Is this SECAM fire? strange pink effect!

[ninoo1]

Hello!

I'm struggling to figure out how to solve this - There are pink/blue horizontal lines on the left side of the video, and a pink tint that goes away during ff/rw and playing it from pause (in an inconsistent way). By stopping and restarting play it plays normally (with distortion on the side) but often goes back to the pink tint randomly or flickers pink occasionally. Is this the 'SECAM fire' ? Why is it intermittent and not consistent? Any way to get rid of it?

I am trying to capture SECAM vhs tapes, with Amarectv, Hauppage USB-Live2 with Panasonic ES15 as pass through. It happens with and without ES15 - I've attached some examples

Thank you

[themaster1]

with that much pink there has to be a problem either on the tape or vcr.

You can get rid off the side bars with an avs script

for pink bar on the right side:

avisource()
assumetff()
ConvertToYUY2(interlaced=true)
U = UtoY() # separate U channel
V = VtoY() # separate V channel
V = Crop(V,0,0,-16,-0) #remove discoloured portion and black border
extra=Crop(V,342,0,2,-0).PointResize(12,V.height)
V=StackHorizontal(V,extra).AddBorders(0,0,4,0,$808080) # add the extra, pad to 720 with grey
YtoUV(U, V, last) # mix the separate U and V with the original Y
ConvertToYV12(interlaced=true)

[latreche34]

What's a SECAM fire? Never heard of it. This is clearly a VCR output problem since it happens even when the tape is stopped, Look for loose or damaged cables, connectors, VCR internal video circuits such as failed capacitors. Try another VCR if you have one or fix this one if deemed the culprit, But the color artifacts are the least of your worries, the Zebra pattern that fills the frame is the real concern.

[ninoo1]

Quote:

Originally Posted by themaster1

with that much pink there has to be a problem either on the tape or vcr.

You can get rid off the side bars with an avs script

for pink bar on the right side:

avisource()
assumetff()
ConvertToYUY2(interlaced=true)
U = UtoY() # separate U channel
V = VtoY() # separate V channel
V = Crop(V,0,0,-16,-0) #remove discoloured portion and black border
extra=Crop(V,342,0,2,-0).PointResize(12,V.height)
V=StackHorizontal(V,extra).AddBorders(0,0,4,0,$808080) # add the extra, pad to 720 with grey
YtoUV(U, V, last) # mix the separate U and V with the original Y
ConvertToYV12(interlaced=true)

thank you for the script! I look forward to trying it when I get round to learning how to use avisynth haha .

[ninoo1]

Quote:

Originally Posted by latreche34

What's a SECAM fire? Never heard of it. This is clearly a VCR output problem since it happens even when the tape is stopped, Look for loose or damaged cables, connectors, VCR internal video circuits such as failed capacitors. Try another VCR if you have one or fix this one if deemed the culprit, But the color artifacts are the least of your worries, the Zebra pattern that fills the frame is the real concern.

see these references for secam fire -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x24bZ5kBUDE
https://github.com/tuorqai/libsecam

What confuses me is that when capturing commercial vhs tapes that are PAL, it all seems to work perfectly fine, no strange colours or artefacts, and the pause screen is also unaffected (from recent memory ). When playing VCR straight to tv, none of these issues arise for SECAM or PAL tapes and it all looks fine, its only when trying to capture.

How comes when its pink and I rewind for a second or pause it goes back to colour if I press play in time with when it flickers to colour? and then randomly at later time flickers between pink and normal?

what might be the cause and/or solutions for zebra pattern?

I noticed that the s-video connector on usb live2 causes flickering between colour and b&w when moved - although this seems a seperate issue as it's fine when left alone and problems still happen when that element is stable

I can't find a SECAM VCR as I'm in the UK

[lordsmurf]

Quote:

Originally Posted by latreche34

What's a SECAM fire? Never heard of it. This is clearly a VCR output problem

Never heard of it either. "SECAM fire" sounds like somebody's made-up (head canon) term. It's merely a chroma problem, usually caused by the deck to this severe degree. Either bad deck, or deck not meant to play the format.

This is very common with bad nth gen NTSC or PAL tapes.

Sucking out the excess chroma makes it watchable. You can often then re-saturate, after desaturate and cNR.

I probably haven't tackled anything this ugly, with this specific error, in 15+ years. Some VHS errors seem to have disappeared over the years, often TV sources made bad by VCRs, all since replaced by DVDs and streaming better quality sources.

[latreche34]

I've seen the artifact in low budget consumer SECAM VHS-C tapes when dubbed to full size VHS tapes using cheap VCRs but never knew what the name was.

Anyway, if the TV plays the signal fine then the only thing I can think of is the capture card is defective or not meant to capture native French SECAM. SECAM chroma is very complicated that's why a lot of capture devices don't support it, If you could get another capture card you will at least have an idea on where to start from.

[themaster1]

If that can help you , i tried many vcr's for eecam B/L lately (jvc, bluesky, samsung,LG) the one that offers the best rendition to me were two Toshiba's ( V442EF, V733EF)

[ninoo1]

thank you all very much - I will see if I can get my hands on a different capture device. And hopefully the suggested Toshiba vcr, very useful suggestion, cheers !! Will update if anything works (might take a while )