VHS analog capture with Blackmagic is black screen?
 

My setup
Acer TC-780 (w/ 16GB ram)
-500GB SSD / 7.4TB 4 HDD partition (via Stablebit)
USB3 Blackmagic Intensity shuttle
-Black Magic Media Express // DaVinci Resolve Studio
JVC HD-VP683U

The problem I am having is quite literally my Capture device (BMD Intensity shuttle) is black screening the VCR menu & I am having issues with a seemingly random selection of VHS tapes having blank frames end up spread-out within the capture. (no matter the source that can open the device, VLC player & OBS tested directly)

I am looking for TBC solutions, but have come up exceptionally empty handed with any useful information.

I'm looking for something that can produce a clean timing signal so my device doesn't drop the audio & bonus if I can get the VCR menu to show up in the capture (so I can actually fine tune my vcr settings without the need of a TV monitor on the same desk)

Name:
AVToolbox AVT8710 - is one I've come across, TBC wise.. there hasn't really been anything or reviews on how it works or how well it works with a Intensity Shuttle (or Pro)
Sima GoDVD CT- 1/2/100/200 have cropped up & proven interesting getting my attention on 'producing a constant stream'* [half finished thought]

I'm more at a loss of frustration than anything else. I want to avoid any upscalers as I can and honestly prefer to keep the footage @ the resolution it was stored at in the VHS tape. (mine being NTSC) @ SD (720x486)

There any solutions that have measurable results without changing the Capture PC/Device?
-- it works perfectly for newer analog devices. [I just need to get these blank screens to stop or a way to fix them]

Try a DVD recorder like the ES15 in the stream.

That will not work, at least not reliably. The ES15 (or ES10) is not a TBC, and does not contain a framesync TBC. It has some line TBC(ish) functionality, but that's it. The BM boxes choke due to lack of signal sync. Frame TBC corrects the signal, line TBC corrects the image. BM boxes require signal correction.

The VCR is a major weak point, not at all suggested. Worse yet, JVC and Panasonic made some of the worst consumer VHS VCRs. The is completely opposite of how they may some of the best S-VHS VCRs ever. And you really need to use an S-VHS VCR for conversion.

See: http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vide...ing-guide.html

Blackmagic cards are also problematic with SD soruces, VHS especially, and are known to dupe/drop frames without reporting. You want see it until frame-by-frame editing the footage. It can disrupt motion when casually viewing, viewers wil know something is wrong.

This is lack of TBC.

See: http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vide...time-base.html

And then I currently have some TBCs in the marketplace subforum. :wink2:

This is both a TBC and capture card issue. Some capture cards choke on VCR menus, or even test patterns. The cards were flawed in design, and expect only a perfect 29.970 input, and will severely drop or dupe on anything more or less (including the VHS footage, which is never perfect 29.970). The BM is apparently one such card.

Only buy/use green models, not the flawed black units.
See: http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vcr-...-8710-doa.html

Do not buy/use this. It's not a TBC.

Transferring VHS is usually not an overly difficult process, but only with the right hardware in place. A proper hardware workflow. Specific VCRs, TBCs, and capture cards. If you stray from this formula, you'll just give yourself grief. Low-end VHS VCR, no TBC, not suggested capture cards = personal video hell.

Regardless of device, you need a TBC. But some cards reacts worse, whether or not TBC is in the workflow. Blackmagic is an expensive cards that works poorly with VHS. Inversely, there are quite a few USB cards for $150 or less that capture without issues (in WinXP/7/8/10).

DePhoegon if you have a USB3 Hub use it to get more stable power to the Blackmagic Intensity shuttle

my Blackmagic Intensity shuttle USB3 start to work much better when i did buy this powered usb 3 hub https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-.../dp/B004DVEWH4

and don´t use long usb3 cable

All good advice, however...

None of that will affect black-frame on VHS, for which the direct cause is lack of TBC. :book:

yes at least the es10 or es15 :)

It seems that this BM has a too many problems compared to the mxo2.

As noted, a DVD recorder like a panasonic es10/es15 can help stabilize video signal and avoid the flashes, at for tapes without copy protection. (Though some can have side effects and/or brightness issues in some cases). In PAL land at least you even can capture from the component or HDMI (with HDMI splitter to avoid HDCP) output, not sure if all NTSC ones support 480i over component and/or hdmi, in that case use S-Video out instead. I've found the BM to work okay in this sort of setup (for PAL at least), though I had issues with noise on the S-Video in. Nowadays I use it to capture using the HDMI out from either a Sony RDR-HX750, or Panasonic DMR-EH57

The Intensity Shuttle does not handle composite, or S-video well at all. between noise with both inputs, to considerable dot crawl especially along white/red boundaries with it's 2D comb filter on the composite input, if you can HDMI into it, it fares much better.

Don’t buy a TBC unless you need to. An ES10 has frame sync capabilities and will work just fine for the vast majority of tapes. It only chokes on really nasty tapes. I have a large collection of tapes (+8000) in almost every format: VHS, Betamax, V2000, Betacam, 8mm…). Only a small percentage needed the help of my TBC-1000. The edge of these devices are with the most problematic tapes with lots of time base errors. As for MV… just put a scrubber in front of your ES10 and voilà.
You guys are spending high $xxx on something you really don’t need and think you will be recovering all your investment when reselling it. You won’t…

I’ve discussed this same topic with a good friend of mine who happens to work in the broadcast industry and he agreed on this 100%. Only those dealing constantly with really nasty tapes will benefit from a full frame TBC. You will need though a good S-VHS deck with line level TBC/NR circuitry. This is not optional.

And for the record… I own myself a TBC-1000. I only use it for stripping Macrovision when my scrubber has problems doing so, which is not very often. And for those tapes that are really in bad shape. For the rest, the ES10 is more than enough.

This is not correct. We've been over this before. The ES10/15 has both a strong AND weak line TBC(ish) ability, with the "ish" because it passes errors due to anti-copy. That gaping hole allows both the artificial anti-copy errors, and naturally occurring video errors, to pass through, thus causing capture problems. The signal is still dirty. The frame sync is only active on DVD recording, and is not passthrough (though I'll need to refer to the spec sheets to confirm, been a while since I saw it). At any rate, frame sync is NOT frame sync TBC, there is a big difference, with the former being fairly weak.

That's terrible advice. Most of those "scrubbers" wildly alter image quality, especially luma gain.

Broadcasters don't often deal with consumer sources like VHS.

Just FYI, "really nasty tapes" is a generic nothing of a statement. However, all VHS tapes contain timing errors, dropouts, grain, chroma noise, and often some degree of first-line timing (which causes tearing and/or bouncing/"jitter").

Yes.

The ES10 has drawbacks, as it is heavy-handed with image processing (even when NR is "off", as it never truly turns off), resulting in posterization (color compression, resulting in banding) and heavy-handed temporal NR (far worse than JVC, which some folks already gripe about, even though it's minimalist). But heavy-handed is the entire reason it was originally suggested: ES10/15 units can often correct tearing, whereas JVC line TBCs would have buffers overrun, and actually make the errors worse. It's a "least-worst" scenario. The ES10/15 downsides was far better than tearing/jitter/timing issues.

That workflow is
JVC (TBC off)
> ES10/15 for line timing correction
> full-frame TBC
> capture card or DVD recorders

So again, the ES10/15 is a DVD recorder with some interesting features, not a TBC.

Not a TBC.

NOT A TBC! :P

Yes, sometimes the ES10/15 alone suffices, rarely, and the tapes squeak by with decent conversion. But more often than not, the person is missing something. For example, not seeing the flaws on a tiny PC preview window or phone (and not watching the footage on a normal 55" HDTV).

Why have a TBC-1000, and not use it? That makes no sense. (And if the TBC-1000 looks worse, then it's just defective. If you got it for eBay/etc, I'm not surprised.)

What does a "choke" look like?

I've never had an issue with my DMR-ES15 or ES25. Even when fed VCR analog tuner noise or unrecorded VHS (both are non-video signals) they sample it into video, add Hsync & Vsync, and downstream capture devices never drop frames.

It depends on the device. The cheap ones do have in fact a negative effect on the PQ. Mine has no noticeable side effects on PQ.

One thing I have encountered 2-3 times with the ES10 (also happened when testing it with my EH57, pioneer/sonys and in-VCR TBC) was horizontal sync positions being misdetected. One of them I remember was footage from inside a fighter jet. The line-TBCs would misdetect the hsync and messing up many of the lines in the picture, the ES10 being the most extreme (as it has the widest tolerance) making like half of the lines looking correct, while the rest were shifted to the middle of the image. Had to forego a line-tbc on parts of that tape. This seems very rare though.

To add, the ES10/15 alone will not suffice. That's just wrong advice. It has no frame sync TBC, and is why ES10/15 output can drop frames. However, the DataVideo DVK units, or TBC-5000, will add the frame ability. (Inversely, those units tend to choke on line-untimed signals, and often will not suffice alone either, especially on non-master VHS sources.) When ES10/15+DVK is in use, that gives a 99% effective performance, though again with the aforementioned negatives of the ES10/15 processing. But if you want to have TBC, without buying one, it suffices as a "poor man's TBC".

This setup is generally best for straight archiving, not restoration. The ES10 processing makes restoration exceedingly difficult, though the damage doesn't quite rise to the level of DV conversion (50%+ loss), or lossy compression.

As I often have to mention, I don't own TBCs because I like to buy expensive hardware. In fact, these discoveries were precisely because I wanted to avoid buying TBCs. However, it just wasn't feasible. It is what it is. Suck it up, buy the TBC. Use it, resell it, it holds resale value. If your hobby is video, then just realize hobbies cost money. And a $500-$1k TBC is inexpensive compared to the equipment for most hobbies (cameras, cars, vinyl/movie collections, etc).

I'm all for economical solutions. But the standard JVC S-VHS VCR > external TBC > capture card is the economical solution!
Again, as covered here: What’s in a Professional Video Workflow to Convert Analog Videotapes?

I've had issues with some tapes... losing sync. Tapes with severe tracking problems. That's what I was referring to with "choke".

This is caused by dropped frames.
Dropped frames are caused by lack of frame sync TBC.
This is why ES10/15 alone does not work.

I have a feeling that many of your "fine" captures are actually not fine, and are dropping frames, but the skew isn't ye noticeable. Or you've not closely previewed the captures. As mentioned, if not watching, you miss things. I made the mistake early on of capturing video, even monitoring the frame drop counter, and later learning the capture was fubar. BTW, this is why we have a post-capture proofing step, careful timeline scrubbing. I caught 3 capture errors on a 50+ tape project last weekend (intermittent mistracking). Most people are not that diligent, and only notice errors much later. Recaptures are fine.

Is there an automated way to find dropped frames after capture? What else do you do before you begin restoration? Right now I only check audio and luma levels and make sure I didn't accidentally keep cropping turned on during capture.

This is caused by a screwed up tape, period. A really bad tape can cause a TBC-1000 to choke too. Does that mean that the TBC-1000 isn’t a full frame TBC? Of course not. Please re-read my posts. Where did I state that the ES10 was a full frame TBC? What I said is that it provides basic frame sync, which usually is more than enough with most tapes. My advice to newbies... check your tapes before spending any serious money on TBC's. And I'm not alone here, there are quite a few video pros who also think that full frame TBC's are kind of overkill for amateur use, having the option to buy a cheap DVD recorder...


And please, don't make assumptions on someone you don't even know, not knowing what his workflow looks like. It sounds kind of arrogant.

Do you mean Audio-Video Desynchronization in the PC capture as lordsmurf interpreted?

Or are you referring to Vsync/Hsync? Have you encountered any frame drops on the capture card side with the DMR-ES10 in-line?

As you say, any TBC will drop/insert frames internally when the input is bad enough. But the output SIGNAL coming from the buffered DAC should be stable regardless, even if the video within that stable signal is FUBAR. :hmm:

I mean lost of vertical sync.

Just did a test with my Intensity Shuttle, a vcr that normaly did not work (bad sync) on the composite input, does work now with my new composite to HDMI adapter on the HDMI input of the Intensity Shuttle, output will be 1280x720p60 no matter the input... and works also with PAL60 on the input of this device, the result needs to be corrected to 4:3 ratio.
dirty borders are cropped by this converter. (overscan?)

What good does a $300 device like a BM intensity do if it is not doing the work of digitizing? How do you know what a composite to HDMI (not even S-Video) device with a crappy ADC is doing to the video? This is the worst way of capturing analog video such as VHS.

Honestly, from what little I could gather.. They seem to be a different class of product.

I also use BMD (Intensity line) as it suits this multi-application support while maintaining the best color reproduction (from what I gets into it) which is more important for me, and has proven to be the best for post editing.

Mxo2 seems geared for a different workflow, & with nothing against it what so ever. I doubt there are any real flaws to be had that are fundamental.
-- Also, i'm not replacing my Main PC with an intel based mac (which will likely be phased out because apple wants to nix hackintosh systems)
-- So very hard pass.. I don't want a device that's reliant on a singular OS, that requires a Certain 'type' of hardware for it.

Actually that was my first really try.. that came up exceptionally empty.. The problem is I do not want nor care for the built in image manipulation & upscaling done by them. [Trying to find one that doesn't do this... well I couldn't find one honestly. That just converts the analog to digital.]

Thank you, though I've learn that lesson & devoted an entire USB3 to it. Though given that it works with newer systems perfectly analog & digital, it's power & behavior seem to be as it should. (I know the problem is with the input source)

I do not want ANY processing of the image done, or as very little as possible. I am not saying they do bad things.. but I do not want an uncontrolled image processor going on if I can help it.
--Yes I realize my choice of VCR sux (am sorting my options atm)

Honestly I only know this because I had a person project for a year or two. VideoReDo TV Suite is honestly exceptionally powerful at correcting & manipulating TV footage (TS & WTV), and a 'commercial scanner' that can be tweaked & fine tuned to detect commericals, blank/black frames, audio cuts, etc.
--- Honestly I have V5 & it's saved me more time & headache then ever. [going to get V6 for the improvements]
--- Their support team is actually pretty nice and helpful.

Honestly,
-Image reproduction. The problem here is the consumer grade bullshit I have in the form a VCR.
=PS3/2 works absolutely perfectly on component & HDMI, and yes... a 720p60/59.994 limit is more then enough for consumer level work. (although it is capable of 1080i60/59.994 [1080p30/29.997], which is good for consumer uses, including streaming content.

-near zero impact on the CPU for capturing the footage to the BMD & as minimal overhead to system resources as possible depending on what is being done with it.
=The extreme majority of the resource use comes from writing that RAW data to the hdd/ssd
=Perfectly suited to a single system setup that is pulling multiple duties.

The PCI-e Version (of which I had to give to my cousin, when I got my new system [lost PCI-e slots, hold system]), also accelerates general transcoding with some programs (like iTunes).
-Similarly if a program is properly coded for it, the BMD can provide some of the fastest transcoding support & help lower system resource usage as well.
=I've seen the same results as well, from an inability to play a video file properly (due to sheer size alone) to playing it perfectly.

It also can help out DaVinci Resolve as well (no real shocker there)

As I could see in some tests, intensity shuttle seems to suffers from poor colors and details using svideo or composite at least, compared to aiw's or mxo2, that seems to be near identical in that.

mxo2 works great on pc with pci-e card. And it has a dedicated option to capture consumer formats. The only limit is that it officially works on win7, no win10 support. But it's not a problem for now.
Probably bm is a good card, but not for vhs/betamax capture.

heh, well outside of some professional grade stuff. That is a reason I avoid composite & S-Video as much as possible where possible.
-- Though I've genuinely see it far more accurate then other solutions (though I've never seen a mxo2 personally), and even more so considering it's budget price when compared to solutions that would reliably compete against it.
(seriously a pci-e one new for me was 200$USD, in like 2014/2015{and is still supported in w10, even when they moved on to the newer models before w10 released}, and honestly single handily got me into video work (learning & personal projects mostly), and that same PCI-e card would still be in use if this damn'd system had a spare PCI-e x1 slot free not covered by the GPU)
== I know even they have better hardware.. but I've not needed or wanted 1080p60+ capture yet, nor is any of my projected projects ever going to go into that realm.
== Ya I know I recently put 300$ on the USB3 version, but I did that with the full intent of maintaining system compatibility & not being out a capture method until my hold system gets replaced.

--- Ya, though I wouldn't worry about it too much. (I know there are far more powerful solutions that will get the job done exceptionally well, but ya know.. sometimes you don't need the top end to achieve what you want to get done in a reasonable time/cost)

well talk about a hard product to lookup >.> I seriously only found talk about it for macs. Though with all honesty.. the w7 only support is a non-starter for me.

as far as 'consumer formats' not entirely sure that means much of anything now really. >.> I am sure it has a detailed meaning.
-- Though honestly, I will only capture in RAW formats. I'd rather have the data to 'fix' minor errors with minimal impact.
== {ramble cut} There is a good reason I stuck with a finicky as hell BMD intensity Pro (PCI-e @first, & now a USB3 Shuttle), over other solutions...even when my only purpose was ps2/ps3 gameplay capture.
-even when those solutions where near plug & play at the time.


Though for now.. >.> I've found a temporary solution to the minor aspects of my problem.. even if it is more intensive.

There's no image processing done with the MV scrubber. That's not what it was designed for. It's purpose is to restore the vertical blank interval (which is where the Macrovision signal lives) so the AGC on the VCR doesn't go crazy. There's no image information in there.

It processes the image. The very description of what it does describes some of the processing.

Again, a MV scrubber doesn't care about the image information part of the signal. It only cares about the first 20 lines. That’s where all these fake pulses are. There’s no A->D->A conversion done as seen with a TBC. Have you ever looked inside one of these boxes? Not much complexity there. You shouldn’t have any noticeable side effects in PQ with a good quality device. A time base corrector is not designed for removing Macrovision… A good scrubber is actually more transparent than your preferred TBC-1000 and it's way way cheaper. For $50 you can have all your copy protected tapes transferred to digital... well, most of them (95%).

I'm not too sure how it's possible to split and replace lines from an analog frame without first digitizing it then reconstructing the frame and convert back to analog, I would be interested to play with one these if it's 100% analog, again I don't see how that is possible.

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produ...O_to_HDMI.html

Does anyone know much about this product, or if it would work& produce a stable signal for use with a BMD?

Maybe something like this:

Comprehensive is an old Audio brand name that was known for its Studio Amps and power conditioners. They changed things up about 40 or 50 years ago and started offering video products, climbing the ladder into professional and semi-studio to broadcast gear. They were mostly analog but got into Digital at the turn of the Century like everyone else.. they had a broad.. very broad product line.. they were kind of like those hair dryer companies that also made clock radios.. they did everything. Its not a ding.. but focus was not not in their vocabulary.

I "think".. because I wasn't there.. but they seemed to semi-specialize in Church projection equipment and scalers for a time. I use some surplus Kramer Scalers to combine signal inputs from many sources and display them on hdmi monitors.

They are better known today as Kramer.

Kramer has a drastically reduced product line today.. there are more different Kramer products still sold on eBay than the sum total of their current catalog. They did a bit of everything from the exotic to the weird, to the "what were they thinking?" Ronco.. with Ginsu knives comes to mind.. they were kind of like that.

I don't know if Kramer was always an Israeli company but I think it is today. They shipped product all over the world and their products, even on eBay still can be found all over the planet in every nook and corner imaginable.

Basically what you pointed at.. is a Scaler.. it digitizes the analog video and then doubles and triples analog signal swatches as digitized pixels and trys to anti-alias without guidance the low resolution signal into a high resolution HDMI signal, going from 480i to 720p I would guess.. any higher it would have to deliberately "blurr" the edges of the pixels or it would look chunky.

The alternative to that is a Scaler with "controls" like a proc-amp has, or sync and polarizer control over the way the Scaler chooses to start the frame or field.. shifting it back and forth.. inverting it up down, all around. The human eye can often make better decisions based on appearance than a dumb circuit. So a passive Scaler with no controls is the bottom of the quality totem pole. Semi-smart Scalers can use a microprocessor and algorithm to make judgement calls.. but those can cost hundreds of dollars.. but if the intended customer doesn't have the skills and it produces a better picture for them.. they can decide its worth it. The best Scalers have both, an auto-pilot mode, or co-pilot "assist" mode via Profiles, and manual controls for tweaking the image and saving those across reboots or power ups. The Austin Powers uber vehicle version of a Scaler even has "remote control" or serial ports on the back to hook it up via a cable to a PC or WiFi network.. those are the kind that go into Churches.

Up-rezzing.. then down rezzing to capture detail is bound to cause artifact'ing and kind of a waste of time.. but some people like to do it.. its kind of like pick your poison... to each their own.

I think most people would say there are cheaper ways to Doublin.. and with better results for less money.

A little more info about Kramer from wikipedia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kramer_Electronics

Sounds like Comprehensive was possibly an older company that got bought out or assumed by Kramer, a little like Sierra Video.. but maybe not as recognized, since they were primarily audio.

That the name is being used today on a video product is innovative, if historically updating the logo.

I haven't seen the Tools logo on any Kramer boxes for a while now.. so maybe Comprehensive is taking its place?

In any event.. I'd still consider it a simplified version of a Scaler.. possibly with only one setting.

As a format converter, s-video to hdmi.. it can do that, it looks like a steel box.. and it has a switch. A notch above the $11 usd plastic dongle that people might other wise use.

Could work... I recently did a test with a converter, (Marmitek AH31) and a crappy VHS VCR which didn't worked before in combination with my Intensity, did work much better, but not perfect, the AH31 is about 60$ and not much larger than a matchbox,
Also i can't find any specs about your VCR, which outputs does it have ? are you shure you have all the output settings for the video signal correctly set ? sometimes you can set different modes, and with these you get other options in other menu items of the vcr.

btw. converters and scalers come in different qualities too, it's the money you want to spend to it, or get a vcr with HDMI output or component output, there are only a very few of them, but they do exist.

The singular problem with that one you listed is that it 'scales' it to 720p, which is exactly what I want to avoid. I am looking forward to testing it myself.

full RCA (video w/ L&R audio)

Past that, it seems to work with it just fine, outside the tapes that are in poor shape. [which cause my issue]

it keeps selecting the correct mode for the tapes & puts out a constant 59.997i from the VHS side.

I am tempted to try this first (and yes.. it painfully … and almost frustrating at how long it took to find this)

Composite (RCA) to HDMI Converter - RadioShack
-- a real shame it was so painful to find, and I don't have one anywhere near me. X.x shipping it is.

If you want to got he HDMI route, a DVD-recorder + HDMI splitter may be a safer route than trying random upscalers.

.. Did you even look at the product? it's not an upscaler. I avoid them because it's just another step to content with when I do editing of it.

Sorry meant to write converter. Works in the same way just without the scaling part.