Weird horizontal distortions; sign of TBC usage?
 

Apologies for coming on here often, my curiosity never ceases to raise questions ^^;

I have been noticing these little horizontal distortions on my S-VHS VCR captures, and it made me a little worried as to if it was due to TBC (over) usage or a lack of maintenance. (Examples attached).
I'd like to know if there is a way to remove them as I am aiming for a good enough quality picture.

I am aware a Frame TBC could help, but these are way too expansive for me, heh ^^;
However any help is appreciated!

Thank you!

Assuming the VCR TBC is actually on...

That's an in-image tearing/flagging issue. Those are harsher than standard line timing issues, and will overrun most all line TBCs. Worse yet, the line TBC in S-VHS deck can make that exact error worse.

The ES10/15 is well-known for tearing correction. However, it tends to only correct top-screen tearing, not in-image tearing.

Is this tape nth gen, by chance? Mean a copy of a copy, not the original? Because that's a common source of in-image tearing errors. It's actually a compounded line timing error due to multi-generational copying (aka, nth gen).

In-image tearing is rare on source/mastery type tapes, but can happen when the recording VCR was a extremely lousy.

I recently discovered that the S&W TBS800 (recent acquisition) addresses similar or worse problems that my JVC LTBC failed to fix, The tape is EP and at least second gen dub, It didn't make sense to me to how the TBS800 has fixed the baked in problems but it did almost completely eliminated them, I can clearly see the LTBC of the VCR is fixing the line timing in the final dub and leaves the baked in ones there.

This leads me to believe that the line TBC'ish in the TBS800 ignores completely the HBI pulses and create new ones based on the edges' brightness of the black border area in each scan line. If this is proven to be true this will be the most advanced LTBC I've ever come across. I posted samples over at videohelp in one of my threads.

How does the TBS800 compare to the ES10 for this same error? Not the ES15, but the 10 (stronger).

Apologies for the lack of response!
I don't know if it is a copy of a copy, as I don't know how to tell if it is a dubbed tape. I'd say it is unlikely given the content (ads, forecast and news report at the end, which follows the movie that was recorded on it. To me it would've been cut out if it had been dubbed.) Dunno if the content has anything to do with it though.

Is it possible to upload a photo of the in-image tearing or a link where you can see it? So I can imagine what it looks like, maybe I know it under different name in my native language.

I don't have such DVD recorder to compare it unfortunately. but it doesn't seem to affect sharpness or brightness since there is no digital to analog conversion is involved.

Would an ES10 fix the issue then? Or do I need to seek for one of these crazy-expansive frame sync TBCs?
I'd like to know if there's a cheap way to fix it, or at the very least don't make it as visible

Maybe I should have looked at the pictures first:smack:.....Is that what we see in the two pictures called in-image tearing?

This could be corrected with the panasonic dvd-recorders.

It could fix it, Every tape is unique though, tape issues cannot be generalized therefore it's trial and error.

Here's a short clip.
Hauppauge USB2 Live vs Panasonic DMR-E55 as splitscreen mpg.

Notice the microphone stand.

Seeing your clips, I figure using the Line TBC in my VCR plus the DMR-ES10 (or 55 for that matter) could give a pretty good result, then?

Usually the Line-TBC in your VCR should be off.

Is there any lineTBC (in the VCR or adding some Panasonic external DVR) in the Hauppauge USB2 Live capture path?

That's pretty impressive. Add E-55 to the list?! :wink2:

if the E-55 is the same design as the E-50 i had, you better pass on it

Why is that, Master?

Why?

No Line TBC, but I have made a mistake, the sample was made with a Diamond 500.

Here is a Sample Diamond 500 vs Hauppauge USB2 (No TBC in the capture chain)
Attachment 13981

and here is a sample from the Hauppauge USB2 with Blaupunkt RTV 950 TBC (aka Panasonic FS200) vs Hitachi & Panasonic DMR E55
Attachment 13980

and here 2 Panasonics DMR's: Hitachi with Panasonic DMR HS2 vs Hitachi & Panasonic DMR ES10
Attachment 13982

and the last sample with one of the last Sony/Pioneers dvd Recorders Sony RDR-HX680 vs the Canopus NX (both fail with these tape)
Attachment 13983

Thanks Bogilein for your reply!

Does not matter the card, we are comparing here a capture on a bad tape needing jitter correction with and without a lineTBC. Now is clear, and the result obvious.

This makes more sense. Both capture chains have the needed jitter correction. I assume Hitachi has not lineTBC (otherwise you are cumulating two jitter corrections). I see a more effective jitter correction done by the Panasonic DMR E55 compared to the Blaupunkt RTV 950, and maybe in addition a less sensitivitiy of the Panasonic DMR E55 capture circuitery to the "unstable" signal compared to the capture circuitery of the Hauppauge. From the "quality" of the capture not considering the "timing" issues I see the same level of details, maybe a more natural color tone in the Hauppauge. Some more noise on the Panasonic DMR E55 also in the closeup of the guitar and the hand playing. Both captures suffer of some halos, but it may be embedded in the source.

Am I wrong, or the quality of the TBC correction is very similar between the two? In term of capture quality, is difficult to find a winner.

Sony TBC corrections seems sligtly better, but not as good as the previous machines. In term of capture, I definitevly prefer the Canopus NX.
Do you think that using a VCR with lineTBC or adding a Panasonic DVR jitter correction before the Canopus NX will improve its capture or do you think that it will generate some problem? (I remember that Canopus NX has some internal TBC feature, that may be will not tolerate additional components in the chain)

Thanks a lot for all this samples, seeing in parallel all this material and comparisons is very instructive! And let me know if you share my impressions, judging on a compressed small mp4 is not easy...

Amongst other bad things that i recall:
wrong video levels, tbc ok but not extraodinary, 704x480,576 recordings instead of the more common 720x480,576, old school OS menu

You better put your money on a Sony RDR HXD 870 -> 1070 (or anything in between)