JVC HR-S7965EK owners club!

[Bester]

I've been looking around for a recommended player for a while now and was lucky enough to find this JVC HR-S7965EK (PAL) in a hospice charity shop. Did a quick test and seems OK.

What are some idiosyncrasies of this device?

Does anyone have any pointers or advice on how to get the most out of it?

Hoping to give it a proper test run on Friday and test that Line TBC.

-- merged --

Success! It works!

Definitely better quality than my ION VCR2PC test capture. Very noticeable when I play them side by side. It said zero dropped frames but it was only a 30-second clip. I would upload but it is 200Mb.

[lordsmurf]

I would enjoy seeing identical clips from
- your old VCR and capture card
- your new VCR and capture card

I can show you how to make side-by-side in Avisynth, or I can do it.

Lossless attachments are not needed. Compress to H.264 clips in Hybrid. Given low CRF number, like 15. That 200mb clips will be a fraction of the size.

More people need to see the night-and-day that happens. (Some stubborn folks refuse to believe us, they need to "see it for themselves", though some of them just like to argue.)

BTW, I've been in the HR-S7965EK owner's club since 2004.

[Bester]

That is a nice idea. I will certainly give it a go!

The ION was also really quiet by comparison.

Side note, my very first test was 1-minute long, and 1.3Gb! My heart sank but I had forgot to enable compression and HuffYUV! I need to research more on optimising the capture settings.

It's a great machine, I've been extremely lucky with it. Most of the labels have rubbed off the remote though but I found the manual so I can cross reference them.

The advanced settings are great. TBC forces DNR but oh well...

[Bester]

So, I've spent a fair bit of time capturing and watching the same 30-second clip over and over again with slightly difference setups and here are the most interesting results:

#1 ION VCR 2 PC >> USB-Type-B (Composite) >> EZ VIDEO CONVERTER
This setup represents the average consumer experience and would be the most common/quickest method! I considered this to be good about a month ago haha!

#2 ION VCR 2 PC >> VIDEO 2 PC MKII (Scart/Composite/RGB?) >> EZ VIDEO CONVERTER
Using the Scart output (PAL only) on the back gives arguably better colours and sound but when I try S-Video the player outputs in black and white. I suspect this could be modded with soldering iron but I can't be bothered. Currently as good as the ION VCR 2 PC can get.

#7 JVC HR-S7965EK >> VIDEO 2 PC MKII (S-Video) >> EZ VIDEO CONVERTER
A jittering issue I had with the ION MKII reappears. Seems to be known with Windows 10 and is what led me here in the first place. No sound after conversion, don't know why.

#11 JVC HR-S7965EK >> Pinnacle 710-USB2 (S-Video) >> VirtualDub
Zero frames dropped or inserted. FPS 25. B.E.S.T. Off and Picture Control Edit On. Audio NICAM Stereo HIFI L><R, noticeably louder (better?) but with a slight tin. The best I have managed to capture so far. However, I could not really tell any difference with #14 B.E.S.T. On and Picture Control Auto.

Snippet from Read Me:
Runt Analog to Digital Capture Tests

Operating System:
Windows 10 Home Edition (64-bit)
Version 2009
OS Build 19045.5965

Hardware:
* ION VCR 2 PC 1.43.7.50
* ION Video 2 PC MKII 10.0.19041.5794
* JVC HR-S7965EK (L-2 S-Video, TBC/DNR On, b.E.S.t. On)
* Pinnacle 710-USB2 4.0.46.0

Software:
* ION's EZ Video Converter 3.0.18.271
Resolution: 720x576 (PAL_I), High Quality (MPG)
Video: Deinterlace Off, Cropping None, Noise Reduction Minimal, Brightness Correction Lighten, Colour Correction Median
Audio: Noise Reduction None, Auto Gain Off, Equaliser Movie
Tape Speed: SP
* LordSmurf's VirtualDub 1.9.11 + Filters & YuffYUV 2.1.1
Resolution: 720x576 (PAL_I)
Compression YuffYUV 2.1.1 Patch 0.2.2 (AVI)

Please Note: If not stated, all other settings are either default values or untouched.

For full details see the attached Read Me file. Lastly, #7, #11 & #14 converted to mp4 using VLC player.

[latreche34]

You wouldn't see any visual difference with BEST on vs off, because it works at the RF level to reduce drop outs and helps improve tracking.

[Bester]

Quote:

Originally Posted by latreche34

You wouldn't see any visual difference with BEST on vs off, because it works at the RF level to reduce drop outs and helps improve tracking.

From what I've read I should treat it like "Calibration" found on other models, let it do its thing initially then turn it Off.

What about TBC/NR On and Edit On, should that disable the NR part? I did not notice any difference between test captures personally.

It looks like NORM, AUTO and EDIT are basically all the same lol.

I did not try SOFT yet but I can imagine what that would do and what it could be used for.

[latreche34]

- Calibration/B.E.S.T should always be on, it works in the background to improve RF signal.
- EDIT uses less image processing, it was designed for dubbing/editing, but capturing is the same process.
- As far as I know TBC/DNR has nothing to do with EDIT/AUTO/NORM.

[Bester]

Quote:

Originally Posted by latreche34

- As far as I know TBC/DNR has nothing to do with EDIT/AUTO/NORM.

It was an experiment to see if the TBC forced DNR could be retroactively turned Off using Edit On but I think it made no difference.

You've got an excellent YouTube channel by the way. I was watching a few last night!

How'd you get the sound so good?

I've tested HIFI L><R , HIFI NORM and NORM on my JVC.

HIFI L><R: sounds the loudest/clearest but I get a little bit of tin in louder parts.

HIFI NORM: quieter with a slight reverb. Not good.

NORM: sounded softer but on the quiet side.

[Aya_Rei]

Think EDIT mode on JVCs does disable some amount of post processing, I can see a difference in 'detail' gained by using Edit compared to Norm.

Ah, the joys of HiFi (Hi Fidelity) & Linear Audio, can see you are testing that out.

HiFi L and R plays back the HiFi Audio from only either the left or right channel, by default it plays back the HiFi audio from both channels. I believe HiFi Norm plays the HiFi and Linear Audio combined, which as you said, is not good.

Norm is the mono linear audio track, has hiss and is lower quality compared to HiFi (especially if the tape is recorded in Extended Play Mode). Only manually switch a tape to use that track when the HiFi track is a complete bust.

Of course if a tape you play has only a linear audio track, it will play that track by default. The quality of the linear audio track is more VCR dependent than HiFi I believe, but could be wrong.