Hello! First of all let me thank you all for this great forum, it's a great resource and I have been learning a lot about proper video capture.
The last two years I have been following the recommendations in this forum and so far I have a working Pentium IV-based Windows XP machine, with an AGP ATI All-in-Wonder 8500 DV with the "ATI Rage Theater" capture chipset. I have also bought a Sony CCD-TRV65E in order to capture my Video8 XR tapes with S-Video. My setup is composed of the following equipment and connections:
Playback VCR: Sony CCD-TRV65E PAL camcorder (Hi8 XR)
Original recording camera: Sony CCD-TR640E PAL camcorder (Video8 XR)
Capture card: ATI All in Wonder 8500 DV (AGP)
S-Video cable: InLine 89947P length:0.5 m
Connection: CCD-TRV65E -> S-video cable -> ATI AIW 8500DV
Unfortunately, the (small) problem that I have currently with my captures is that there is constant noise in the U-V color channels, appearing as a set of diagonal lines that change their orientation in each field. When the .avi video is played in real time this results in increased chroma noise. This diagonal lines pattern is visible in all the fields when the video is deinterlaced with a double frame rate algorithm, such as with Yadif. When the frames are inspected as a whole, the diagonal lines are more notorious every two frames. The effect is always more visible in flat color regions. I have attached a snippet from the same section of a tape captured with different camera settings, and an image capture of the second frame Q channel extracted with the TV filter in
VirtualDub 1.9.11, where the diagonal lines are clearly visible:
Video8XRplayback2012_CCD-TRV65E_ACadapter_EDIT-ON_TBC-ON_DNR-OFF.png
This noise appears in every tape recorded with the original Sony CCD-TR640E camcorder in the 1999-2013 time-frame, and I also have observed it in older Video8 PAL recordings with another camcorder from 1992, so my theory is that the noise is originated by the playback CCD-TRV65E camcorder, and is not burnt-in in the original tapes. I have previous captures with the Sony CCD-TR640E camcorder that was used to record them, via composite video, and it also exhibits the same behaviour. Perhaps these diagonal lines could be linked to the underlying technology of late 90s Sony Handycams, as both models employ a DSP video decoding chip and the only difference between these models is TBC capability. Another possibility is some slight SMD capacitor degradation, as both cameras are from the same approximate year. It is worth noting that this noise does not appear in the live CCD image captured with the same setup and camcorder, and the capturing setup doesn't show this chroma noise with other sources, such as a DVD player or a VHS player (via ES-10 passthrough).
I always capture with the internal TBC turned on, and with DNR OFF and EDIT ON, as I have found that those two last settings reduce the level of filtering that the camera performs. Despite these settings, there is always a minimum level of chroma averaging performed by these cameras as you can see in the scene change in the attached video sample. I have also captured the same section with EDIT:OFF and DNR:ON as stated in the file names, which reduces the interference pattern but does not suppress it entirely, and I would like to avoid this level of filtering previous to the capture stage. I have even made a capture with the camera powered from its original battery, to avoid any possible noise from the Sony original AC adapter, sadly without observing any improvement. The summary of the tests that I have uploaded is:
- EDIT: ON, TBC: ON, DNR: OFF, AC-powered (image inserted into this post)
- EDIT: ON, TBC: ON, DNR: OFF, battery-powered (in the zip file)
- EDIT: OFF, TBC: ON, DNR: ON, AC-powered (in the zip file)
I have also tried the following combinations, but the results fall between the videos that I have uploaded so I won't post them unless requested:
- EDIT: OFF, TBC: OFF, DNR: OFF, AC-powered
- EDIT: OFF, TBC: ON, DNR: OFF, AC-powered
- EDIT: ON, TBC: ON, DNR: ON, AC-powered
I have searched to no avail this forum and VideoHelp to find if anyone has had the same problem. Currently this issue is preventing me from starting to digitize the 50+ tapes that I have, so I will continue experimenting with different possible solutions to this issue, perhaps capturing with another PC and capture card.
All in all, my question would be if anyone has found the same problem, and if any solution has been found without involving digital-domain Avisynth filtering, as I would prefer to obtain the cleanest possible video in the capture stage.
