Is my new AVT-8710 DOA? (screenshots/clips of error)

[sanlyn]

TGrant has rebuilt tbc's and guarantee their work. Not cheap, but less than new retail and more reliable than auction sites. http://www.tgrantphoto.com/sales/ind...ectors/page-1/

[lordsmurf]

Quote:

Originally Posted by sanlyn

TGrant has rebuilt tbc's

I currently have several available as well: http://www.digitalFAQ.com/forum/marketplace

[jtech1]

So, I read through the entire thread... and I saw various revisions of firmware in photos of the chips inside the unit... but was there ever a conclusion about whether the issue was corrected in firmware or chip updates, or related to a bad batch of chips? Are people that have bought new units from B&H in the last year still seeing the issue?

[lordsmurf]

We have confirmed reports of models sold in Q2 2016 as still having the issue. Not sure what the production date was, but it was likely no more than 6 months old.

Cypress has screwed something up, and refuses to acknowledge the serious flaw. Very sad.

[deter]

Bought one of these units years ago on advise of this site.

Found a few things. The machines are cheaply made, went through two units.

If left on for a long period they overheat.

The worst is the S-Video, the connection ports are not the best if not fit in correct or may I say perfect you will get a noise streak in the picture that run across the screen. Never really tried the RCA jacks to be honest.

On a damage section of the video, this unit can frame skip or play the field in reverse order or even duplicate the frame. Really bad video signal you will get the color bar.

The buttons on the unit itself, sometimes don't work or get stuck.

The idea of the unit was great, they just needed to make them better, you can get some use out of this unit, but don't count on it to be the save all.

[latreche34]

Lordsmurf were you able to gt a hold of someone from Cypress company?

[lordsmurf]

Quote:

Originally Posted by latreche34

Lordsmurf were you able to gt a hold of someone from Cypress company?

My emails seem to have gone to a black hole of the internet. No response. But that was several years ago, perhaps I should try again?

I don't have much faith in it helping, however.

[hodgey]

If it's any help, we got one of these where I work recently, from B&H. it seems to have similar issues with bad signals as deter is describing, with one of the fields ends up frozen for maybe half a second. I've had a few cases where it deterministically(as opposed to randomly overheating) dropped out and showed colour bars displays stuff again if power cycled. It also seems to overheat on some sources when left on for a while.

Haven't experienced any significant noise issues or trouble with the S-video port or buttons as described by deter, though it does seem rather cheaply made.

We also got a TVOne 1T TBC which is a bit older (not sure if it was ordered in 2016 or 2017), which from what I've read is also based around the cypress chipsets. It's much better built, and doesn't seem to overheat, though it still has the same issues with bad signals (if I try the same tape on both units I get the drops at the same spots.). Though, rather than a frozen field it gives out, not sure what the proper term is, a horizontal roll? (Of course the TvOne units are more costly, one could probably get a used Datavideo unit for a similar price.)

Though, the units do at least help on less broken tapes, straightening the image a bit and allowing a blackmagic intensity shuttle unit to capture stuff without freaking out.

[lordsmurf]

Wanted to revisit this, add some info:

This meandering thread had some info on the exact chipsets, starting on page 8 to the end: http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vide...-yuy2-avi.html. That was a bit of a thread side topic, but had good info.

Several of us gave info on our AVT-8710 units, both good and bad. We found some commonalities.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lordsmurf

Here are details for my 3 main units:

#1
20040601xxxx
Cypress defaced all the chips. You cannot read any of them. The chips appear to be sanded down, and some sort of gray powder substance was left (possibly the dust from sanding). This was done on both AVT-8710 and other pre-2005 Cypress TBCs, at least as far back as 2001.

#2
20050205xxxx
IC1 = SAA7114H
IC2 = CY37064VP44 (FPGA?)
IC3 = KCL KT88V422SA-2533, 0411-BS
IC4 = KCL KT88V422SA-2533, 0411-BS
IC5 = SAA7129H
IC6 = LTB-100 V2.0 A0412
IC7 = 24LC02B/SN0425 (Microchip brand?) EEPROM - still in production 2018
IC8 = Sanken 424 347, 8033JD

#3
20060705xxxx
IC1 = SAA7114H
IC2 = CY37064VP44 (FPGA?)
IC3 = KCL KT88V422MA-2533, 0537-BS
IC4 = KCL KT88V422MA-2533, 0537-BS
IC5 = SAA7129H
IC6 = LTB-100 V2.0 S0605
IC7 = 24LC02B/SN0553 (Microchip brand?) EEPROM - still in production 2018
IC8 = Sanken 5D2 618, 8033JD

The main difference appears to be:
- IC2, CPLD/EEPROM, Altera vs. Cypress (not same Cypress)
- IC3/4, KCL vs. AverLogic
- IC6, V2.0 vs V2.1 vs V2.2

The culprit is probably the AverLogic or Altera/Intel IC. We had already surmised this years ago, but a deeper look today is just reinforcing it. That info will probably help anybody that comes across a non-green unit, and can inspect it more deeply. And anyone that can add more to this should do so.

[hodgey]

I can add in the info from the Black AVT and the TVOne we got here if it's useful. Should I put it in this thread or the other one? (Or maybe it would nicer with a separate thread to collect the info.)

[NJRoadfan]

Has anyone peeled off the sticker on IC6 yet? Curious if that is an EPROM or FPGA/CPLD. IC6 has seen obvious revisions over the years. Its likely the source of the problems as this issue appears to be firmware bugs.

IC2's variations are likely due to parts availability over the years. I haven't traced out the board, but this CPLD chip is likely programmed as the hardware interface for the Philips/NXP SAA series capture and output DAC chips and perhaps for interfacing with the control panel/proc amp.

IC3 and 4 are RAM chips for the frame buffer and the parts change is based on availability.

[lordsmurf]

Quote:

Originally Posted by hodgey

I can add in the info from the Black AVT and the TVOne we got here if it's useful.

What I really want is a lossless AVI capture of the black AVT-8710 (or CTB-100) messing up the JVC menus. We have screen caps of ghosting, but not clips to showcase the issue. I don't want people to confuse "ghosting" with "interlaced frame" (showing 50% of each image for 1 frame, or 2 fields). The still images alone can give that false understanding of what the problem is.

Do you still have a bad unit to take test clips with?

Quote:

Originally Posted by NJRoadfan

Has anyone peeled off the sticker on IC6 yet?

Alright, because you asked.

Underneath the IC6 sticker (LTB-100 V2.0 S0401) is ... nothing. At least on the 2004 units, where the other chips were defaced.

It does slightly look like the writing was also sanded, but it's faint black, not that bright gray. I also tried to clean the gray, as sanlyn suggested it was paint. Nope. Those are filed down chips, defaced for whatever reason, in attempt to hide what was being used. I now wonder of Taiwanese Cypress had some stolen chips, which would have been identifiable by the serial numbers. It wouldn't be first time such shenanigans had been going on in China/Taiwan companies in the early 2000s.

[hodgey]

Quote:

Originally Posted by lordsmurf

What I really want is a lossless AVI capture of the black AVT-8710 (or CTB-100) messing up the JVC menus. We have screen caps of ghosting, but not clips to showcase the issue. I don't want people to confuse "ghosting" with "interlaced frame" (showing 50% of each image for 1 frame, or 2 fields). The still images alone can give that false understanding of what the problem is.

Do you still have a bad unit to take test clips with?

Yea, got both a black AVT and a TVOne 1-TBC with issues. Will a Philips VR1100 work instead of a JVC given that they are essentially rebadged JVCs? The menu looks pretty much the same as the screens I've seen of the JVC menus (except that Philips has named a few of the features differently).

[lordsmurf]

It sounds like it might be the same. Does the Philips has the same JVC menu issues?

Make the capture, upload it, let's all look at it.

[hodgey]

It has something similar to some of the screens I've seen here, though I haven't waded through the whole thread. (Also I don't know if there are some NTSC vs. PAL differences.)

I'll try to do some captures this weekend.

-- merged --

So I've made some recordings, they are too large for the upload limit in lossless format, but I can provide them if you have somewhere to put them. Alternatively I can cut out some short bits.

Note that the attached files are encoded with 422 chroma subsampling to not mess up the chroma so they may not play in all players. They play fine in VLC at least.

First is going in and out of the menu, going in and out of menu during playback, and going in and out of menu when getting something on a video input channel (from a different VCR).

Included are video that was passed through:
Newer Black AV-T8710
Newer TVOne 1-TBC
Datavideo TBC-3000
Pioneer DVR-440H dvd-recorder
Direct capture

All captured with a Diamond VC500 with S-Video both from the VCR and to the capture card.

The issues with the AVT and TVOne should be quite evident, and the direct capture also shows issues. With the TBC-3000 and the DVD-recorder the menu shows fine.
I also checked the menu on a Panasonic NV-HS1000 (also noticeable on ffwd/rwd and pause/slow-motion), and a Radionette RN-985 (store-brand OEM, not sure what the producer is) VCR, and both seem to have cause similar menu problems, so it's not something unique to JVC-made vcrs. I have some recordings of the panasonic menu as well if there's interest.

Not sure why there is this noise pattern (not sure what it's called) on the background, though I found that the VCR outputs chroma on the Y channel on the Scart output even when set to S-video output mode (there is no direct composite video out on the machine.), so I presume that's what's making it. It's not there on playback.

[lordsmurf]

The MP4 seems fine, lossless may not be needed.

When I said the JVC menu test, I actually referred to a simple cycle of the menu pages quickly. The video settings page (TBC, R3, calibration, etc) especially locks when moving quickly from page 1 to 2 from what I've read.

But this menu<>video looks even worse than anything I could have imagined. Egads!

What about a clip showing just menus, not the menu<>video. Doesn't it also lock?

@other readers: Noting that this is NOT just a menu error. It's just easiest to see the error in menus. You can do a quick controlled test with the menus. But it happens randomly within the captured/played footage.

I appreciate your taking time to help this thread. I plan to link some of these clips to the first post.

[hodgey]

I'll see if I can trigger it more with just menu changes later. The menu (and background screen) already looks garbled on the AVT when entered though.

Also attached clips with ffwd and slow on the NV-HS1000, that also gives the unit consistent issues, even the TBC-3000 gets some off-centering when fast forwarding.

And yeah as LS mentions, it happens during playback as well, depending on the tape and player, it may work fine for some things, and balk horribly on other things. Though, VCR menus often seems to give capture devices problems really easily for whatever reason so it's way to test for issues.

[lordsmurf]

I feel this needed to be shared. One of our members emailed B&H some months ago...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wandering

This may interest you.
This morning a reply by B&H to this landed in my email box:

Query to B&H:

Quote:

If I ordered an AV Toolbox AVT-8710 ( https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produ...Time_Base.html ) how would you ensure that you're not sending me an expensive paperweight?

I ask because some of the units of the model you're selling have defective chips that make them useless. The defect sometimes does not become apparent until an hour or so of operating it.

Since you must be aware of the problem for some years now ( http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vcr-...710-doa-5.html ) I'm hoping you have found a reliable way of telling which unit is good and which one is a dud.

The reply:

Quote:

Hello,

Thank you for contacting the Global Sales team at B&H photo Video and pro Audio.

Unfortunately, there is no way for us to know ahead of time since we rely on what the manufacturers provide us with and B&H would never sell a defective item knowingly. However, please know these products are being sent to us fresh from AV tools. Also please know that you will have 30 days warranty with us and you can contact our customer service team should you have any issues with it.

Please let us know if there is anything else we can assist you with.

Thank you for choosing B&H.

Luz Santana
B&H Photo Video and Pro Audio
Global Sales E-Mail Department

And the very astute analysis.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wandering

From my reading on this forum Cypress ceased production of the TBC in 2016, so how can B&H keep procuring new supplies from AVTools? Also, are they playing dumb about the problem that have beset the product for 7 or 8 years now?
B&H is, to put it mildly, very economical with the truth and thoroughly unethical.

This is not the first time I've caught B&H spreading misinformation about video products.
For example: NOTE: A Canopus DV box does not replace a TBC! (an interesting read for sure, about both B&H and DV boxes).

I simply cannot see how they could be completely oblivious to these known infamous problems with the defective chipsets found in Cypress units going back almost a decade. Members of this very forum have returned bad AVT-8710s, as well as specifically alerted them to the issues. Yet they choose to still sell it. Why? Where is the disconnect?

[hodgey]

The SAA7114H A/D chip in the AVT does have some sync control settings, I wonder if the sync settings in the older and newer TBCs are different. Maybe the Forced odd/even signal setting as the it has issues with 240p menu signals, or the HCT one.

See page 88. (LS edit: also attached)

The SAA7113H has similar settings, so I'm going to have a look at what effect they have on my SAA7113H based capture dongle (Diamond VC500 Mac) when I have time by tinkering with the linux driver. It looks like it has access to the I2C bus on the chip.

[hodgey]

So I've had a first look at messing with the settings on the VC500 mac. Communicating with the I2C bus on it was actually really easy, and didn't require any messing with the drivers. The linux driver exposed a I2C device, and I could use I2C tools to read and write to it.

I will post some screens later this week. I did manage to see a similar effect to the frozen field on the AVT8710 when FFWDing on my sony VCR, though it only happened like 50% of the time, otherwise the image just froze. This only seemed to happen in linux, not when using the same card in windows.

All the images are from composite capture from my Sony VHS VCR, there is a lot of crosstalk artifacts embedded on the tape, so it's not so much from the Y/C separation in the capture device.

• Vertical noise reduction (VNOI)
  On fast and bypass the field that was not updating frozen, while on normal (the default) it rolled like on my TVOne instead.
  fast mode.jpg
  

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  Free-running mode avoided the locked field output when ffwding, though it doesn't lock the image vertically so the image rolled when ffwding and on the blue screen when not playing a tape.
  normal mode.jpg
• Horizontal PLL (HPLL)
  Setting it to open just made things crazy
  

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• Horizontal time constant selection (HTC1 and HTC0)
  TV mode made the image much more jittery horizontally, didn't really see a difference between Fast locking and VTR mode (default).
  free running.jpg
• Forced ODD/EVEN toggle FOET
  Didn't seem to make any difference, maybe it depends on how the receiver interprets the data.

There are also some other interesting options that are not normally available in capture card settings, such as adjusting the size and shape of the band-pass filters of the chroma and luma channels, which would make the image sharper or less sharp (not the same as sharpness setting.)

Attaching the datasheet and a NXP catalog for this as well as the link in my previous post seems to have already been broken.

Note:
I had to manually add support for my specific card to the driver, as the specific dongle I had wasn't supported, even though the hardware in it was. There are tons of empia USB bridge based dongles, with various A/D converters and other stuff, such as the SAA7113H, chinese clones of it, and the TVP5150 (AMD TV Wonder 600 and related). The actual modification was simply adding a line with the device id, but it was a bit of a hassle to compile and install it, but I got it working eventually thanks to some help from someone on the ubuntu IRC channel.