Best available SECAM VHS-C TBC option?
 

Hi,

I'm new on this forum and I read many topics before posting, but there're still some things I hardly understand and since I bought some devices that I will eventually not use, I don't want to waste any more money...

So I have some VHS-C tapes I want to rip, the devices being from France, I have some questions :

1 - Regarding the signal, I read that SECAM didn't exist on camcorders and that it was just PAL. However, I sometime read that there was SECAM camcorders in France, but since I don't have any more informations on this I'm still confused. I think it's important to know that to have wider devices choice.

2 - It seems that we can convert SECAM to PAL, if that's the case I'm wondering :
- If it the quality deteriorate ?
- If the conversion can be done directly by the VCR or could it be done though a DVD player or a Capture card (again I want to know so that I can widen my choice of devices).
- If a DVD player (using as passthrough, or not), have to support SECAM as well, or does it concerns VCR only.


3 - Sometimes, I read that we should always use an S-Video cable, but AFAIK VHS-C signal (not S-VHS-C) is composite, so I'm confused here.

4 - My VCR is a Sony SVL-SE800B. Would it be fine if it was coupled with a DVD recorder which have a TBC-Like ? (or with a capture card that have TBC-Like as some Canopus do), or do I have to use a VCR with built-in TBC ? I ask this because SECAM VCR with built-in TBC are rare (unless the signal can be converted flawlessly to PAL, or if the list of known SECAM VCR with built-in TBC is bigger - please share if you know more of these).


I think that's all, thank you in advance.

1- There is only one French SECAM, SECAM variations existed only in the TV broadcast and tuners arena, Video tape formats have one and one only SECAM standard, MESECAM in the other hand is a workaround tape format never part of the original SECAM standard. And yes there was SECAM camcorders, I had one.

2- Converting SECAM chroma to anything else is a hot mess.

3- Video tape formats are not composite, They are Y-C format with C being under modulated right before recorded on tape and upper modulated during playback, it is already suffered so much, so it is better to keep it Y-C by using a S-VHS player and not squash it again through the composite stage.

4- That's your choice, I don't live where you live or have your financial situation to make decisions for you.

I like those late model Sonys for doing PAL tapes, together with a dvd-recorder for tbc functionality (generally with EDIT enabled and reality regenerator disabled if using the ones that have it.) I don't have any experience doing french secam tapes so can't speak of the chroma quality for that, and whether it being composite rather than s-video is more of an issue with SECAM or not. Main annoyance of them is that they switch to blue screen if there is nothing on the tape which may or may not be an issue.

Re conversion, if it's something like a vcr with secam->pal converter, or some random box that's specifically transcoding video format that's going to be likely be rather primitive and as noted by latreche34 you want to avoid that. If using panasonic or newer pioneer/sony dvd-recorder or a TBC that can accept secam, it's fine if PAL is used on the output side of that - the chroma is decoded to component format internally in those regardless of input/output.

Whether a SVHS vcr with built-in TBC is worth it depends on who you ask I guess and how much you intend to spend. At least for PAL, I find the TBC in the JVC ones somewhat unreliable on camcorder tapes as they tend to cause this vertical jitter if there is too much instability so I prefer to use the dvd-recorder method for that instead. Panasonics SVHS decks may be better in this case if you want to go that route, I don't think any of those suffer from that (though I've only personally used the NV-HS1000).

Yes. Even on my multi standard JVC HR-S9500MS the DIGITAL T.B.C./N.R. is not active when playing SECAM tapes

Alright, thanks.

So I have to keep SECAM signal from source to capture card with S-Video.


Same. Among all models I saw, either TBC is clearly not SECAM compatible, or it's unclear between user guides from different region/languages (sometimes they don't clearly mention it, and sometimes they clearly say it's not compatible).

According to my infos the panasonic FS 100 and HS 900 have transcoder secam> pal and pal>secam. Possibly aswell the Samsung SV-5000W. Vcr's with functioning built-in tbc for secam might exist but i don't know any.
Best you can do is convert to Pal then use either the line-tbc of your dvd recorder or dedicated tbc

Jvc's tbc don't work with secam, period (i've checked myself with the hr-8600-ms and 7700ms)

I'm relatively sure the PAL dvd-recorders with line-tbc functionality, like the Panasonics and newer Sony/Pioneer models support SECAM input, so you shouldn't need to transcode to PAL first if using those.

The SV-5000W and related can convert between PAL and SECAM (and other standards) though if you use the conversion function in those anything else behind it in the chain like TBC won't be able to do anything further and any jitter/issues will be baked in so wouldn't recommend it. I don't know if the secam<->pal conversion something like the decks in the previous post or JVC SVHS decks also do this.

Alright, interesting.

I saw external PAL <-> SECAM transcoders as well and I wonder what's it worth ?

Be wary of those devices. Many are not what you think they are, and degrade quality. Which exact unit?

Ok, thanks.
No specific unit (I only looked to know if it existed and if it was good), but does it mean that there are good units which work with TBC ?