Hotronic AP41 as TBC for capturing VHS/Beta recordings?
 

Newbee question..

I need a time base corrector to clean up the video output of my VHS
while recording to my Canopus ADVC-100 capture device.
The Hotronic AP41 TBC seems to be a good candidate to do the job.
Well is-it ?
I will only use the BNC connectors (no S-video).

Thanks.

VHS > broadcast TBC > DV NTSC

This won't end well. :unsure:

Old broadcast TBCs are weaker than most people think, especially when confront with VHS sources that it wasn't designed for or tested with.

You're also losing 50%+ color fidelity using 4:1:1 DV with that Canopus box.

Yeah, sure, you can try it. But I'd not expect it to 100% work for you. TBCs made for VHS include non-current DataVideo and Cypress/AVT/TVone TBCs. Modern black Cypress are defective, and modern DataVideo is not made for VHS. You will run into tons of issues.

It also doesn't overly "clean up" anything, as external TBCs are for cleaning the signal. There are some picture-cleaning side effects, but actual cleaning is done with internal line TBC in a good VCR.

What VCR are you using?

What sort of realistic budget do you have for upgrading your setup?

Here what I'm in:
In then 90's I've made around 20 videos (Sony Beta HI-FI stereo, speed II) of various musical jams I had with friends in my basement.
B&W Videos with good Beta HI-FI sound quality.
Yes Black & White cameras were what I had on hand these days.
The video quality was not important but the mechanical cassette reliability (Beta Scotch tapes) and a good to execellent sound quality was.
At that time it was a cheap way to record up to 3 hours of jams.
Now I want to digitize all these videos without going through sync playback issues so I need some kind of Time Base Corrector to 'correct' the video playback irregularities..
Missing lines, skews, drop outs, etc..
These video imperfections will also lead to bad audio too.
I know I cannot get a perfect result but I want my Capture box not to get stuck because of bad video signals.
Just a reliable video signal to my capture box.

The second reason I need a TBC is because I have some macrovision VHS cassettes I want to digitize too.

The Hotronic AP41 TBC seems to be a good candidate..
In fact any discontinued video mixers like the Videonics MX-1 or the Datavideo ES-500 (not the ES-500HD) that have a TBC included in the mixer would do (I think).
But I don't want to pay over $100.00US for the final one.

Is-it clearer now for you ?
Thanks for your support.

You'd do better to buy a Panasonic ES10/15 DVD recorder for passthrough TBC(ish) filtering. Those are the $100-125 range, and will fix skew unlike the Hotronic. Be sure to buy a complete unit, with OEM remote (as it is required, replacement/generics not allowed). Good complete units, shipped to Canada, probably $150-175 range. Get that.

And what about a good used Datavideo ES-500 video mixer (not HD) ?
It has a nice TBC to work with.

Not sure if it helps, but there is a video on youtube with some vhs captures with comparisons of the Hotronic AP41.

I have a Panasonic ES15 on the way but I am pretty sure it comes without remote. I didn't worry too much at first because I have quite some of those "universal remote controls" that you can program yourself around the house, but now you got me scared:eek:
Which function exactly do I need for mere passthrough that I cannot use with an universal remote?
I have one with an option to contact the remote's service hotline, tell them the device and the button from the original remote I want to use and they will help me to program it in.

Ps: Picture 1 is the ES15 Remote and Picture 2 this universal remote service

On this YouTube video it looks like the Hotronic AP41 does a very nice and clean job on the
shaky original VHS image... Why the Panasonic ES-10 would do a better job ?? video bandwidth ?
A/D converters precision ?? Please explain. Thanks.

I have to agree with lordsmurf on this. The VHS Video did improve but not by much compared to the TBC off version.