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04-23-2018, 03:40 AM
discmeister discmeister is offline
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Hi all,

Firstly, thanks to everyone who has contributed to this forum over the years. It really is a wealth of useful information, especially in buyings guides etc.

I'm in the process of capturing a large number of old motorsport videos. Some of them are old retail tape, and in pretty poor condition; others are old BBC Resources tapes that were taken from the master, and they're generally in better nick.

I have an old Canopus ADVC-55 that I have hooked up to my W10 PC, and after reading here, I bought a JVC HR-S7955 S-VHS deck with TBC. I'm using the S-VHS out socket directly to the Canopus, along with L&R audio cables.

I'm using Premiere Pro CC to trim/crop the videos, and insert chapter markers for their eventual use on DVDs that the original tape owners want them on. Although I'm also outputting them as H264 for my home media server, to be played on a Raspberry Pi running OSMC/Kodi.

I'm using Debut Professional by NCH Software to capture the video, however for one main reason: it allows a time limit to be set. That way I can, in theory, just start the tape running and start capturing, then go out and leave it, without worrying that it's going to fill the drive. I'm recording in AVI but using Lagarith Lossless in RGB mode.

So far, so good. I've done half a dozen of the 'good condition' tapes up to now, and they're worked nicely. Debut generally reports a rock-solid 25fps on the recording. However, this morning one of the 'good condition' tapes threw up a sequence where the fps dropped below 20, and when I checked the captured footage, there was a jump where frames had been dropped. I did/do have TBC turned on on the JVC, of course.

I'm wondering if this is going to be unavoidable, really, or whether one of the external TBC boxes that's often referenced here would make a difference?

Interested to hear your thoughts.

Kind regards to all,

Discy
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  #2  
04-23-2018, 04:42 AM
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lordsmurf lordsmurf is online now
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Welcome.

BBC? Are you PAL?
- If so, DV is fine.
- If not, if NTSC, then that Canopus DV box is lowering quality of that tape with 4:1:1 color compression.

Are you properly deinterlacing for streaming at home? Or keeping interlace?

Premiere Pro is a great NLE, but for mere trim/crop you shouldn't use it. It does some nasty things to video if you're not careful. For example, the needless YUV>RGB colorspace conversion. All NLEs are like that.

NCH is terrible at everything it does. Low-end Chinese-quality software. Infamous bloatware that often has payload bombs like toolbars. I've not installed their near-malware in a while, but it doesn't have anything you'd need for quality capturing. (I believe it was NCH that, in 2001, forced me to reinstall the OS because it hosed the system so badly.) There is absolutely nothing professional about it, and no actual pros would ever use it. It's really nothing more than webcam recording software, not intended for capture.

For capture, you should use VirtualDub.
It has "stop conditions" to end capture after 'x' second. 7200s = 1 hour.

You should be using YUV mode. Lagarith isn't an ideal capture codec, but if it works without dropped frames, go ahead and use it.

You have no idea what the software is doing. Change to VirtualDub, and get exact reporting on the frame loss. Odds are, even your supposed "good 25fps" were actually dropping frames.

Yes, TBC is an unavoidable fact of video life.

(BTW: I have TBCs available in the marketplace forum.)

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- For sale in the marketplace: TBCs, workflows, capture cards, VCRs
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  #3  
04-23-2018, 05:00 AM
discmeister discmeister is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by lordsmurf View Post
Welcome.
Thank you.

Quote:
BBC? Are you PAL?
- If so, DV is fine.
- If not, if NTSC, then that Canopus DV box is lowering quality of that tape with 4:1:1 color compression.
Yes, I'm PAL.

Quote:
Are you properly deinterlacing for streaming at home? Or keeping interlace?
I guess I should properly deinterlace for my home streaming but keep interlace for the DVD, yes?

Quote:
Premiere Pro is a great NLE, but for mere trim/crop you shouldn't use it. It does some nasty things to video if you're not careful. For example, the needless YUV>RGB colorspace conversion. All NLEs are like that.
I want to be able to trim, crop, fade in and out from/to black at the start and fade in and out from/to silence on the audio. And put in chapter markers that will eventually be recognised by Encore when I'm making the DVDs that the tape owners have requested. I know that in my own files, which will be H264 MP4s, I can manually insert chapter markers for Kodi using an app called Drax. It doesn't recompress.

Quote:
NCH is terrible at everything it does. Low-end Chinese-quality software. Infamous bloatware that often has payload bombs like toolbars. I've not installed their near-malware in a while, but it doesn't have anything you'd need for quality capturing. (I believe it was NCH that, in 2001, forced me to reinstall the OS because it hosed the system so badly.) There is absolutely nothing professional about it, and no actual pros would ever use it. It's really nothing more than webcam recording software, not intended for capture.

For capture, you should use VirtualDub.
It has "stop conditions" to end capture after 'x' second. 7200s = 1 hour.
Wow. Okay. I though NCH was okay, to be honest, and I haven't seen any additional bloatware installed. But VirtualDub is free so if that works just as well then great.

Quote:
You should be using YUV mode. Lagarith isn't an ideal capture codec, but if it works without dropped frames, go ahead and use it.
So what is an ideal capture codec? I'm guessing, of course, that my ADVC-55 is spitting DV down the Firewire cable to the PC in question.

Quote:
You have no idea what the software is doing. Change to VirtualDub, and get exact reporting on the frame loss. Odds are, even your supposed "good 25fps" were actually dropping frames.
Will do. Although I'd done five or six shows up to now and was encouraged at the results when I watched them back on my TV.

Quote:
Yes, TBC is an unavoidable fact of video life.

(BTW: I have TBCs available in the marketplace forum.)
I guess the advantage with buying them here is that they're known to work and from trusted sources. They're not cheap - but I suppose when the work is done, you're able to sell them on again for not a lot less than what you paid for them?

Thanks for such a prompt and detailed reply,

Discy
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  #4  
04-23-2018, 05:05 AM
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lordsmurf lordsmurf is online now
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Yes. Buy it, use it, resell it.

eBay is a nightmare for video gear, as the seller is almost never a video person, just a recycler or reseller than knows nothing about it. Most gear claimed to "work" does not. They got it from an estate sale, storage locker, etc. Odds are greater than you'll buy an expensive dud than a quality item you're seeking. Total gamble if you're a novice, and still more than half gamble for the experienced.

Retry that capture in VirtualDub, and see what your exact frame drops are. Remember to find the VirtualDib settings guide in the forum; read the whole thread before making the tweaks.

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  #5  
04-23-2018, 05:09 AM
discmeister discmeister is offline
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So would I have the TBC turned on in the JVC VHS and then have another one externally? Or could I switch the VHS deck into image stabiliser mode (thereby deactivating NR/TBC) and just rely on the external TBC?

I can see you have a couple of total systems for sale in Marketplace, but can't see where you're selling standalone TBCs.

Will dig around and have a look at the VirtualDub settings. Will the exact frame drops make a difference to whether TBC is going to work for me?

Regards,

Discy
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  #6  
04-23-2018, 05:29 AM
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lordsmurf lordsmurf is online now
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VCR with internal line TBC on (to clean image)
> external frame sync TBC (to clean signal; to prevent dropped frames, among other effects)
> capture card or recorder

The VCR TBC has completely different function from external TBC. "TBC" is a wide term.

You can PM me about my TBCs, and I'll get back to you on it within a day or so.

The exact frame drops will, if nothing else, help you troubleshoot the problem better. And the solution is likely lack of TBC. You should re-capture some of those "successful" tapes, and verify it was truly 0 dropped frames. I doubt it was actually the case.

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