In need of an external Line Time Base Corrector
Hello everyone! I am in need of an external Time Base Corrector. Not a Full Frame TBC, but a line version, similar to the ones found in S-VHS VCRs. I do have an S-VHS VCR, the JVC HR-9911U, but I am not very satisfied with it. To many people these kinds of VCRs may be the best for digitizing, but for me, the video is too sharp, the audio quality for home videos is not comparable to the quality of my DVD/VCR combo, and it has some issues when connected to my AVT-8710 Time Base Corrector. I would rather use my hi-quality combo for my digitizing.
Anyways in addition to using my DVD/VCR combo I am in need of an external Line TBC. Does anyone know of one I can buy? I don't want too many choices, I have been through alot in trying to get a decent setup, I want to get my hands on a good one. Thank you in advance! :) |
Can you post screenshots of your current issue?
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I'm not concerned about my S-VHS vcr's issues, I am concerned about getting an external line TBC for my VCR/DVD combo. I'm not satisfied with my S-VHS vcr so I want to go with my combo unit.
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You shouldn't use a line TBC unless its necessary, and to be looking for one you must have a current issue. It's hard to make a recommendation without a screenshot of your problem.
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However, line TBCs are mostly found in high-end SVHS VCRs. There's really no such animal as an external line TBC. Those just do not exist for the most part. External TBCs are usually "frame-sync TBCs" (not just frame sync) or "infinite window" full-field TBCs. See also: - http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vide...ing-guide.html - http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vide...time-base.html |
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Because none of that sounds right. What's really strange is some people consider the JVC "too soft" due to its suppression of noise that gives false "detail". And while the audio can have issues on certain tapes, it's more complex that the unit simply being inferior. It almost sounds as if the JVC menu settings have not been tweaked properly. :hmm: |
I had problems with the JVC 9911 myself. Returned two of them in the same week, both brand-new. Each had common problems (notably a weird AGC effect that blew out highlights), then there were defects unique to each -- one of them kept blinking on and off after a few minutes of play. I've seen comments elsewhere that the 9911 was a kind of last-gasp prosumer effort, nothing like the quality of the 7600 or the 9800 series that I owned and used until they expired. After running through a few used JVC's from eBay that were pretty well burned out when they arrived, I simply gave up on JVC's. Others have had better luck with used 9800 machines, but I guess I was in the wrong place at the wrong time in that regard.
I have two DVD recorders I've used successfully as pass-thru line tbc's that had decent output and solved many tape playbaclk problems. These were Panasonic ES15 and Toshiba RD-XS34. No one asserts that pass-thru units are as powerful as those in good prosumer VCR's. The overall cleanup is noticeable if not quite as hefty as a prosumer unit, but it's hard to see a difference without directly comparing the results. They do a pretty good job and they don't tie you down to a single tape player, some of which might track a tape better than another one. So far, both pass-thru units have also undone Macrovision and its effects when used as pass-thru. I also have a rebuilt AG-1980 whose annual maintenance is a big headache and money drain, but when it works, it works. It's not at all unusual to discover that some tapes look better on one of my non-tbc units. But that's VHS for you. Panasonic made some decent and fairly sturdy non-tbc higher end VCR's in 1996-1998 with Dynamorphous heads. They show up occasionally on auction sites. I have three of them purchased (not all that cheap) from sellers who specialize in refurbishing the higher-end Pannies like the PV-466x series, PV-S4670/S4672 sVHS machines, and a PV-8664. Overall image quality other than tbc performance is similar to the later "AG" series. Sometimes they can track a tape so well I don't even use a line tbc but hook it up anyway just to make me feel better. One or two of the last high end Mitsubishi's have also been recommended. Anything made 1999 or later is junk, especially the Panasonic PV-"Vxxxx" series (with that extra "V" in the model number that is your major clue) is utter junk, with build quality so lightweight that their overall physical heft feels lighter than a small box of paper clips. I have to add that no DVD.VCR combo unit can compete with a good VCR in any way, including audio output. Audio from the 9911 was as below-par as any other factor in that unit, so I can see how a combo might seem to sound better. But no combo unit can compete with a good VCR. VHS audio isn't all that great to begin with. In my experience the non-tbc Pannies I mentioned have a rather mild noise reduction built-in, although the 8664 does seem to have a bit less (but you can tell it's there if you compare it to later VCR's that uniformly had overdone contrast pumping and gross over-sharpening). The dnr is not as aggressive as those in big JVC's or the AG-1980, but sometime that stronger dnr can have undesirable effects on certain tapes. So every VHS capture begins with a test of which of my VCR's does the best job with a particular tape. VHS being what it is, you never can tell if you're stuck with a single player. None of this means that I'm dead set against JVC, but I'd say the 9911 was not up to par with earlier units. I just haven't been able to find one of those better models in a condition that would compete with the other VCR's I use. |
not everything made after 99 is junk
many of the good jvc's where built 2000-2002ish ag-1980s where made until 01 the mitsu HS-HD2000u is a great deck made after 99 ive had good 9911's too - perhap you just had bad luck |
Nope. The 9911 was a mistake. I'm not the only one with complaints. The guys at B&H photo stopped carrying it. Too many returns.
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Yes, indeed, ye olde budgetary concerns are always around. I don't mean to imply that I or anyone else collected all this gear in a weekend. Far from it. For a line tbc, the Panny DMR-ES15 does a decent job. For a one-time component purchase, I wouldn't recommend another device (although I do like the Toshiba if the tape's not in bad shape). The ES15 has a good y/c comb filter, too, if you're forced to use composite cable and don't have s-video to avoid dot crawl. Be sure to use the ES15's Line 1 input for tbc activity, and turn off its noise reduction (it's really too aggressive for most tapes). If composite output is all your player has, you can still use Panny's s-video output for a better picture (test first). Get one from a seller or source that doesn't have a boatload of complaints. Sometimes they're sold cheaper with a defective optical drive, which you won't need anyway for tbc, but you can bet that such units likely have other problems as well.
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Thanks for the recommendation sanlyn. Now the DMR-ES15, Can it do what an S-VHS VCR TBC do? I have read that some of these pass-thru devices do different. I have no experience with these. What can the ES15 do? Have you seen my attached videos? In addition to the date/time being shaky without my line TBC some of the video can be a tad wavy. Can it fix those issues?
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The ES15 filters and other similar devices should only be used sparingly. It will align video at the expense of picture quality and is by no means perfect.
You need either a better JVC or a Panasonic 1980, the ES15 and others should only be 'once in a while' devices. I recommend Tom Grant for the 1980, which he's selling for roughly $330. I have tested JVCs for sale as well that don't have these issues for ~$200. I would recommend downloading VidCoder and making a short clip from there and then uploading, or taking a screenshot with VLC in PNG format. I'm not knocking your camera-holding skills, but with the slight shake its hard to see what's going on with absolute certainty. |
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Pass-thru line tbc's are used when a built-in line tbc is unavailable. They aren't "strictly for problem tapes".
Thank you for your effort to create your samples. Now... I'd suggest that before you move on to considerations about equipment and processing, you might want to step back a bit. If you recorded some tape to a DVD-R, we'd expect to see brief cuts encoded as standard MPEG2. But we get a re-encoded WMV9 codec (we wouldn't recommend WMV9. Not for anything). They're deinterlaced using a method that caused some pretty bad distortion. There's no reason to add pillarbox borders to a 4:3 video, as any 16:9 display device or media player in a 16:9 monitor will put them there anyway. 854x480 is an invalid frame width for YV12 colorspace video, which requires mod-4 dimensions in both directions, and which many editors would refuse to import. That frame size made Avisynth crash, so I had to use another app to decode your videos to lossless media. 854x480 is not a valid frame size for any standard delivery format, which includes DVD, BluRay, and AVCHD. So apparently your ultimate goal is PC-only playback. Even at that, if you played your videos on a 4:3 TV or display, it would be letterboxed. The combo player obviously needs a line tbc. Other than that, in the SVHS video I don't see a "sharper" picture, but I do see one that has the the same bright-end, artifical neon effect pointing to the problem for which the JVC 9911 was notorious, and was the reason I returned my two copies. Because field decimation was used to deinterlace, your videos play at one-half of their original resolution -- so, not much can be said about sharpness factors. I did notice that the Combo video had some dropped frames. Some fine textural detail seems missing from the JVC version, but that's the look that JVC owners like. But that comment is still indeterminate because of improper deinterlace and re-encoding. With noisy tape and poor playback, some of the subtle stuff would disappear anyway after denoising. Listening to audio via two sets of Grado headphones hooked up to high-end home equipment, as well as three sets of PC speakers (some old JBL's, some new PSB Alphas, and a newer pair of godawful Logitechs, and two different PCs), it appears that the audio thru your combo unit is louder than from the JVC. Louder volume alone almost always impresses untrained listeners as being somehow "better". In order to dispel that effect, I had to listen thru multiple setups. The JVC has a natural vocal tonal quality without nasality or boxiness, fairly decent bass, and just a little high frequency noise and a very gradual high-end rolloff. The combo unit has a sharp, clearly audible midrange hump that gives voices a noticeably honky discoloration, with lower midrange ringing that sounds almost like an echo; the combo has surpressed low-bass response, another hump somewhere in the upper bass, and a "hole" somewhere else in the bass response that I couldn't identify precisely. It also has squeaky treble, and audibly less of a sense of depth and soundstage width that the JVC does have. If you want to submit unprocessed MPEG samples straight from a VOB file from your DVD recorder, you can make unprocessed direct cuts using the free DGindex utility. A post that explains how easy it is: http://forum.videohelp.com/threads/3...=1#post2272359 . DGIndex generates an .m2v video file and an AC3 audio file from DVD recordings. |
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The JVCs also do a pretty good job in those areas, not always as good, but I have always preferred the picture quality of JVC over Panasonic, though its a personal preference. The VCRs I have for sale have very few hours of use on them. The JVC noise reduction on these particular units is rather strong, so I recommend using it in Edit mode with TBC enabled. Very good at tracking EP tapes as well. Either choice you make, you can resell the VCR with a small loss or gain here or on eBay without too long of a wait. It will resolve the issues you are having. Quote:
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sanlyn. I'm not sure if I'm answering this correctly, but the videos I posted are only samples. They are not final versions. I made a comparison video on my DVD recorder, put it on disk, ripped it, compressed it, and uploaded it here just to show you what I am saying about time base correction, what I am after, and the audio quality. Believe me, final video versions ripped off a DVD would be much better quality.
As for the audio quality, in my opinion, it is better and clearer in the combo version. I'm not a big fan of bass, bass looses audio clarity. |
If you are set on recording DVDs and getting an ES15 or ES20, you mind as well use the ES15 to record the DVD in the first place (its a DVD recorder).
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