NTSC vs. NTSC-J IRE black levels? (capturing Japanese VHS tapes)
 

I have some Japanese tapes I'd like to transfer, & I'm trying to decide between the HM-DH5U, & it's Japanese Equivalent. Would capturing on an American machine really crush the black levels due to the IRE difference? Isn't there an option I could toggle on the american machine to match the NTSC-J signal? Could I fix this by capturing on an ATI Wonder 600 USB stick, and setting the region to JAPAN in catalyst media center or something?

PS: When Capturing in HDMI on one of these D-VHS machines, do you have to worry about HDCP?

Bumping this. What's the Japanese Equivalent of the JVC HR-S9600U, JVC HR-S9800U, or the JVC HR-S9900U?

U is for US only.

I've wondered this myself. Curious if US NTSC vcr's clip the IRE at 7.5 or if they will output the 0 IRE. I've never found an answer to this.

Most people will say to just use a procamp and fiddle with the IRE in the chain or on the capture device itself when capturing. But if the blacks are clipped prior to even leaving the VCR then it is all kinda for nothing.

Would love to see an NTSC-J and NTSC deck comparison. See if it can be fixed via procamp.

I've got a bunch of Japanese tapes I'd like to capture as well. Don't want to have to order a Japanse deck...

Japanese equivalent is hard to nail down. For one they use the name Victor (or ビクタ) over there instead of JVC. Then almost every device has a different faceplate or different inputs/outputs.

For example, the Victor (ビクタ) HR-VX200 is clearly the HR-S9600 front, but it has more inputs/outputs on the back.

Then do a google search for 'ビクタ HR-S7800" or "ビクタ HR-S9800" to see just how wild the differences are. It is pretty much an entirely different machine.

See yeah, hard to tell.

edit: here are some videos showing the internals. very different from US versions.

video of a 7800 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-Wb8vJuTzQ

video of a 9800 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiNsrm4I_7A

If I could just adjust the IRE levels on my ATI 600 Wonder USB stick I wouldn't even need to do this, but it always snaps back to NTSC_M when I try setting it to NTSC_M_J in AmarecTV. I've got a feeling it's a problem on a hardware level. The capture card I'm using might just not support Japanese signals. Same problem when I tried doing it in OBS.

If your non-Japanese NTSC vcr is already crushing those blacks (by locking the IRE black level to 7.5), messing with those IRE levels on the capture device isn't going to add lost black detail back.

I say IF though. I have not heard a good explanation if the 7.5 IRE difference is built into the non-Japanese hardware effectively clipping the black information, or if it non-Japanese NTSC vcr's will passthrough the 0 IRE content untouched. If it is clipping it no IRE adjustment made with a procamp or your capture device will solve the problem of crushed blacks lost below that 7.5 level. It will only brighten the rest off the image from 7.5 up to 100.

If I had to bet money I would say that the video coming out of a US vcr is at 7.5 IRE regardless of the tape being played. This is based off of my own experience of transferring Japanese VHS tapes on a an American deck.

The VCR has to output video below 7.5 IRE to output a proper video signal in either standard, as the bottom of the sync tip is below 0 IRE and the same for either standard. One possibility though is that the TBC clips at the US black level after converting to digital as it re-creates the sync part of the video signal anyhow.

The capture card should presumably support it hardware-wise, so maybe it's a driver issue that's preventing it.