TBC and noise reduction in JVC S-VHS HR-S9911U?
 

Hello all!

I am evaluating the quality of video that I am capturing with:

1. JVC S-VHS HR-S9911U VCR
2. Hauppauge USB Live 2 capture device
(Capturing with S-Video)

The VCR contains built-in digital TBC + noise reduction. I am curious as to how good these features are. So I created a video where one of the sides is the video with TBC+NR and the other side is without.

I have some questions for enthusiasts and experts:

1. Which side do you think has TBC+NR enabled?
2. What are some clear "tells" that identify what TBC+NR is doing? (feel free to point to a timestamp or frame in the video with your thoughts)
3. How good is the TBC+NR?

For those who have experience with these two devices. What are your general thoughts on them? How did you maximize quality?

Google Drive link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FAK...ew?usp=sharing

Titles give away which has TBC.

Highlights seem burnt out (lost) but especially the left side version.

But that pre TBC line jitter seems too much for a good source tape, especially if your VCR has inbuilt TBC.

Is the VCR's tape path unworn and really clean? Back tension working correctly?

And the resolution and compression are horrible.

If you viewed it on Google Drive, their preview version does some weird compression. Can you download it to disk and see what you think?

Yes, I was concerned about the line jitter. While the TBC appeared to reduce it somewhat (compared to the non-TBC), there was still noticeable jitter leftover.

Is this a fixable issue? If so how should I go about it?

What are your thoughts on the audio? If there are issues with tape alignment, won't they show up in the audio also?

I am very new to tape alignment and backtension adjustment. Are there any good guides you recommend?

2 Mbps encode is very low, I hope you are keeping the lossless files, Line TBC is almost doing nothing other than darkening the picture.

Heavy wiggle/jitter is like anti-tearing, and is what the ES10/15 is best at.

You also lack any sort of frame TBC, or even a puny frame sync, and the ES10/15 will again provide that. Make it a full TBC(ish) by adding the DVK, and most issue of drop/insert frames should also be resolved.

I am surprised that the JVC HS-S9911U's native TBC is so terrible.

Q1: Just so I understand, the ES10/15 will add a line TBC, frame sync, and frame TBC? Is the JVC's native TBC doing anything?

Q2: What is a DVK? Online I found something called a chromakeyer. Is that it?

FYI: here is a higher bitrate version (I have the original lossless files).

https://drive.google.com/file/d/19ks...ew?usp=sharing

(the file is a bit bigger though unfortunately)

P.S.
I have an ES10, so I will try doing a passthrough to see what it can do. In the past, the problem I noticed with my ES10 was that the picture turns out totally washed out because the ES10 seems to brighten the picture too much. I may need to correct for it in the capture step.

JVC HS-S9911U is not necessarily bad, The first generation tape may have had some line wiggle and that got copied to the second generation, So the VCR cannot predict what is part of the picture and what's not, Give ES10 a try and you should find out.

The right looks much better to my eye. There is less line jitter, and the left image has blown out highlights all over the place. As latreche34 said, it could be the tape. Do you have some other source material you can show?

I didn't look at filenames etc. but if the TBC is on the right then it seems to be it's doing its job adequately.