Tape Runtime Problem
 

Hello everyone, hope you have been well!

I want to share a little problem that I have, in hopes that you can help me out.

For around a year now, I've captured countless tapes with my setup (JVC SR-V10U, AT-8710, AmaRecTV)- and there have been no problems. So I took on a job of transferring a set of recorded tapes for a friend of mine; some tapes have bad frame bending at the top that the TBC's couldn't fix. I went and bought a cheap DMR-ES15, and it's done absolute wonders. So I have 2 different transfers of the tapes on my computer, one with the DVD recorder, one without.

Attachment 10113

As you can see in the picture, there is a considerable difference in runtime between the two, and I have no idea what the problem is. It appears the DVD recorder provides a shorter runtime; and the original is extended. I don't really know what the issue is, since both of them appear to be in sync. I ran both clips in VirtualDub to scan for any inserted or dropped frames, and none are showing up. Is it possible the original setup without the DVD Recorder isn't detecting inserted frames in AmarecTV? (it usually does after the 2 hour mark which is normal). Can anybody here suggest anything that I can try out to see what the problem is, without sending the 30gb(each) files over?

Another thing worth noting- the common field ghosting problem in the AVT-8710, that problem is completely eliminated once the DVD recorder is in the capture chain. Thanks guys!

Hey, you use the ES15 for tbc pass-thru, not as a lossy recorder. Anyway, I hope you didn't record noisy VHS directly to DVD.

Did you consider leading and trailing frames?

By ther way, we really can't see much of your app's interface in that little photo, and you can't post 1920x1080. Ever heard of Mediainfo or MediainfoXP? You can copy their data as text and post it in the forum.

Hi Sanlyn, thanks for the quick response! No worries, the ES15 is indeed pass-thru.

The two clips lined up together are both trimmed to the start frame of the same sequence, until the end of it (in this case, first frame of the episode until the last). I never heard of Mediainfo until now, but I took your suggestions and exported a .txt of both files in question. There's several like this, so if we can find out what's wrong with one, we might be close to a solution.

An off topic question to add on while we're on topic of the ES15, how come the levels somewhat shift a bit when plugged in? Not really a bad thing, but it looks kind of "brighter".

The ES15 does some processing and isn't exactly transparent. Users adjust for the difference during capture.

Mediainfo for MGMDVD says the video duration is "14 min 41 s".
MediaInfo for FinalMGM says the video duration is "1 h 59 min".
Are you saying that the same scene sequence in both videos is a different duration or file size?

The shorter one is just the episode, the longer one is that same episode, but I captured a lot more of the tape. I linked the two together in Sony Vegas. The episode is exactly the same piece of the tape. Hope this helps!