Are any of these VCRs decent enough?

[dehifi]

I have these three VCRs below but I can't for the life of me figure out what their differences really mean to quality. End goal here is to use one to play family tapes on and capture it using composite cables to an old VAIO media center video card (on Win7 since they don't have drivers for any Windows after lol).

- Panasonic PV-8660
- Panasonic PV-S7680
- MAGNAVOX MWD2250

As far as I can tell, none are TBC, right? Also, any difference is S-Video output over composite?

[Hushpower]

S-video is much preferred over Composite.

On paper, the 7680 will be the best as it is S-VHS and it has has S-video Out.

The Magnavox Combo could be the next best as it has S-Video Out.

Of course, fair wear and tear could mean that any one of them could be better than the others, so you'll have to do some comparison tests.

The manuals are available on the Internet, just search for the model numbers. I use Manualslib a lot.

Quick scan of the manuals doesn't show a TBC in any of them.

[lordsmurf]

Condition, condition, condition.

... and proper working condition.
You cannot trust anybody who uses terms like "working" and "tested", and even "refurbished" is BS being tossed around now (because the seller thinks it will help bring in $$$, without actually being refurb'd whatsoever).

But the limits of subpar units will always give subpar playback output. No line TBC requires use of ES10/15 type afterwards, but then you also have downsides of the ES10/15 (not just the subpar VCR).

Combo decks are rarely good, or even anyway near "good". False sharpening, color bleeding, unstable mistimed output, etc.

You will be 100% unable to plug in a random old VCR, to a random USB capture card, and expect any results. Guaranteed lowest quality capture, if it doesn't reject from errors. Blurry video, out of sync audio, etc.

At the bare minimum, you must have
- a stable VCR (preferably a non-TBC S-VHS at worst),
- some form of TBC (even if the bare minimum ES10/15),
- and a decent capture card (ie, not some cheap Chinese USB junk from eBay/Amazon).

You're currently go down a bad path that leads to capture project failure.

[dehifi]

Glad I asked, had no idea on S-Video! Thank you. Any insight into what "Dynamorphous Metal Head" means in comparison to say a "4 Head" VCR?

[Hushpower]

@LS, you've missed the point. He already has these.

Are you suggesting he throws them all away?

[lordsmurf]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hushpower

@LS, you've missed the point. He already has these.
Are you suggesting he throws them all away?

Already having something doesn't really matter. The mentality of "I already have it, so I must use it" is faulty logic, and often leads to self-punishment. "I already have a rusty old knife in the garage, why do I need to get a new one to chop my veggies? It works fine!"

I'm sure the decks can have others uses (if not junked out), such as acting as rewinders, previewers, etc. Just not as the deck used for capture.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hushpower

The Magnavox Combo could be the next best as it has S-Video Out.

BTW, this actually likely false. Almost all combo decks internally composite VHS, before re-outputting to s-video, HDMI, component, SCART, whatever. So damage is done internally to the signal, and what you have is actually not Y/C (s-video, separated video).

You'd have to diagram out the signal path on that exact combo unit to know if it's actually passing Y/C from tape to output.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hushpower

On paper, the 7680 will be the best as it is S-VHS and it has has S-video Out.

Those Panasonic Omnivision VHS decks are pretty crappy for multiple reasons. Many, many brands/models are better. The PV-S7680 probably is the "best" in this lot, but that's not a recommendation.

S-VHSs VCR should have s-video, but noting s-video alone does not guarantee better quality, unless everything is equal. Some of those older and "pro" model Panasonic S-VHS decks output really noisy video.

[Eric-Jan]

1- Panasonic PV-8660
2- Panasonic PV-S7680
3- MAGNAVOX MWD2250

Maybe just make a voting poll ?

i'm going for #2 !

[aramkolt]

Personally, I'd try playing and capturing the first 1 minute of the tape with each using your setup and decide if you are happy with the result. The general consensus is that you usually need a couple brands/models of VCRs to try to get the best output for a specific tape and it may not always be the same unless they were all produced the same way on the same brand/quality of tape, say, by the same camcorder etc.

Would be a good test to also use composite/S-Video yourself for that same 1 minute capture with your setup on any that support both so that you can see for yourself if it is worth it. Some devices I am told handle S-Video basically the same as composite, essentially combining it to composite internally rather than keeping luma/chroma separate until eventual digital conversion.

I love me some screen captures, so would be curious to see a post showing results of captures from all three to compare.

[lordsmurf]

Screen caps (images) don't tell much, video clips required (no lossy compression, no Youtube).

[dehifi]

....The results! (3 months later xD)

MAGNAVOX is KING. It's S-Video port is for the DVD only, VCR just uses the video plug but the results are a hundred times better than of the Panasonic's S-Video so suck it up. Panasonic is over-saturated which might look better in certain conditions but the lack of quality takes more away than ads even on an old scanlines tv I bet you. Pan has color issues mainly brown red and makes colors where there are none lmao Mag has a slight green tint. The entire video gets the Panasonic VCR filter with bleeding and shadow on one side. Mag has smooth frames and shows video as is. The Panasonic is just terrible.. it even had frame skips, flashing, weird skews. Really not even a good comparison for video-use of any sort. Panasonic should be ashamed.

Used a cheap $20 s-video and RCA to type-c video capture adapter from the place owned by the guy who has more money than most countries.

Don't care to upload video. Screenshots really not necessary ether and do differ drastically but for a close scene comparison here you go.
MAGNAVOX MWD2250 vs Panasonic PV-S7680
https://ibb.co/88ZS2Rv

[lordsmurf]

Both of those VCRs looks pretty crappy, the timing wiggle is obvious even in the still. Unless the video is accurate, and a drunk person built the house, since the walls, doors, and windows all wiggle, zero straight lines can be seen there.

The skew/skips/flashing is not from the VCR, but the lack of any TBC in the workflow. VCR > cheap capture cards isn't even a workflow. That's like driving a car on 3 wheels, no oil, and low on gas.

You get what you paid for, and both the capture experience, and the capture result, is extremely lackluster (or worse).

[dehifi]

Thanks man! I love the result.

What's a good example of a perfect result you so desperately speak of? How good of an image could a VCR with an amazing card produce - got a screenshot to share?

[aramkolt]

Quote:

Originally Posted by dehifi

Thanks man! I love the result.

What's a good example of a perfect result you so desperately speak of? How good of an image could a VCR with an amazing card produce - got a screenshot to share?

To be fair, I do see what Lordsmurf is seeing when it comes to the vertical straightness of the wall in the middle there. You'd probably get a lot better result with the DMR-ES10/15 passthrough and it's fairly budget friendly even if you do choose to keep going with the same VCR. Geometry issues are one of those things that you just can't "unsee" once you see them haha. Downside is that it can sort of smooth out the image a bit which can make it look a bit softer or less detailed. As for a readily available capture card that works with modern windows, the IOData GV-USB2 is very well reviewed and does preserve interlaced frames during capture. So for maybe $100 for those two upgrades, I'd expect the quality of the capture to improve quite a lot.

I would also love a thread that specifically shows screen captures with various setups and with comparisons between the lossless capture followed by a second pic to show what was achieved during post-processing. I myself do not really know if the result I am getting are "good" versus "mediocre" in the infinite scheme of what is possible to combine in a video chain. Not all video sources are the same, so you can't really get an identical source to start with, but I feel like a commercially produced/released VHS tape should be a relatively good starting source for these sorts of comparisons. Home made VHS's though are more likely to have timebase errors and geometry issues since they weren't commercially produced on extremely accurate equipment.

I did just upload a test sample of what I'm getting with my capture setup here https://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vid...html#post92868

Not sure if it's particularly "good" in the grand scheme of things since I don't have much to compare to yet, but it's something to look at in terms of seeing what's possible if you're curious in terms of capture quality with mostly recommended hardware, though I didn't use a frame TBC for the test since it wasn't dropping frames as far as I could tell. My setup tends to like to "add" a frame every few minutes, guessing due to some slight clock differences in the VCR and the capture PC. The VHS tape source was commercially produced in the test, so I wouldn't expect home VHS tapes to look as good, so I'd call that a sort of best case scenario.

[dehifi]

Quote:

Originally Posted by lordsmurf

Both of those VCRs looks pretty crappy, the timing wiggle is obvious even in the still. Unless the video is accurate, and a drunk person built the house, since the walls, doors, and windows all wiggle, zero straight lines can be seen there.

The skew/skips/flashing is not from the VCR, but the lack of any TBC in the workflow. VCR > cheap capture cards isn't even a workflow. That's like driving a car on 3 wheels, no oil, and low on gas.

You get what you paid for, and both the capture experience, and the capture result, is extremely lackluster (or worse).

Hey still waiting on your glorified example please and thank you.
Gonna submit it to a local vhs-to-dvd service to see how much of a difference their setup can get me, out of curiosity.

Again, we're comparing cheap camcorder quality on VHS to cheap camcorder quality off VHS. This isn't apples to oranges, this is apples to different-textured apples.

[lordsmurf]

Random services may be using random gear that is ithe same, or evern worse, than what you tried already. You'd better find out what they use. Far too many services say stupid things, like "you don't need TBCs" or "this device we use has TBC" (but does not). It's obvious when you see the crappy work. Verify, don't blindly trust.

Far too busy to take free requests right now, probably into next year.

[dehifi]

Quote:

Originally Posted by lordsmurf

Random services may be using random gear that is ithe same, or evern worse, than what you tried already. You'd better find out what they use. Far too many services say stupid things, like "you don't need TBCs" or "this device we use has TBC" (but does not). It's obvious when you see the crappy work. Verify, don't blindly trust.

Far too busy to take free requests right now, probably into next year.

Looks like you don't want to verify and want me to trust you blindly. Enjoy your paid year.

[lordsmurf]

Quote:

Originally Posted by dehifi

Looks like you don't want to verify and want me to trust you blindly. Enjoy your paid year.

I help and post as much as possible, but I simply cannot stop what I'm doing every time somebody demands "proof" of a well-known fact that has been discussed online for 20+ years, often with samples. This demanding "proof" BS is a recent phenomenon, often from younger generations, who simply cannot inconvenience themselves to look harder. So look harder, I'm busy.

When I have more time, I'll go to the effort of multi-capturing before/after samples, encoding for proper online viewing, etc -- and this is already something I've planned to do. But that won't happen this year. I want to storyboard it, show multiple types of timing errors, etc. I also want to show how various devices fail, such as why Panasonic ES10/15 is not a panacea, and has many negatives compared to quality VCR line TBCs. Otherwise people get the wrong takeaway on what TBCs are, what they can do. It's not a commodity, pick any TBC, and you'll be fine.

What you have is mostly simple wiggle. Look at a door frame. Does your door frame wiggle in real ife? No, probalby not. TBC = no more wiggle. No TBC = wiggle. Referring to line TBC here, not frame TBC, or any random "TBC". It also needs to be certain TBCs known for quality, such as line TBCs in JVC/Panasonic S-VHS VCRs, or something like ES10/15 (strong+crippled line TBC, but with the DVD recorder downsides).

If more proof is needed, Vodka has a lot of it.