually somewhat amusing. If only it were that easy. |
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Shall we whack our NDA's out on the table and compare them? :smack: What am I missing here? I'm only sketching things out at the moment, but between fast modern µC's and FPGA I don't think it's impossible to cover most bases? Obviously, you can't just chuck these components on a board and shrug your shoulders, far from it, but in essence, why isn't that a reasonable place to start in 2022? |
The only "critical" component of the Datavideo and AVT TBCs that is no longer produced is the SAA7111 and SAA7114 video decoder chips. From what I can see NXP has stopped making analog video ICs entirely, though they and related ICs were very widely used and are widely available NOS/Second hand. Whether there is something very magic about the sync detection in them though that's impossible to replicate I don't know. They also don't feature any notable line-TBC/horizontal jitter correction functions on chip which makes the devices mainly usable with VCRs that already include that functionality which are getting rare enough on their own, and come with their own tradeoffs. Hence, I'm not sure if exact replicas are what would be what you would really want to try designing.
Analog video decoder ICs that are still made include ICs from Renesas, Analog Devices, Ti and others. Afaik only ADV currently makes ones with line-tbc functions, which from some comparisons I've seen of e.g the dev boards at least can't quite match what panasonics chips can on extremely bad tapes, though for most tapes can work pretty well. As far as I know the Ti chips (used in ATI 600 and some capture cards, a number of dvd-recorders, and even some TBC units) are not as robust as the Philips/NXP ones on bad signals but not sure, the renesas ones I have no idea as the only thing I've seen their capability on VCRs using one of them is the IO-Data GV USB2 capture card so it's hard to judge other than that it's at least much more robust than capture cards using conexant chips. I don't know to what degree it's possible to implement this with the output from a video decoder IC externally or if you would have to do the decoding manually in a FPGA or simialr to get this functionality. The rest is memory, a CPLD or FPGA, and a video encoder chip and for those parts it doesn't really matter so much what the specific IC is. I know LS is not a fan of the ADV chips, though I think something with the decoding capabilities of the ADV7842 dev board but easier to use and with open and updateable firmware would be a massive improvement over current USB dongles and fine for 95% of tapes. |
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Sync' detection varies quite a bit from what I've researched so far, it's unclear in the Philips datasheet as to how it's determined, but (going back a few posts) some of the cheap 'n' cheerful sync' separators I purchased earlier are quite crude, theoretically, they can sync' between 11% and 50% of the falling edge of the sync pulse... Good enough for fiddling with for experimentation, but probably not especially accurate compared to some methods. |
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It's FPGA based, which is interesting. :congrats: |
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TBCs are more than single chips, or even the default chipset instructions. You must be careful with RAM. There are side effects that result in things like the black AVT-8710. So you can't just grab any random RAM, and call it good. Nope. |
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I have dealt with him few months ago, He is a nice guy. sadly He seems to be AFK since about 2 months at least (also his last seen on video help is august)... Not so reassuring I hope he is ok and just taking break from the Web or sth. Quote:
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R&D costs money, There is theory behind, you don't need EEs only. Community projects will not yield a cheap product, it won't be there to lower cost, but at least will solve the shortage issue. To lower costs you need proper manufacturing procedure, with quantity which is costly overall, but reduces the cost per unit. I am willing to "invest" some money in such a project, but I don't think anyone is close enough to achieving something viable. Maybe it will be easier if some "experts" with some petitions and some crowdfunding manage to convince datavideo (or even cypress!) to produce like an extra batch of 3000-4000 units, this will relax things a lot! And since they were profitable enough for Datavideo when they retailed for 400$ it means the cost is less then 400, if they sell them brand new for 600$ we, consumers will be happy and they will make a lot of profit compared to old batches sold in 2000-2010. Quote:
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See also above. R&D needed again, not enough reward for the risk. Quote:
And I'm pretty sure that DataVideo never retailed for $400, more like $500 + shipping. The MSRP was much higher, and there were lowball "street prices" at shady NYC camera/video shops in the 90s. And none were in stock, or wink-wink it actually costs more. I have old magazines from the 90s, that shows gear and prices from places like B&H, or the scummy NYC fake prices. Quote:
The main issue is this was a business model of the 2000s. It's now a legacy task, and sometimes DIY is the only sensible option (vs. service). So congrats, Mr. Normal. You have a new hobby! (Or put the tapes back in the closet. If you never want to see video of your grandma again, it probably won't affect me. That's sad, but some folks just don't care.) People procrastinated for decades. Wait a few more decades, and your tapes will be ruined. So if you decide that DIY is best, suck it up, accept the costs of the tools. It's just a project. Buy it, use it, then resell it. Done. The conversion service wasn't going to be cheap or free anyway. It would cost money either way. At least the hardware costs can be recouped, sometimes even profited from. The tradeoff of DIY is time and learning curve. Lots of quality places (and crap shops) long ago closed up, moved on, retired even. Many also assumed VHS conversion was temporary, over by the 2010s. The 08-09 recession wiped out quite a few businesses as well. Most were VHS-to-DVD in those days, not other formats, so waiting was actually a good thing for many, in terms of quality. Lots of folks are redoing shoddy 2000s (and even 2010s) work these days.. |
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And yeah, it's some random math haha, but I still feel like even with proper math, it might work now.... maybe the numbers did not work when they decided to retire (saturation of market), but now that 2nd hand gear is dying, there might be a place for new units again, specially from companies who already have the know-how... Quote:
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Use case is that I do archival of concert footage for several fan organizations. A few hundred master tapes a year at this point. Here's the current state of things: https://twitter.com/nicholasserra/st...62398143111174 But i'm at the point where I'm buying duplicates of gear and needing refurb on stuff just for piece of mind. Quote:
The other main frustration I have is lack of repair documentation. Even from enthusiasts. I know some folks consider that trade secrets. But right now NOBODY seems to be advertising repairs on these, so I wish people would just let this information free. Share the knowledge. Smurf I know you were working on some kind of tbc1000 guide. Hope that's still in the works. Quote:
So is it helping them, or just adding confusion? Or should the response always be "If you're not ready to drop 3k on gear you need to call a professional." Maybe. But then again, who's even offering these services? Seems like a no-win for the average person who wants to figure out how to do this but doesn't have deep pockets. Maybe that's just where we are now. Tape digitization is now a game where, unless you're building out a serious rig, it's not worth even looking into. |
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IMHO, It does not really take deep pockets, if your tapes are acceptable and you want "something" to watch for nostalgia and memories, not doing some archival (i.e not your case with concert archival) then do it without a TBC. You won't digitize a tape for less than 10€ here. if you have 30+, 300€, so just buy good VCR and capture card (+ maybe TBCish dvd recorder), use it, sell. When you sell, if you are unlucky and don't sell for what you bought for, you will still lose less than those 300€! If you are lucky you might even sell for more than what you paid! Honestly, "buy it, use it, sell it" (quoted from LS) is like digitizing your tapes for free (or for a very cheap price, if you sell a bit cheaper than what you paid). If you have less than 20 tapes, and 0 knowledge, and don't care about learning for the fun of it, then don't even bother (imho). Quote:
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It never was. The "average person" was too lazy to read, too cheap. Remember, I've been around since before we had viable digital transfer methods. Years ago, capture cards were just as expensive as TBCs (which cost less then than now), VCRs have never really changed price ranges (then new, now non-refurb'd used, though somtimes gambles). Back then, you had to have a powerful computer, not some cheap POS Celeron. So ... no. The status quo is unchanged. DIYers, hobbyists, semi-pro, pro. Not John Q. Dumfuk. But also realize to even have the notion to post on VH/here/wherever, puts you in the non-"normal" category. The demographic of these sites isn't Jane Bucktooth, it's Jane Serious, who wants to do video. Youtube is where you find Donald Duh and Barbie Braindead, spending $2 on Wish because some "little weird" doofus told them gullible BS. The problem with John Q's site (Youtube, Twitter) has always been when smart people start to get stupid advice. Quote:
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Just a follow-up post for the custom cable for the TBC-1000 bypass I mentioned earlier. I recently made more for a member on here and just wanted to add a picture.
One cable is coming from the S-VHS player and the other is going straight to my capture card. This lets you bypass the distribution amp for those concerned about noise or that don't want to replace all of those capacitors on the amp board. P.S. this is before I tightened down the heat shrink, so forgive the aesthetics. :cool: |
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To go a step further, you could exchange the switch mode regulator with a linear one. Again, less noise. If you are a nerd like me and just want to see how good you can get your recordings, the cables are high quality for that reason. And if you spent enough money to have a FFTBC, you obviously care enough about the final product more than a standard user. |
The distribution amp was design for multiple VCR recording from a single source back in the day, It doesn't have any purpose for capturing and should be removed.
There is a guy by the name of ccbradley over at vhelp who did a nice restoration and modification of the device: https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/...light=tbc-1000 |
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You could take it out IF you a.) know how to design a new small PCB to receive the incoming 12V ( I would add a fuse while you're at it) to replace it with. or b.) are using a broken unit for parts-only and need it to Frankenstein a fully working one. I chose to keep mine fully stock but bypass the board with a custom cable. |
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(I also recapp/refurbish TBCs if anyone needs that either). But there are countless ways you can reconfigure your output permanently. Another member on here is simply adding new holes in his case for direct output. I'm not a fan of that kind of modification unless it is the only option to truly enhance the performance beyond the way it was originally made, but to each his own, I guess. |
Just an aside, and maybe it's been tried, but it has been tested to just terminate off the unused outputs on this distribution amp hasn't it?
For the $2 it costs for a bag of 75Ω terminators, it might prevent these issues that are being encountered? With BNC/Coax, it's a deep topic. BNC with properly specified coaxial cable will yield better results, coaxial cable is a whole topic in itself, your transmission loss and reflection are far more neatly controlled with properly specified coaxial connections. Professional gear will generally use coax unless it's for interfacing with a specific signal type or domestic equipment. However, at VHS quality, shortish cable runs and there's nothing inherently wrong with using S-Video, it won't be a startling difference. If you really do want to push for ultimate quality, there is a small argument that coaxial may be better in this application, but you'll need to squint to see it. Low-quality S-Video cables are annoying, poor quality coaxial connections will send you round the twist trying to work out where the problem is. Coaxial cable is complicated, and there's plenty of low-quality junk out there, it 'should' be the preferred interconnect but it's not feasible with a lot of equipment, and in reality, it makes little to no difference for DIY efforts from VHS sources. If long cable runs are your thing, then naturally coaxial is the way to go. Then once you've done that, you can get into matching stages, we have some equipment that's matched, but that's total overkill here, and I'm not convinced it makes a difference, but if you want to squeeze out the nth degree of quality it's something that you could (theoritcally) consider... If you've got time on your hands, and literally nothing better to do with your time :P |
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From my testing, the output brightness is no different using vs bypassing the amp board, so I don't think it's a termination issue. I would imagine it is terminated 75ohm to ground on the processing board before being amplified. I'm not an electronics engineer, and I don't have the service manual schematic but that would make the most sense to me. |
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