Recommendations for JVC VCR playback settings?
 

Any playback setting recommendations for a JVC VCR for best quality for capture? (JVC HR-S9911U SVHS Hi-Fi VCR)

The tapes are mostly home videos taken in late 80s, early 90's on VHS camcorder. My setup also includes a TBC (DV TBC-1000), s-video cables, and capture card. I plan on capturing to 720x480 AVI, HuffyUV compression.

Here are some options for consideration I'm looking at. (Please comment or let me know if there are any other settings I've missed or other suggestion on my setup.). My comments and/or notes from the JVC instructions are also listed. ?'s are ones I'm unsure about.

DIGITAL TBC/NR = ON (Is this still needed if I also have the external TBC?)

VIDEO STABILIZER = OFF (can't be used w Digital TBC/NR)

VIDEO CALIBRATION = ON

? PICTURE CONTROL = AUTO (Other possible settings: EDIT, SOFT, SHARP - From the instructions: Auto: Normally select this. Picture is adjusted automatically. Edit: Minimizes picture degradation during editing (recording and playback). Sharp: Clearer, sharper-edged picture when viewing images with much flat, same-colored surfaces such as cartoons. Note: Select "EDIT" when you are editing tapes. After you finish editing the tapes, select "AUTO".) (I'm not sure what the EDIT Function does, but the instructions recommends this setting when editing tapes or if the VCR is used as playback VCR for editing?)

SUPERIMPOSE= OFF (Turn to off when using VCR as playback VCR)

? DIGITAL R3 = ON (From the instructions: When this function ON, edge correction to the luminance signal is performed to enhance details. Normally set to "ON". Notes: If you are use this VCR as the playback VCR for editing, be sure to set "DIGITAL R3" to "OFF" before starting (Again, the instructions recommends this be set to OFF when the VCR is used as playback. I'm not sure if this also applies to video capture?)

AUDIO MONITOR = HI-FI

There is no such good or bad set of settings, it all depends on the tape condition and the capture card handling it, It's trial and error. The usual settings or should I say the settings you will find yourself mostly using are: TBC/DNR ON, Picture mode EDIT, Digital 3R OFF, V Calibration OFF, Auto tracking ON. It is recommended for every new tape you insert try all the settings individually you never know what works best. And OSD should always be off when capturing.

It may not make a difference, but you may also want to turn off the RF modulator.

I've always wanted to desolder the RF channel modulator from my VCR's, just wasn't sure if it triggers a shuttdown when the VCR detects its absence.

There's a guide on this site, I wrote is many years ago: http://www.digitalFAQ.com/guides/vid...k-hardware.htm
Still accurate.
But I do need to update that page. Add info, not change.

That's really not true.

- CALIBRATION is almost always bad, causing image instability rather than fixing -- which is directly the opposite of what the feature claims to do.

- R3 is always bad. It is a primitive edge correction that just leads to nasty halos.

- TBC should almost always be on. There are very few rare instances where the TBC does more harm than good. But on such tapes, it's usually multiple issues. This is often when the Panasonic comes in, and can fix those tapes (and not because it's better, just different).

- PICTURE CONTROL = EDIT disables all NR on the deck, and the image output by the VCR is just as crummy as a regular VCR. Some people like this -- no idea why -- and I suggest it be left at AUTO/NORM in most situations. EDIT is really only suggested when doing restorations that can involved motion stabilization, zero temporal NR is desired on that workflow.

- AUDIO MONITOR is almost always HiFi, but this does depend on the tape. MONO usually degrades the audio, so again this is where the AG-1980P usually comes in (because, again, the deck is merely different, not better; but often it does output better audio in the specific situations).

I have a different video recorder, JVC HR-S9500MS, and my preferred set-up for capture is "B.E.S.T." on (because I have recorded all my tape with this setting), "TBC/N.R". on, "Edit" off and "D3R" on.
Attached some comparisons of different settings.

http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/atta...0&d=1597011671

http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/atta...1&d=1597011671

http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/atta...2&d=1597011671

http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/atta...3&d=1597011671

Thanks for the comparisons. Were there any post processing done to these or are they straight from the raw capture device? Do you normally perform post processing after you capture like noise reduction, sharpening, etc?

I use the same other than leaving 3R off on on the HR-S8500 (like 95% the same), the image output can get overly soft on that without EDIT mode on. (Same with it's standard VHS hi-fi little brother J658 that I got, but that lacks the edit setting.) On Super-VHS tapes it works better. Those ones and yours are PAL models though, not sure if the NTSC ones are as soft with those settings. BEST on PAL models = Video Calibration on NTSC, maybe that works better on PAL than NTSC as well but it seems it can be a bit variable.

The next years lineup (HR-Sx60x) models and on have more configurable picture settings where you can change between EDIT, Auto/Normal, SOFT and SHARP (the lower end standard VHS from then on also have it which is neat.). The latter two are not very useful as they tend to smear the image way too much. On the PAL side, on the ones I got here, it seems to vary a little between models whether auto/normal is too soft or not.

What EDIT modes normally does in VCRs is turn off much of the noise filtering, which for capturing may be good or bad depending on tape and VCR. I think the original purpose was to avoid the effects of filtering to stack up when dubbing tapes (e.g if the image is sharpened when copying it to a new tape, and then sharpened again when the dubbed tape is played back, it will have excessive sharpening).

There is no post processing on the pictures, to do not alter the comparison; they come from the raw HuffYUV captured video.

About restoration, my favourite filtering in Avisynth is TemporalDegrain2 + LSFmod. For color correction I use ColotYUV + Tweak + Levels, but i may switch to VirtualDub RGB plugins for better results.

When I have a digital source of the same program, like a dvb recording or a dvd, I use GamMatch for color correction.

You can see an example here http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vide...ore-after.html

My impression is that the image is "better" when D3R is on and Edit is off, but I may be wrong.
In general I have noticed that the setting Edit=on increases the level of noise; for example look at the head of the puppet: the first impression is that
there are more details, but actually that surface should be omogenous because it is plastic.

Yes sorry, I should have mentioned that I generally capture S-VHS tapes recorded with the same machine.

Don't know, but I may switch BEST (Video Calibration) off only when capturing pre-recorded tapes or tapes not recorded on my machine.
In fact there is another case when I double the capture with the setting BEST=off, and is when the recorded signals starts in the middle of a sequence (because I made a mistake of late recording). BEST get activated when the signal starts, and (rarely) you may loose some frames at the very beginning.


I agree 100%, and my reccomendation is first to read the forums to have an idea on how to proceede, but then to run some experiments on the tape to be captured; there are too many variables to give a general guideline...

I often run TemporalDegrain2, a strong temporal denoiser with motion compensation up to 3 backward and forward vectors, and I never noticed a problem on my video acquired with Edit=off

I rarely use stabilization, but even in this case I never had problems.

Just to follow-up, I did some test captures with my set-up using various VCR settings settings (VHS). One capture was with TBC/NR off and all done with Video Stabilizer off. The rest were combinations with Video Calibration, Picture Control, and Digital R3. The results are subjective, but I found they're generally in are in line with other findings. The settings that gave me the best results are:

DIGITAL TBC/NR = ON
VIDEO CALIBRATION = ON (Contrast is slightly better, sharper)
PICTURE CONTROL = EDIT (Color appears slightly better, but has slightly more noise)
DIGITAL R3 = OFF (Leaving it on caused halos in most cases, not as sharp, but may can improve in post processing)