Go Back    Forum > Digital Video > Video Project Help > Restore, Filter, Improve Quality

Reply
 
LinkBack Thread Tools
  #1  
03-21-2017, 12:57 PM
jbd5010 jbd5010 is offline
Free Member
 
Join Date: Feb 2011
Location: Philadelphia, PA Area
Posts: 181
Thanked 15 Times in 11 Posts
So, in reading up on comb filters for laserdisc captures, I came across the Extron YCS-100; someone made the comment that it's the "best 5-line 2D comb filter" they've ever seen.

What intrigued me even more... it has a TBC as well. Since it has no input for genlock, I assume it's in the same class of device as the AVT-8710 and TBC-1000, etc:

http://www.extron.com/product/product.aspx?id=ycs100

I picked one up on eBay because it was $12 shipped... at that price, why the heck not?!

Has anyone else come across one of these? I don't necessarily have a test tape with lots of time base errors to test this out, and at the moment I'm more interested in the comb filter for LD captures... but there are tons more on eBay for not much more than what I paid if anyone else wants to give one a shot for TBC purposes.
Reply With Quote
Someday, 12:01 PM
admin's Avatar
Ads / Sponsors
 
Join Date: ∞
Posts: 42
Thanks: ∞
Thanked 42 Times in 42 Posts
  #2  
03-21-2017, 01:40 PM
lordsmurf's Avatar
lordsmurf lordsmurf is online now
Site Staff | Video
 
Join Date: Dec 2002
Posts: 13,503
Thanked 2,449 Times in 2,081 Posts
What's the chain look like?

It seems to be ONLY for:
- s-video to composite
- composite to s-video

But NOT s-video to s-video, not composite to composite.

Don't make the mistake of assuming all external TBCs perform equally. These Extron units were made for the broadcast industry, and broadcast hardware often doesn't work as expected with consumer formats. Some external are just lousy (example: Big Voodoo TBCs).

So these may be useless for general capturing use. Laserdisc owners may love it.

If you can get one to me, I'll test it extensively. Want to donate $25 so I can get one? Then you'll know what I know, so that may be worth it for your peace of mind.

- Did my advice help you? Then become a Premium Member and support this site.
- For sale in the marketplace: TBCs, workflows, capture cards, VCRs
Reply With Quote
  #3  
03-21-2017, 02:15 PM
jbd5010 jbd5010 is offline
Free Member
 
Join Date: Feb 2011
Location: Philadelphia, PA Area
Posts: 181
Thanked 15 Times in 11 Posts
I've definitely experienced the disappointment with broadcast-grade TBC's, picked one up on eBay several years ago (before my membership on this site)--fortunately I didn't pay much for that lesson! Since my interest here was primarily the comb filter, the TBC was just an interesting bonus that I thought would be worth investigating.

The lack of same-to-same I/O paths hadn't occured to me. I assume the "encoder" and "decoder" sides of the unit aren't cross-connected in any way; and even if they are, they're likely to bypass the TBC circuitry. I suppose there's no reason someone would want to use composite out from an SVHS deck just for the sake of adding this device to the signal path (unless it happens to be especially good at time base correction, to the point where the benefit outweighs the signal deterioration).

I also ordered a newer version, the VYC-100, which lacks the TBC but may have an improved comb filter. If the VYC happens to be better for comb filtering, I'll donate the YCS I already bought. If I like the YCS better, I'll keep it, but I'll make the donation for another one Give me a couple weeks for them to arrive, and for me to do some testing.

In the meantime, I'll reach out to Extron and pick their brain on this. I deal with them at work when I get into conference room A/V design, so I have a contact that can probably put me in touch with the guy who designed these things.

-- merged --

Just some follow up... found a brochure on the YCS unit. Here's an interesting statement:

Quote:
The YCS 100 features a high quality digital decoder with time base stabilization
to optimize performance with composite video sources, including worn or
multi-generation videotapes, consumer VCRs, and other devices with unstable
sync signals.
So it at least acknowledges "consumer" VCRs. Here's the full brochure:
http://media.extron.com/download/fil...ycs_100bro.pdf

-- merged --

A couple of related items...

#1 - Extron has a device that looks to incorporate what I assume is the same TBC circuitry as discussed above based on vintage of the device, and has more flexible I/O options:
http://www.extron.com/product/product.aspx?id=ycssw2

I'm tracking a guy selling two of them for $10 each + shipping on eBay. I've put a Best Offer in for both (yeah, I'm being cheap), awaiting his response. If I get them I'll forward one over to you, LS if you care to test it out!

#2 - During my comb filter search, I came back to something discussed here:http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vide...serdisc-2.html

The Analog devices AVT7842 chip has a TBC with both "line TBC" and "frame sync" capabilities. This is confirmed in the user manual, there are actually bits in the TBC register that can toggle "Line TBC" on and off, and another bit that can toggle "frame TBC" on and off. These can be manipulated using Analog's demo board for this chip. Here's a screenshot --



Again, my main interest in this is the comb filter, but the TBC may be promising nonetheless. I ordered the evaluation board for this chip today. The board only has HDMI out, but with an HDMI capture card that means skipping the DAC stage altogether; also the output options are pretty great:

Quote:
Video Output Formats
• Pseudo DDR (CCIR-656 type stream) 8/10/12-bit 4:2:2 YCrCb for 525i, 625i, 525P, and 625P
• SDR 16/20/24-bit 4:2:2 YCrCb for all standards
• SDR 24/30/36-bit 4:4:4 YCrCb/RGB for all CP and HDMI standards
• Double data rate (DDR) 8/10/12-bit 4:2:2 YCrCb for all standards up to 54MHz
• DDR 8/10/12-bit 4:4:4 YCrCb/RGB for all CP and HDMI standards up to 54MHz
Of course, all of this could turn out to be a big disappointment in TBC terms. That's fine with me, I'm just looking at comb filters, but on the other hand, it may reveal additional options for TBCs to use in VHS workflows. And the Extron stuff is so dirt cheap used, that would be a win-win. (The AVT eval boards? Not so much, $220 through distribution).


Attached Images
File Type: jpg AVT7842_TBC.jpg (95.8 KB, 237 downloads)
Reply With Quote
  #4  
03-23-2017, 02:48 PM
msgohan msgohan is offline
Free Member
 
Join Date: Feb 2011
Location: Vancouver, Canada
Posts: 1,323
Thanked 334 Times in 276 Posts
ADV, not AVT.

Regarding ADV7842 for TBC, a user of these forums has a Magewell capture card that apparently uses this chip. He posted PAL VHS samples about 5 months back on VideoHelp. My comments are a few posts below that (vaporeon800).

I posted some images regarding the ADV7840 in my AVR, 6 years back. I expect the 7842 has the same line TBC performance, while my AVR's frame TBC & comb filter abilities were compromised, presumably because they failed to include the required external memory.
Reply With Quote
  #5  
03-23-2017, 09:13 PM
jbd5010 jbd5010 is offline
Free Member
 
Join Date: Feb 2011
Location: Philadelphia, PA Area
Posts: 181
Thanked 15 Times in 11 Posts
Oops.. yeah, I guess I was subconsciously thinking of the AVT-8710 TBC, haha.

I hope, with full access to the registers of the chip on the eval board, I would be able to directly address any overblown luma issues like you had on your Denon receiver. The eval board has 256MB of RAM, so I'd hope that's enough! It's interesting that there IS a capture card that uses this chip... I actually would have opted for that instead of the Eval board had I known about it... but the order has already been placed. Hopefully the comb filter is awesome as everyone is saying, and after I'm done using it for LD captures I'll play around with the TBC as well. Who knows, maybe the eval board offers additional tweaks not available on the Magewell card.
Reply With Quote
  #6  
03-23-2017, 10:31 PM
lordsmurf's Avatar
lordsmurf lordsmurf is online now
Site Staff | Video
 
Join Date: Dec 2002
Posts: 13,503
Thanked 2,449 Times in 2,081 Posts
Quote:
Originally Posted by jbd5010 View Post
I'll forward one over to you, LS if you care to test it out!
Please do.

- Did my advice help you? Then become a Premium Member and support this site.
- For sale in the marketplace: TBCs, workflows, capture cards, VCRs
Reply With Quote
  #7  
03-23-2017, 10:56 PM
msgohan msgohan is offline
Free Member
 
Join Date: Feb 2011
Location: Vancouver, Canada
Posts: 1,323
Thanked 334 Times in 276 Posts
Quote:
Originally Posted by jbd5010 View Post
I hope, with full access to the registers of the chip on the eval board, I would be able to directly address any overblown luma issues like you had on your Denon receiver.
I keep meaning to update that thread with screenshots, but lowering the Contrast control is enough to fix any blooming with my tapes. The only annoyance is that the black level is still raised, so I still have to manually lower that with ColorYUV. But off_y is completely non-destructive so long as it doesn't cause clipping, since it just moves all of the values down/up by an integer.
Reply With Quote
  #8  
03-24-2017, 07:16 AM
jbd5010 jbd5010 is offline
Free Member
 
Join Date: Feb 2011
Location: Philadelphia, PA Area
Posts: 181
Thanked 15 Times in 11 Posts
Quote:
Originally Posted by msgohan View Post
I keep meaning to update that thread with screenshots, but lowering the Contrast control is enough to fix any blooming with my tapes. The only annoyance is that the black level is still raised, so I still have to manually lower that with ColorYUV. But off_y is completely non-destructive so long as it doesn't cause clipping, since it just moves all of the values down/up by an integer.
Do you have a proc amp? I assume the Sign Video PA-100 or something similar would do well in fixing blacks without the need for manual post-processing...

LS -- do you want to PM me a shipping address? The eBay seller accepted my offer of $15 for two of the Extron YCS SW2 units I'll test both and make sure there aren't any obvious issues and send you one.
Reply With Quote
  #9  
04-02-2017, 07:27 PM
jbd5010 jbd5010 is offline
Free Member
 
Join Date: Feb 2011
Location: Philadelphia, PA Area
Posts: 181
Thanked 15 Times in 11 Posts
Alright guys, I finally have a Digital Video Essentials DVD to do some testing with.

I compared the following:
  1. 1. Extron YCS 100 ("Adaptive 2D, 5-line digital comb filter")
  2. 2. Extron VYC 100N ("Digital three-line adaptive comb filter")
  3. 3. Snell & Wilcox NRS30 ("Unique Digital processing, using independent circuitry for PAL and NTSC signals, is optimised for accurate Y-C separation.")
  4. 4. JVC SR-V10U SVHS VCR (Comb filter not discussed in JVC literature?)

I used the Snell & Wilcox test patterns, both moving and stationary zone plates. The Extron devices and (ironically) Snell & Wilcox NRS30 were pretty disappointing. What was really exciting -- the JVC VCR!

YCS-100, moving zone plate:


VYC-100N, moving zone plate:


NRS30, moving zone plate:


SR-V10U, moving zone plate:


YCS-100, Stationary zone plate:


VYC-100N, stationary zone plate:


NRS30, stationary zone plate:


SR-V10U, stationary zone plate:


On motion, the JVC's comb filter exhibits rainbows on the moving zone plate, just a slight amount of noise on the horizontal resolution 400 block, and some dot crawl on the 1.5 chroma block. On the still zone plate, it still has the same issues except the zone plate has very, very little color artifacts.

I'm no expert when it comes to these test parterns, so if anyone wants to see other tests, just let me know. I'm having issues with my ADV7842 evaluation board (can't get it to play nice with my Blackmagic Intensity 4k), but I'd like to add that to the mix when I can.

Bottom line -- nothing terribly exciting comb filter-wise with the YCS-100.


Attached Images
File Type: png YCS-100 Motion.png (453.8 KB, 233 downloads)
File Type: png YCS-100 Still.png (491.2 KB, 215 downloads)
File Type: png VYC-100N Motion.png (463.3 KB, 221 downloads)
File Type: png VYC-100N Still.png (515.7 KB, 212 downloads)
File Type: png NRS30 Motion.png (492.3 KB, 216 downloads)
File Type: png NRS30 Still.png (525.9 KB, 205 downloads)
File Type: png SRV10U Motion.png (491.2 KB, 213 downloads)
File Type: png SRV10U Still.png (525.2 KB, 209 downloads)
Reply With Quote
  #10  
04-02-2017, 10:41 PM
NJRoadfan NJRoadfan is offline
Premium Member
 
Join Date: Sep 2010
Posts: 1,155
Thanked 357 Times in 293 Posts
The JVC's filter is pretty good from my own testing. The AG-1980 came in 2nd, mostly because its filter needs a few frames before kicking in. The worse of the bunch was whatever is in the JVC SR-VDA400U DVHS deck, that VCR obviously has a different circuit in it.
Reply With Quote
  #11  
04-03-2017, 04:23 AM
lordsmurf's Avatar
lordsmurf lordsmurf is online now
Site Staff | Video
 
Join Date: Dec 2002
Posts: 13,503
Thanked 2,449 Times in 2,081 Posts
If you're done with it, send it my way, so I can thoroughly test it.

In related "is it good?" TBC testing news...

The AVT-8120 is a huge disappointment. The 8120 is a composite-only device as well (BNC connectors), made for displaying 4 cameras at the same time. In other words, the old-fashioned security cams.

The 8120 has internal TBC on all inputs and outputs. But you can view a single source in and out, bypassing the split function, meaning it potentially would have been a great TBC. In fact, it's have acted like 4 TBCs in one unit! However, all 8120's that I've seen were made after 2010, and have the same problem chips as the post-2010 AVT-8710 -- ie, random freezing, frame jumping/shifting, etc.

The unit I tested also flickers badly, and I have a feeling that's a model-wide problem, not just a unit-specific issue, and existed on pre-2010 models as well. It's just poor internal composite connections acting badly.

Why a post-2000s security unit even bothered with composite is beyond me. Back in the 90s, everything was using S-VHS that I saw.

- Did my advice help you? Then become a Premium Member and support this site.
- For sale in the marketplace: TBCs, workflows, capture cards, VCRs
Reply With Quote
  #12  
04-03-2017, 08:39 AM
jbd5010 jbd5010 is offline
Free Member
 
Join Date: Feb 2011
Location: Philadelphia, PA Area
Posts: 181
Thanked 15 Times in 11 Posts
Quote:
Originally Posted by lordsmurf View Post
If you're done with it, send it my way, so I can thoroughly test it.
No problem! The eBay seller that sent me the wrong stuff went ahead and shipped me those 2-input switchers (supposedly with TBC) that should allow svideo > svideo workflow, unlike the YCS-100. Once I get those I'll put this unit and one of those in a box and send them over.

Quote:
Why a post-2000s security unit even bothered with composite is beyond me. Back in the 90s, everything was using S-VHS that I saw.
In my day job as an engineer, one thing I do relatively often is design video surveillance systems ("CCTV" in the old analog days) for airports, government sites, etc. I've done lots of designs where a facility was changing out their old analog system for an IP-based system. They never use S-Video in that particular application in my experience (although the head-end equipment occasionally has the inputs, I've never seen them in use). If that was the intended market for this switcher, it would explain why they skipped s-video for that particular product.
Reply With Quote
  #13  
04-03-2017, 06:07 PM
jbd5010 jbd5010 is offline
Free Member
 
Join Date: Feb 2011
Location: Philadelphia, PA Area
Posts: 181
Thanked 15 Times in 11 Posts
Okay, so my YCS SW2 units arrived today. Turns out these have the same circuit board as the YCS-100, except with added switching functionality between either composite or s-video inputs. Board photos:

YCS-100


YCS-SW2


The SW2 permits S-Video to S-Video pass-through, while the YCS-100 does not (only S-Video > Composite, or vice versa, since it's marketed as an "encoder"/"decoder").

I found a PDF datasheet for the Texas Instruments TVP5146 chip on the board, and I've attached it to this post.

I have some preliminary results from a commercial video tape that exhibits tearing... or, what looks like tearing. It may be a mac The tape has tracking issues, and the only way to get stable playback from my SR-V10U is to turn on Video Stabilization, and turn off Digital R3, Video Calibration and the TBC/DNR. Adding an AVT-8710 removes the tearing. Testing the YCS-SW2 removed tearing as well! Screenshots below, test setup is SR-V10U and an ATI AIW 7500 card.

SR-V10U direct to capture card:


SR-V10U into AVT-8710 (for reference):


SR-V10U into YCS-SW2:


A similar test using the YCS-100 with composite in and S-video out yielded similar results to the YCS-SW2, as expected.

One thing you can't tell from the screen caps -- the AVT-8710 seems just a hair more stable than the YCS-SW2.

Lordsmurf, I'll be forwarding one of the YCS-SW2 units shortly for your expert evaluation! Since it's the same board as the YCS-100, I figured I'd skip sending that unit.


Attached Images
File Type: jpg YCS-100.jpg (92.4 KB, 204 downloads)
File Type: jpg YCS-SW2.jpg (98.5 KB, 202 downloads)
File Type: png SRV10U Direct.png (445.8 KB, 204 downloads)
File Type: png SRV10U-AVT8710.png (495.7 KB, 204 downloads)
File Type: png SRV10U-YCSSW2.png (316.9 KB, 11 downloads)
Attached Files
File Type: pdf tvp5146.pdf (1.71 MB, 11 downloads)
Reply With Quote
  #14  
04-05-2017, 04:29 PM
msgohan msgohan is offline
Free Member
 
Join Date: Feb 2011
Location: Vancouver, Canada
Posts: 1,323
Thanked 334 Times in 276 Posts
It's funny to read that you like the results from the JVC SR-V10U comb filter on that test pattern, as it actually looks poor compared to Panasonic DVD recorders.

Comb Filter Testing on originaltrilogy.com (not sure if any of the links are still up)
Small PAL comparison by danno78 (since PAL is a completely different color system, comb filters don't work the same way, but figured I'd link it anyway)

That said, real material poses different challenges than the tests, and 3D filters can add artifacts that 2D filters don't cause. Even the LD version of the same pattern always gets worse results, since there is so much more noise to confuse the filter.

Quote:
Originally Posted by jbd5010 View Post
I have some preliminary results from a commercial video tape that exhibits tearing... or, what looks like tearing. It may be a mac
I think this is probably Macrovision-induced. One way to check, with the VCR connected directly to the capture card: if you repeatedly switch from REW to PLAY or FF to PLAY, the capture card should eventually display a broken split-frame where the vertical interval is visible in the middle of the image. Macrovision would show its telltale visual signature in that VBI.
Reply With Quote
  #15  
04-05-2017, 05:06 PM
jbd5010 jbd5010 is offline
Free Member
 
Join Date: Feb 2011
Location: Philadelphia, PA Area
Posts: 181
Thanked 15 Times in 11 Posts
Wow, I stopped typing mid-sentence there... need to stop multi-tasking I was going to say it may be a Macrovision error, haha. I've dealt so little with commercial tapes that I wasn't sure I was identifying it correctly.

On the comb filter front...

I was mostly surprised that the VCR outperformed devices specifically designed for the task of being a comb filter, and nothing else. Also, my Video Essentials laserdisc just arrived yesterday, and I didn't have a second DVD player handy to test the DMR-ES10 comb with DVE.

Now that I have the VE LD, I'm not seeing much of a difference between the DMR-ES10 and the SR-V10U VCR. The Panasonic exhibits just a bit of noise on the horizontal response 300 block, whereas the JVC doesn't... The 400 block is a bit better on the Panasonic though. Both exhibit dot crawl at the bottom, although I suppose the Panasonic is a bit less pronounced.

CLD-95 composite to DMR-ES10; DMR-ES10 S-video to ATI AIW 7500



CLD-95 composite to JVC-SRV10U; SR-V10U S-video to ATI AIW 7500



Attached Images
File Type: png CLD95-DMRES10.png (561.2 KB, 195 downloads)
File Type: png CLD95-SRV10U.png (555.0 KB, 196 downloads)
Reply With Quote
  #16  
04-06-2017, 03:05 PM
msgohan msgohan is offline
Free Member
 
Join Date: Feb 2011
Location: Vancouver, Canada
Posts: 1,323
Thanked 334 Times in 276 Posts
Hmm, yeah, the ES10 seems to be much better on the 1.0 patch, but worse on that "radial" on the bottom right. At least on this frame.
Reply With Quote
  #17  
04-07-2017, 10:46 AM
jbd5010 jbd5010 is offline
Free Member
 
Join Date: Feb 2011
Location: Philadelphia, PA Area
Posts: 181
Thanked 15 Times in 11 Posts
Just for fun...

I'm still waiting for Analog to help me troubleshoot the connection between by ADV7842 evaluation board and my Blackmagic Intensity 4k. However, here's a screencap of cell phone video of the ADV7842's output from the VE laserdisc playing on my CLD-95:



Obviously, there are a million things wrong with this screen cap (it's from a video of a TV screen, the video was MP4 compressed, the ADV7842 stretched it to 16:9 for some reason, etc etc) But nonetheless, the photo represents the results relatively well. The dot crawl on the 1.5 block at the bottom was barely discernable and the performance on other areas of the test were flawless. Just rainbows on the moving zone plate.

I'm struggling to figure out reading and writing to registers on the chip; once I do, though, I'd like to play with the TBC feature and tweaking the comb filter and noise reduction settings.


Attached Images
File Type: jpg ADV7842.jpg (57.3 KB, 180 downloads)
Reply With Quote
  #18  
04-19-2017, 02:04 PM
jbd5010 jbd5010 is offline
Free Member
 
Join Date: Feb 2011
Location: Philadelphia, PA Area
Posts: 181
Thanked 15 Times in 11 Posts
LS -- have you had a chance to play with the YCS-SW2 yet?
Reply With Quote
  #19  
04-19-2017, 02:25 PM
lordsmurf's Avatar
lordsmurf lordsmurf is online now
Site Staff | Video
 
Join Date: Dec 2002
Posts: 13,503
Thanked 2,449 Times in 2,081 Posts
No, I've been fighting my capture rig.

(I'm tempted to pulling out the motherboard, hit it with a sledge hammer, and buy something else. It was pulled from another system that was acting up, OS drive crashed. I'm starting to think the Gigabyte SATA2 drivers for it suck.)

I may test it at my main system. It's been busy lately, however.

- Did my advice help you? Then become a Premium Member and support this site.
- For sale in the marketplace: TBCs, workflows, capture cards, VCRs
Reply With Quote
  #20  
05-28-2018, 06:52 PM
lordsmurf's Avatar
lordsmurf lordsmurf is online now
Site Staff | Video
 
Join Date: Dec 2002
Posts: 13,503
Thanked 2,449 Times in 2,081 Posts
Update!

This unit completely fails at several of my TBC tests.
It's actually worse than a Sima or Grex device, which are both pretty terrible.

- Did my advice help you? Then become a Premium Member and support this site.
- For sale in the marketplace: TBCs, workflows, capture cards, VCRs
Reply With Quote
The following users thank lordsmurf for this useful post: trenog (07-19-2023)
Reply




Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
TBC recommended for laserdisc capture? comb filters? bilbofett Capture, Record, Transfer 55 04-17-2017 08:47 PM
MainConcept Deblocking Filter? jrodefeld Encode, Convert for discs 0 07-04-2016 04:02 AM
Filter for VHS frame bounce? premiumcapture Restore, Filter, Improve Quality 3 01-04-2015 02:59 PM
Raw VHS AVI filter and MP4 encoding workflow? sanCapture Project Planning, Workflows 2 10-12-2014 11:04 PM
VirtualDub and Avisynth filter help? pinheadlarry Restore, Filter, Improve Quality 46 09-17-2014 10:50 PM

Thread Tools



 
All times are GMT -5. The time now is 08:46 PM