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03-04-2017, 02:31 PM
Sonic76 Sonic76 is offline
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Hi.

Now it's my time to digitize my VHS cassettes.
I only gonna capture old Tv shows, music videos and some homemovies from the 90's.

I have an Sony SLV-E 811 (European Version) video recorder and Magix Video saver for video capturing.
i was not happy with the result (see picture) , so did a search and ended up here

So now i have search for hours and found out that i maybe need a VCR with TBC or Time Base Corrector.
Then i have found treads that i may need Canopus ADVC 300 or AV-Tool-AVT-8710-Multi-Standard-Time-Base-Corrector to capture with, or am i wrong here?

So my question is.

Will a VCR for example Panasonic NV-HS950 that has built in TBC fix the picture better than my Sony, or is it the capture card from Magix that is my week link?

Regards Sonic 76.


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  #2  
03-05-2017, 06:51 AM
sanlyn sanlyn is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Sonic76 View Post
I have an Sony SLV-E 811 (European Version) video recorder and Magix Video saver for video capturing.
Don't expect good results from either of those devices.
The SONY SLV machine (I used to own one) will make a good tape rewinder but a poor capture machine. Get something much, much, much better. The PAL listing located at http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vide...html#post37136 lists the Panasonic NV-HS950 as a recommended player, among others.

Stop wasting your time with Magix. Get a real capture card. Pick a genuinely excellent device from this ATI legacy series for Windows XP machines:
http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vide...html#post13441
or newer alternatives from these makers, available in the UK & Europe:
- Hauppauge 610 USB2 capture stick (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hauppauge-0.../dp/B003Q2ZA36)
- Diamond Multimedia VC500 USB (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Diamond-Mul...mputers&ie=UTF)
- The ATI 600 TV Wonder USB 2, if you can find one.

The recommended capture devices are for lossless capture and restoration using VirtualDub or similar software. If you don't want lossless capture but prefer to record directly to final delivery formats like DVD with no intention of image cleanup, you're wasting money, time and effort with capture cards. You should find a good DVD recorder and record directly to DVD and play with a good VHS player. DVD's can burned to disc and copied to a PC for simple cut-and-join edits with smart rendering editors without re-encoding.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Sonic76 View Post
So now i have search for hours and found out that i maybe need a VCR with TBC or Time Base Corrector.
Then i have found treads that i may need Canopus ADVC 300 or AV-Tool-AVT-8710-Multi-Standard-Time-Base-Corrector to capture with, or am i wrong here?
The second sentence is nonsense. The Canopus card and the AVt-8710 are two completely different devices and cannot replace each other. Canopus in particular makes spurious and dubious claims about having built-in tbc, but their so-called tbc doesn't work. We would not recommend a Canopus DV device for analog capture. The lossy DV format is not a capture or restoration format, it's a PC-playback-only format with digital compression artifacts and analog-unfriendly colors that look cooked or fried. We recommend devices specifically designed for capturing analog sources, as listed above.

Yes, you do need a good player and line-level tbc fix many problems at capture time. And there are two types of TBC required for proper capture: (A) A line-lvel tbc corrects scanline timing errors within individual frames, which prevents top=border flagging, warped borders, wiggles and notches in vertical lines, and other scanline problems. (B) Frame-level tbc's correct timing signals from frame to frame, preventing dropped and duplicate frames, maintaining audio sync, and preventing frame jitter and other top-border distortion problems.

Scanline sync errors appear as bent, warped, or notched verticals, and/or bent or notched side borders, etc. A common but rather mild example of line "wiggles" produced by typical scanline errors is here: http://forum.videohelp.com/threads/3...=1#post1882662.

More severe examples were posted in an earlier thread. Below are links to 2 samples of scanline and frame timing errors. The "bad" tape sample tape was played with a non-tbc VCR. While the bad demo looks like a severe case, it's not as uncommon as you'd think. This sort of top-border flagging and frame slippage happens often with old tapes. Some tapes will play without this severity, some won't.

- A1_Sample2_bad.mpg is the original capture encoded to MPEG, with frame size slightly reduced to prevent TV overscan from hiding some of the problems.
http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/atta...sample2_badmpg

- B1_Sample2_fix.mpg is the tape played with a line-level tbc pass-thru device and a frame-level external tbc. The "fixed" sample shown in the link below is a first-stage test repair with only basic denoising, which was improved later with a better VCR but here addressing only specific issues. The tape is no longer available.
http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/atta...sample2_fixmpg

Quote:
Originally Posted by Sonic76 View Post
I only gonna capture old Tv shows, music videos and some homemovies from the 90's.
Analog tape is analog tape, regardless of the program source, and certain requirements must be met for proper transfer.

I was struck by what I saw some time ago at Magix's website, from which I quote the following advertising come-on: [quote]"You don't have to be an expert at video editing to digitize your old analog videos."[Unquote]. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Indeed, you'd better know at least some basic properties about video, or accept the inferior results you get from typical products like Magix. Or just turn the work over to someone who knows what they're doing. What you get from digitizing projects depends on how much you're willing to put into it. Dumbed-down products like Magix that promise superlative results for zero input are typical scams.

Unless you know something about video frame structure you'll have difficulty with edits and cleanups, especially with mindless software like Magix. Old TV shows are usually film-based. They might be original 24fps movies speeded up to 25fps and encoded as interlaced for TV broadcast. Or they could be field- or frame-blended NTSC to PAL down-conversions. Or they could be 23.976 film originals using various forms of duplicate-field or duplicate-frame pulldown for 25fps PAL and interlaced for broadcast. Or they could be originals shot as 25fps interlaced digital video for broadcast. Music videos could be in the same structures. Home movies for PAL are 25fps pure interlace. If the final output desired is DVD or standard definition BluRay, the only frame rate allowed for those formats is 25fps, and video must be either interlaced or telecined.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Sonic76 View Post
Will a VCR for example Panasonic NV-HS950 that has built in TBC fix the picture better than my Sony, or is it the capture card from Magix that is my week link?
Get the Panasonic NV-HS950 or similar recommendation with a line-TBC. The SONY is causing your picture distortion. A capture card won't fix it. You can do better than the Magix device without spending a fortune, and good lossless video capture software and editing apps are free.
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  #3  
03-06-2017, 03:02 AM
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lordsmurf lordsmurf is online now
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@sonic76:

As I've mentioned many times over the years, the entire reason I got into video was to record my favorite shows, then later restore and preserve them in higher quality. I had never intended to enter the field professionally!

I want my MTV.

Your sample image shows timing skew. You need a TBC, specifically the Panasonic ES10 for passthrough (to correct the tearing/skew error), probably also followed by the DataVideo TBC in the chain (to prevent dropped frames on capture).

Whatever thread you read that your need a Canopus DV box is a thread not worth reading. Bad advice. That was surely not at this site.

That Sony is just a plain consumer VCR. Better than most, but that's not saying much. Those cheap VCRs do not get the full quality signal from the tape. I still have a Sony VCR from the 90s, and it works, but it's not something I'd ever use for capture. The output is simply too dirty.

The only caveat would be the ES10 with the Sony. That may give an acceptable image. I know that some lower-end JVC S-VHS decks combined with the ES10 can do decently. And the better Sony and Sharp decks approach lower JVC S-VHS deck quality.

The Magix device further makes the image look worse.

Combined, you can a digital version that looks worse than the tape. And a consumer output at that. Video can and should look much, much better with proper equipment.

And if this project is worth ding, it's worth doing well.

Remember, you can always buy what you need, use it, then resell it.

Are you PAL or NTSC? aka Europe or North America? ("Regards" makes me think Europe. )

I'm about to list a pair for DataVideo TBCs for sale in the marketplace, along with a pair of ATI 600 USB cards. These are tested and work perfectly.

@sanlyn:

I'm not sure the Sony is causing the skew. I doubt that. The source just sucks. Whether a Panasonic field TBC can cure it remains to be seen, but it does stand more chance that a mere JVC line TBC. The ES10 is a known entity for that.

I'd disagree that TV is filmed based. Even if initial source was film, that ship long ago sailed. Plus attempting to restore progressive film is a can of worms. Most people will be best served by KISS (keep it simple, stupid), meaning leave it interlaced, and move on with the project. I'm not a source purist, and only reference the most immediate source footage at conversion time -- especially for VHS/analog.

- Did my advice help you? Then become a Premium Member and support this site.
- For sale in the marketplace: TBCs, workflows, capture cards, VCRs
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  #4  
03-06-2017, 03:22 AM
sanlyn sanlyn is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by lordsmurf View Post
I'm not sure the Sony is causing the skew. I doubt that. The source just sucks. Whether a Panasonic field TBC can cure it remains to be seen, but it does stand more chance that a mere JVC line TBC. The ES10 is a known entity for that.

I'd disagree that TV is filmed based. Even if initial source was film, that ship long ago sailed. Plus attempting to restore progressive film is a can of worms. Most people will be best served by KISS (keep it simple, stupid), meaning leave it interlaced, and move on with the project. I'm not a source purist, and only reference the most immediate source footage at conversion time -- especially for VHS/analog.
It depends on what TV shows the O.P. has recorded and then captures. TV today still uses 23.976 film originals. I Love Lucy was filmed. Downtown Abbey was filmed. Episodes of popular American TV crime series were on film, as were newer BBC shows like Rosemary And Thyme and many other BBC originals. Old classic British and American movies are always hard-telecined or simply speeded up and interlaced in broadcast, and I have seen NTSC>PAL conversions of Have Gun Will Travel and other westerns that use 2:2 pulldown and even blended-field techniques for PAL broadcast in Britain and Germany. There were BBC science series that were progressive video source but encoded as interlaced, often with duplicate interlace fields out of phase with resulting bad aliasing. American TV is still film based or recorded digitally at film speed (Try Castle or Blue Bloods or SVU), as are the music video and even anime channels.

What the owner wants for final output wasn't mentioned, but if they follow current fads they would likely try to deinterlace and encode as MP4, which new users often mistake as a "new format" and therefor somehow superior, which is pure fiction. Sometimes the original post sounded as if this isn't a lossless project anyway but is going directly to lossy final formats and being modified/re-encoded from there.

So I guess the owner needs to give us more information.
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  #5  
03-06-2017, 04:12 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sanlyn View Post
but if they follow current fads they would likely try to deinterlace and encode as MP4
Educate them otherwise.

- Capture the archival copy as standard interlaced 25/29.97.
- Only deinterlace a copy for streaming/MP4/MKV, and IVTC (re-film conversion) is an option.

But honestly, even I just deinterlace. Trying to restore the film is something not worse the hassles. Again, we're talking at VHS here, not broadcast streams (which is where "the scene" often restores film source for collectors).

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  #6  
03-06-2017, 04:17 AM
Sonic76 Sonic76 is offline
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Hi & thanks for yours replies.

Ok, then i use my Sony VCR for tape rewind, and wait for my "new" JVC HR S9600EU that i purchased from ebay today, and throw away Magix capture USB dongle

So if i understand you right, or the link you are referring to it's best to buy one of these ATI cards listed underneath instead of USB dongles?

PCI Express: (Theatre 200 chipset)
ATI All-In-Wonder 2006 Edition PCI-E
ATI All-In-Wonder Radeon X600 Pro
ATI All-In-Wonder Radeon X800 XL
ATI All-In-Wonder Radeon X1800 XL
ATI All-In-Wonder Radeon X1900

I have downloaded VirtualDub, but when i tried to capture video with my Magix USB dongle i got blue screen on my Windows 10 pc.

Sonic76
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