DETAIL/NOR/EDIT switch settings to use on AG-1980P?
 

Hello everyone. I would like to know what the DETAIL/NOR/EDIT switch should be set to on my Panasonic AG-1980P. To my understanding I suppose EDIT mode displays the original picture while DETAIL and NOR are filters that denoise and smoothen the picture. Am I right? I want to transfer my tapes to the most original lossless mode so I suppose the setting should be switched to EDIT, am I correct? I would like to transfer to the most lossless quality and edit later if I want to.

In my experience: EDIT disables DNR and the Sharpness slider.

I could never figure out the other two.

Per 1980 Operating Instructions Manual:

DETAIL/NOR: For controlling the picture image
EDIT: No effect for controlling the picture image

I use the NOR (i.e. normal) setting and have the slider a bit to the right of center. What's the difference between detail and normal? This post says nothing. http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vide...html#post15960 You're welcome to play with and find out if you can tell any difference.

"Controlling the picture image" refers to the picture control slider with Soft on the left and Sharp on the right.

If you slide the slider all the way in either direction you should see quite a range of difference. Sharpening is a personal preference. Play with it and find out. I definitely favor the Panasonic for it's preservation of more subtle detail. But if you push the slider all the way Sharp, you'll probably find that you are no longer preserving details and instead adding strong edgeing or just an oversharpened look. It's a powerful feature that I think requires the user to pay attention and decide what they want. If you switch between EDIT and NOR while playing you should see the before/after of what the current slider setting is doing to the image.

When TGrant refurbs decks, he includes notes with the unit.

And this exact question is addresses in one of those included notes:

I defer to his AG-1980P expertise here, and suggest others do as well. :2cents:

The deck came back from him with NOR set.

I haven't a Panasonic AG-1980P vcr.

But what you say about edit, norm, detail is totally different what I have heard and read for about 20 years now.All advices on german video forums say that it is best to use a vcr which have a edit mode.
The edit mode was made for copying and was only available in some of the high end consumer svhs vcr. The edit mode bypasses or reduces parts of the analog image processing (HQ circuit) such as low-pass filters, chroma line averaging and turns off the sharpness control. This makes the image sharper (but not over-sharpened like a sharpening), but it makes more noise.

I thought the playback of the vcr was optimized for watching videos on old tvs and the edit mode turns this off. We wanna capture the videos and do some restauration in postproduction and don't wanna watch them on tv.
Best way would be to capture short samples with edit mode, norm, sharpness. Compare them and choose the one which looks best or have I made something wrong the last 20 years?

The EDIT function disables all video processing within the VCR circuitry and provides a "true to the original" signal. It's useful not just for recording onto the VCR itself but also for playing back when doing dubbing or video editing work. The EDIT switch must be ON in the playback machine too when chained with another deck. For video capture use NORM.

The AG1980P has some special digital video decoding circuitry so the so it may not be translatable to how other decks work. I(PAL) tend to use edit setting on the JVCs I've used as I find them to to smooth things overly much otherwise, while on the panasonics I've tried EDIT tends to be overly noisy.

Somehow I had mine switched to "EDIT" and it took a lot of postprocessing to make captured video look good.

Now mine is set to "DETAIL" and captured video looks much better, also the capture file sizes are smaller.