Hello all,
I'm wondering if it is well documented that AC mains EMI affects analog captures significantly enough for it to be easily noticeable and worth doing something about, or if it is usually super subtle and barely perceptible if at all?
I feel like if it was a common issue and could improve capture quality that it would be discussed more as part of an essential capture setup and deemed just as necessary as a good capture card for example.
I've heard of a few different recommendations as far as power conditioners and backup battery systems go - I've seen Lordsmurf recommend Cyberpower UPSs' - namely the 1500VA/1000W model if I recall correctly.
I'm not clear if those UPS's filters are anything special or if it is more the backup battery in case of a power outage that makes them recommended though as it could save you from having to do a recapture if you're in the middle of one and there's a power outage. My understanding is that the pure sine wave inverter only kicks on if there's a severe voltage drop - say below 100VAC. It does do active line monitoring to up or down regulate the AC mains if it gets far enough out of spec, but again, I don't think that does anything for AC mains EMI (electromagnetic interference)
Also wondering if there's any point in using something like the ISOlator series of isolation transformers from Tripp lite for example which do both filtering and separation of neutral from ground.
Greenwave also makes some relatively inexpensive line filters which are essentially just big AC capacitors wired in parallel to hot and neutral which do produce measurable reductions in mains EMI - though their target audience seems to be those that are psychologically affected by EMI rather than those that want to reduce analog audio/video interference related noise.
I'd be curious to know if anyone has personal experience with a big improvement observed in their captures when using various EMI noise filters (like Greenwave's), power conditioners, or isolation transformers.
Lastly - sort of related - I know ground loops can cause some audio noise/hum, but I am unsure if ground loops can also affect analog video and what the way around that would be if so.
Last edited by aramkolt; 11-07-2023 at 10:49 PM.
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