Video mixer is PAL, not NTSC?
 

About 2 or 3 months ago, I bought a Panasonic WJ-AVE5 digital video mixer, as it has a TBC, and is a frame sync. It handles problem tapes as well as the Panasonic DMR's, but without blowing out the whites. The problem it has though, is it's far too dark, and oversaturated to the point dark colors look flat without any shade differences. And... the entire frame seems to want to move up and down on it's own, for 10 to 30 seconds at a time, even if just a DVD player is connected. I was about to take it in and get it recapped, as threads on Reddit and scanlines.xyz suggest most problems are tied to the caps.

But... I just downloaded the manual, and low and behold, it says,

Is that why the picture's so messed up? NTSC tape playing through a PAL mixer? I had such high hopes for this thing. I even came across a post on scanlines where a member added external potentiometers for the brightness, colors and contrast, and he said he was going to add Output Gain as well. That could have been useful. He's a member over at VideoHelp, and he said he only uses it for glitching though.

https://scanlines.xyz/t/panasonic-wj...o-color/722/26

I would not expect a NTSC VCR signal to play properly through a PAL mixer. There are different frame rates and color information encoding for starters. Some gear might auto-detect the input standard and behave accordingly but per the manual the WJ-AVE5 appears to be PAL only.

That's what I thought as well, but it's also outputting 29.970 to the Pinnacle capture card. I also thought PAL was European, on a different voltage than North America. I bought it off EBay, but it didn't say PAL or NTSC, and the photo of the sticker on the bottom of the unit said 120V, so I figured it was North America, and thus NTSC. Oh well... it still works as an audio mixer. :P

Most mixers are hardwired to a single format, and you rarely find non pure-PAL or pure-NTSC mixers. So no "weird" one-country formats, nor really much for SECAM.

Beyond that, mixer "TBCs" are very week, often doing nothing. I discussed some of the reasoning (90s semiconductor instruction set room limitations, limited low-bandwidth RAM) in a post yesterday, in another topic. Mixers are the "also has" devices. Many are not even frame TBC, but weak line implementations, and it bakes in frame errors.

NTSC mixers also have a bad habit of messing with IRE/luma, resulting in brighter/gained video. Like other DataVideo gear, the SE-500 had generations, and 90%+ of them look terrible. That last 10% isn't great either, but does have some niche tearing-type uses.

If mixers were merely "cheap TBCs", I'd be using them.

The Panasonic WJ-AVE5 is mostly still valued because digital artists ("glitch video") like them. This forum has a lot of glitch video artists. But glitching makes down-chain high-quality TBCs more yet. So the VCR/camera/generator > glitch mixers > high quality Cypress TBC > quality recording/playing. Some of these glitch artists do live work, like DJs, so there is no room for failure, they're getting paid for putting on a show.

I'd suggest selling it back to that community, and getting a good $100-range Mackie/Tapco for audio mixing.

I actually came across a video of someone using it for a small video production, for weddings and such. That's what they were originally designed for... glitching came later. The TBC is better than you think... and it's a frame sync, as a tape that's creased that would roll and cause frame drops, it passes it through just fine, rolling as it does on a CRT. The same with frame glitches in the broadcast itself. Woodstock had glitches where the signal dropped or something, so the entire frame slanted and rolled for a split second, and would cause inserts while trying to capture without the mixer or the DMR-ES16 in the mix. But with them... no drops, no inserts, and no sync issues with the audio, even after the glitch. It fixes regular waving, and top edged tearing. It's not a professional 'lordsmurf approved' external TBC, but it works well enough for us poor folks. Is that not the purpose of a TBC? Heck... the WJ-MX50 even has a color correction knob.

As for the audio mixer... I simply wanted something to bring the input down to 0dB before digitizing... it was +10 on it's own. And although I can get a mixer with a VU meter, the meters on the ones I was looking at suck. This one's far better.

Yes, I know all that. I referred to current uses.

No, it's pretty weak, very hit-or-miss performance. Same for Videonics, DataVideo mixers/keyers, etc. It passes errors, adds errors, it's not transparent. But I'm glad it worked for your tapes, your expectations, your needs.

I don't use "professional" TBCs either, nor suggest them. Why? Those were made for non-consumer sources. So not for VHS, not Hi8, etc.

TBCs really existed in 3 forms.
- pro gear for pro sources (rackmount "pizza box" units)
- consumer hobby gear for consumer sources (plastic/resin TBCs, like AVT-8710s)
- and then a middle ground, where (essentially) the plastic TBC innards were put into better metal/vented cases (BV, 1T, TBC-1000, etc), sometimes with rackmount options. That middle is where high-use low-end pros, or high-end hobbyists, existed. Yes, that included wedding videographers, but most of them did not rely on mixers as TBCs.

It should come as no surprise that these better-constructed "pro not pro, consumer not consumer" TBCs have lasted, whereas the plastic units have largely failed permanently, and the abused/overused (and not useful anyway) pro rackmount units were finally trashed/recycled in the past decade. I still remember when 9 out of 10 TBCs on eBay were the pro junk boxes for under $50. There used to be a ton of posts about those things, but that eventually ceased, good riddance. But that did help artificially lower prices for the better TBCs for about 5 years there, during/post GFC ('08-09 recession). Quite a few members here got sweet deal on TBC-1000s for $250 range pricing, some ~15 years ago. We'd often post about deals here and at VH. Don't expect that to ever happen again, no more than you'll find $1 per gallon gas pricing, or 25 cent per can Coca Cola, etc.

TBCs have multiple purposes.
And there are multiple forms of TBC, each with a distinct purpose.

You can certainly try these low-end weaker non-TBCs that "also have" unspecific TBCs inside. But it may not work for you, and for the reasons stated.

What I get tired of reading is proclamations that "XYZ is a TBC, everybody should buy it instead of actual TBCs!" because that's just ignorant. And no, you did not do that here. But others certainly have, especially on Youtube, where bad/clueless video advice is an epidemic. Then again, that dumb advice is what brings new members to this site, because those newbies are confused why the bad Youtube advice didn't work for them.

Yep, for simpler mixing tasks, that unit should be fine. :congrats:

I'd just rather have a new $100 Mackie/Tapco audio mixer with options, rather than a ~$100 range used video mixer that may have problems since it wasn't designed for pure audio. Noise and distortion is my concern. VHS audio is already fragile fidelity, it ruins with the smallest amount of harm.

Sorry.. sounded like you were saying it wasn't meant for anything else, especially video mixing.

Well, about the only thing it doesn't do is correct vertical jitter, dropout compensation, or have the ability to set proper black levels. Other than that, it does what it does. I mean, I've read many of your posts throughout the years, where you basically dismiss the DMR's as crap, but then say you were using one yourself at the time you were replying to the thread, then even tell someone else that although there's better options, that his ES15 'would suffice', and that there was nothing wrong with it. Forgive me, but you tend to sound like you contradict yourself at times, unless your views on things have simply changed over the years.

I was being sarcastic. :P

There's absolutely nothing wrong with the audio part of the mixer, other than the sliders needed cleaning. It's part of a device designed for video production... why would it suck? I actually took 4 months of audio engineering, before getting a hernia at 21, spending more than 2 weeks out of class after the operation, so they kicked me out. They still wanted the full $10K though. Good luck with that. :P The mixer is completely fine. A mixer with an EQ would be nicer, but not for $100. I'll use Davinci Resolve instead. And up here in the Great White North, you're looking closer to $200 for a unit with a half decent VU meter.

Correct, for anti-tearing. I'm actually the person who discovered the passthrough ability function of the ES10 back in '05. But for whatever reason, it go "telephone gamed" this it was a TBC replacement, which it never was. (That reminds me of BTTF III, where Doc tried to put whiskey in the gas tank. Not the same.)

Video is often very case-by-case, and fully depends on factors (source, quantity, specs, etc). If you think I'm being contradictory, then you just didn't understand those conversations. But that's to be expected when a person is new at analog video ingest.

It's no different than a doctor seeing 3 different patients with "the same" affliction, but prescribing 3 different medications. It's not because the doctor is bad/contradictory/"flip flopper"/etc, but because each patient had different nuanced needs. None of the patients could have self-prescribed medication (they be dumb to do so), and that's why the doctor helped them acquire what they needed for their exact situation.

So, for example, if a person has 5 tapes, SP mode, directly from a 90s era camcorder, he/she will likely be fine with ES10/15 as "sorta kinda TBC". Still maybe not without minor issues, but overall "fine". If you have 100+ random tapes, unknown specs, you're into self-punishment to attempt such a project with budget/junk gear. And there are middle options for other quantities/specs/formats of tapes.

Well, some people are not, so I still need to clarify. :wink2:

Hopefully that remains the case for you. I know used gear can turn quickly, if not rebuilt or refurb'd. I've seen devices self-destruct in front of me, due to never having any maintenance (or cleaning, yuck!)

Once ingested as digital, some errors cannot be corrected, it must be analog-domain pre-ingest work.

This I already know... as I said, I went to recording school. Or at least 4 months of it. We covered it in theory, then in practice from tape to digital. It's why I want to drop it to 0dB first, instead of simply having the video capture card cut it off at 0dB, destroying the dynamics. It actually sounds really good.

As for cleaning it though... it merely took a bunch of up and down on the sliders to fix any oxidation. I could buy DeoxIT, but it's not cheap, and you need to follow it up with a lubricant... even more expensive.

Yeah, I remember you posting a clip of Woodstock a while back, and it was good audio on it. :congrats:

That was Woodstock '99, right? I had a chance to go to that, but stayed home to work. Wrong decision. :depressed:

Proper cleaning generally means full dismantled, maybe parts submersion. It just takes time. That's often part of what I do to refurb gear. I have full cleaning kits made for car detailing, electronics cleaning, etc. I have OEM matching/near-matching paints for touch-ups, etc. My refurb process isn't just cleaning, but rather I clean everything since I have to strip it down as part of the repair/rebuild process. People (myself incuded) want proper function, clean, like-new -- not some nasty broken used junk.

Yep, Woodstock 99... the entire 65 hour PPV, including the overnights. They had 2 stages, starting 1 hour apart, so they'd start with 1 set, then cut to another set as it started, then on the overnights, they either repeated what they missed after cutting away, or replayed the entire set. There's so much going on besides the full sets already uploaded to YouTube. Even the live sets... they'd split screen, with the stage on the left side, then on the right they'd wander the grounds, showing things like the tent city, people playing in the mud, a nude body painting booth, or get girls to show their boobs for the cameras. LoL. There's even a clip where Fez and Hyde from That 70's Show went to the rave.

I would have loved to have gone, but I wouldn't have been able to afford it, especially coming from the West Coast. It's like in '83 when buddies went down the coast for the US Festival... I was jealous of that. :depressed:

Yes, but simply sliding up and down a hundred times also does the trick. Trust me... it worked. When I first got it, it would lose the left channel as I slid up the intake, but after sliding a bunch of times, it no longer does it. I actually got that tip from my mom's husband who used to own a repair shop.

That was my issue as well, upstate NY was forever away, the trip would have been at least a week.

I had friends that drove there, and friends that tried. The irony is the friends that arrived fine went in a late-80s beater, and the friends that had car trouble were in a mid-90s Lexus or something.

I've always wondered if my car would have been fine for that trip. Had I gone, they would have made me drive, and/or wanted to drive my car. But nope! Not happening! Why? After years or driving used, I had finally bought a brand new car not long before. It still looked new, smelled new, everything was clean. There was no way in hell I was going to let it be junked out from some roadtrip. They asked, begged, a few acted pissy, so I didn't want to deal with it.

But, in hindsight, it was only a car. I missed a unique experience. They often say you regret things you didn't do, not things you did. Yep, true.

One couple (they later married) was in the mud, and was photographed. I have that news photo somewhere.

Sorry... I missed a point...

With all due respect, I'm not an idiot, and I know what I read. Some posts you bash it like trash, while on other posts you say you're using one at that moment, then in yet another post, you tell someone it's not the best option, but it will suffice. Then in another post, you say it depends on the tape, and that the DMR's don't play nice with 2nd gen tapes, or tapes with heavy damage. Then in yet another post, you say to use whatever works for that particular situation, and that even the best TBCs can and do drop and insert on some trouble tapes.

So... if out of 30 tapes, only the first 3 are 2nd gen dubs from my friend's sources, then the next 27 are 1st gen, and neither the DMR or the mixer has issues with any of them, then I'm using whatever I have that works best for my situation.

You need to understand that although pretty much everyone in the community would love to buy proper gear, not everyone has $2K+ to fork out for a TBC. You PM'd me with 2 offers... $2750 USD for a "BV10", saying it's as good as a DataVideo ("excellent"), but then you just said the mixer was no better than the DataVideo just a few comments above in this thread. If that's the case, why would I spend $3870 CAD on the BV10? Even the 'cheaper' $1750 USD model you quoted... that's $2560 CAD. And both would still need shipping, and duty once it gets here. I simply cannot afford it... does that mean I should scrap my project altogether? No. I'll do the best I can with what I can afford. And so will anyone else in my situation. You simply need to understand this, and quit trying to upsell.

Cheers.[/quote]

Sometimes it means setting the project aside until proper tools can be purchased. I've done that with photo lighting rigs, chainsaws, whatever. When you don't have a proper tool, you often get inferior results, or no results. Sometimes even attempting tasks (non-video) with wrong/inferior tools is dangerous.

Sometimes "duct tape and chicken wire" methods work. Sometimes it backfires. I warn of the latter, and reiterate that the former is unlikely (though not impossible). The problem comes when people largely think they're always the exception rather than the rule/expectation. "I'll be fine." Some will, many won't.

I can often tell when people insist on pushing forward with lower end gear, so I try to guide them as best I can. But I will also continue to mention the downsides of that methods (mostly for the benefit of future readers). Some people get all pissy that I keep pointing out the flaws in the method, but it's just being a good tech and troubleshooter. You can't ignore problems because others don't want to hear it.

For the record, quality/transparent gear would not necessitate some of the hoops you're currently jumping through. Not potentiometer, not wildly off values, etc. Better gear "just work", while low-end gear requires excess work. A lot of people value there time, and just want to convert the video. Not have to customize, create, and fix tools just to be able to start doing the real task at hand.

Video capture costs either
- money
- time -- and sanity/frustration

Whatever you try to do, I'm here trying to help you do your best. Yes? :)

It could be outputting some sort of hybrid output like PAL60 or NTSC 4.43 when fed a NTSC source.

Good grief. Are you freaking serious? Are you that out of touch with reality? If something's that expensive, someone on disability as myself, is not going to be able to afford it. I told you this in PM. If I was a professional with a VHS digitizing company, then fine. But if it means going hungry with only 1 box of Kraft Dinner per day for 12 months... just to be able to get a $4K standalone TBC... for only 30 effing tapes... then you'd be a fool not to look at other options. I mean seriously... that's just lunacy.

As for helping me out... by all means, I'm extremely grateful. The Pinnacle USB-510 has been a life changer... I can actually capture using VirtualDub again... and capture RAW. I prefer raw YUV, then edit any glitches, then output to HuffYUV. I couldn't capture raw in AmaRecTV, but it's the only thing that worked with the Hauppage cards in Windows 10. You said earlier that this is what happens when a person is new at analog video ingest.... I'm not sure where you got the idea that I'm new to this, as I already stated in another post that this project has been on again/off again since ~2006. I'm definitely not new to this... I just haven't been doing the best I could, such as adjusting the levels in the histogram before capturing. I mean, I started with an ATI 2006, converting hockey games. I seriously wish I still had it though.

Side note on the Pinnacle though... when paired with the DMR-ES16, it's absolutely rock solid... absolutely no drops or inserts, even after a glitch in the tape. I told this to some guy on YouTube who made a comparison video with DMRs. but because he says in 'his' experience with the DMR's, there's 'always' a few inserts using VirtualDub. I told him I get absolutely none with this setup... no reply... he must think I'm bs'ing.

I also added a fan to my ES16... the lid would get pretty hot without it, which is probably 1 of the reasons it can insert frames on it's own. Since adding the fan, I haven't seen inserts, or as many inserts by the ES16 on it's own... the chip is overheating. I used a Noctua NF-A4x10 5V PWM fan, and took the 5V from the capacitor directly behind the optical out port. I mounted the fan inside using hot glue, though I wanted to drill and mount with screws, but that would require pulling the board from the case first to avoid any metal filings shorting anything out. It's definitely running better though.

In your exact situation, that would be lunacy, I agree. :screwy:

I get so many PMs that I don't always remember who's who, but that does sound familiar.

Advice to hold off on a project is good general advice. But I don't necessarily like general advice, because of situations like this. I try to customize my advice for the exact situation. The consequence of that is sometimes people think I'm contradicting myself, but I'm certainly not.

I still say the video mixer is bad here, but the ES16 is fine (better than nothing). If funds are tight, I would certainly suggest selling off the mixer for something better.

Again, I get so many messages that sometimes it all blurs together. I've also been finishing up some difficult projects lately, not getting good rest. I even forgot to take my medicine for 2 days there, which isn't good.

Excelent. :D

There usually is some inserts, even drops. Certain ES25 (not all of them) behave differently, behave better. Out of all the ES25 I've tested, only one was solid like this, and I kept it. I wonder if the ES16 has versions, or is even a "rebadge" (chicken and egg) for that certain ES25. I'm still not yet sure if that 25 is early or late gen, not enough data.

Interesting. I never noticed that on my ES15/25 units (the ES10 is different form factor). That reminds me of LiteOn DVD recorders, something I had to mod myself, similar reasons.

It seems like you're doing fine here. And I do think you're having an unusually good experience. Keep it up! :congrats:

As far as I know, the ES16 is the Canadian version of the ES15. The YouTube guy was from Canada, and was even using an ES16 himself. Maybe it's just my setup then? Connected through the motherboard's usb2 header, with one of those pci slot sockets. My VDub config is set to 'Automatically disable resync when integrated audio/video capture is detected', as suggested in the VDub readme page. If the card syncs both streams internally, VDub won't try and resync all over again. With it disabled, the Resample data on the right panel only moves +/- 0.00001 or so with the Pinnacle, but with the Hauppauge, it starts by showing jitter and disp of 8ms or so, then slowly drops down to 0... eventually, but then continuously climbs again 30 minutes into it, dropping and inserting frames like mad. With the Pinnacle and ES16, with the timings settings I have... it's seriously rock solid. Starts at 29.9704/29.9703, and audio starts at 47999, but then levels off to 48000 within 1/2 hour. No drops, no inserts, no disp or jitter. Absolutely rock solid.

edit: adding a screenshot of my current capture... 45 minutes into it. No drops, no inserts, no jitter or disp issues. And it's the exact same on every single tape. I did have an issue with the Hauppauge, where it would insert a frame after 30 minutes, then again around 58 minutes... even in AmaRecTV, but I chalked that up to Win10 system issues. I now need to restart my capture though... :P

edit 2: after a restart of the capture, the audio is at 48000 right from the start.

What I always advise people is "enjoy it" and "don't fight it". Assuming you are correct, then you're having an unusually great experience. Most people have some % of issues.

Well, put it this way... do your ES10/15's pass garbled video without drops or inserts, and still keep audio in sync? I'm adding a 16 second clip of the opening of my first tape, where my cable provider messed up and didn't actually authorize my box yet, so the first 3 hours was a children's show. My first tape was actually tape #2, so 1 1/2 tapes of Romper Room or something, and something called Spilled Milk. After calling them, they fixed it up within a few minutes... that's why I needed to borrow some of my friend's sources. But the clip itself rolls as it changes over for a few seconds... without the ES16, it inserts frames like crazy. With the ES16, it looks like it did on a CRT, with no drops or inserts, audio still in sync. Strangely, when capturing with AmaRecTV with the Hauppauge and no ES16, it still kept the audio in sync after the inserts. It's only in VirtualDub that I found the audio go out of sync after inserts.

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/9bqcw902l84iyacjgwhbi/test.avi?rlkey=ciqxkoqlf2h3m7evba76dsxfs&st=84kqn9 84&dl=0

I'm assuming the ES10/15's are the same though(?). The only possible difference in machines, is all the guides I've read about using it for passthrough, they say only the rear input works when fixing flagging and tearing, but I found the front input also works on the ES16. Unless I misread the guides(?). I'm using the rear ports anyway.