I would still try a different capture device before you conclude it is 100% the VCR's fault.

The thing is if it's the capture device's fault that noise will be present all the time not just when you play a tape, So I still think the VCR is the culprit but I hope I'm wrong because that would make things much better for the OP.

This is my advice as well.

I bought a brand new VC500 USB which will hopefully arrive this week.

I did some playing around today and a few things:

• Changed rooms, made no difference.
• Moved Matrox capture card far away from VCR -> Made video much better!
• Moved Matrox capture card close to VCR -> Made video much worse!
• When connected to the AVT-8710, If I wanted to use the VCR TBC and the external TBC, I would have to turn off the VCR TBC first and then turn it back otherwise the picture would be all screwed up (basically brightness shot to the moon - everything practically white).

-- merged --

So weird. After moving the Matrox as far away from the VCR as possible, I changed tapes and now there's noise again. Not as bad as I have seen, but still very noticeable.

This is driving me nuts. I'll probably not mess with it again until I get the new capture device.

Just realize this is a variable card, with most recent versions (for years now) having known AGC issue. So your video will get randomly brighter and darker when it should not.

This will suffice as a test item, but should not be used for actual capturing.

I played around a bit more today. Swapping cables, outlets, power bars, UPS, proximity of devices, setting, etc.

I got very good video (low noise) with just the 1980P (TBC set to on) going directly into the Matrox box directly and not using the green AVT-8710 TBC at all.

Is the green AVT-8710 TBC needed/required/better for a 1980P going into a Matrox MX02 mini? Would it make any sense that the AVT-8710 is not needed?

The AVT-8710 is ensuring a stable signal is going to the MX02 mini. Without it, the MX02 might drop frames, which would cause the audio to drift out of sync with the video.

If the tapes are in good condition then you may be able to get by without the AVT-8710. You'll just have to keep an eye on dropped frames (assuming the MX02 Mini reports on that information).

I know you said you can't try composite since the Matrox needs a BNC connector for it, but what happens if you run composite from the AG-1980P to the AVT-8710, and then S-Video from the AVT-8710 to the MX02 Mini? Might end up being exactly the same result, but worth a try just in case.

Might be a noisy/bad power supply for the AVT-8710? You can try to source a replacement 12V 500mA (or larger) AC adapter for it, but keep in mind that the vast majority of AC adapters out there have a positive center pin. The AVT-8710 needs a negative center pin. So you can look on amazon for a 12V center negative adapter, or you can buy a cheap polarity reversing cable to attach to a normal 12V center positive adapter.

No idea if that will help, but it is worth trying.

I'm still wondering if I have some kind of grounding loop / funk AC problem.

Quick question - if I plug everything into a power bar and then plug the power bar into a UPS, is that all good? If at the end of the day everything is going through the same UPS from the same AC outlet, is it all good? Or do power strips and things like that add problems.

Normally a power strip/bar wouldn't cause problems, but a defective one might. Plus, most UPSs have several outlets, so if you can just plug everything into the UPS directly and bypass the power strip then that's worth doing. If you find that it makes no difference and prefer to use the power strip then you can connect it back in.

I think the VC500 will be interesting to test because it gets its power via the PC's USB port, as opposed to the MX02 mini which has its own AC adapter. It will eliminate another variable anyway.

The noise bar is about the third of the picture, 1/3 x 1/50fields which means about 150Hz, So if it was 50Hz I would think it's power related, Try the new capture card hopefully it will be immune to the noise like the TV did.

Got the VC500 today. Brand new from Amazon. It worked! 1980P (S-Video TBC on) -> AVT-8710 (S-video) -> VC500. No noise. Good, clean picture. At least to my eyes.

I think I should get another S-Video breakout cable. Eliminate that variable.

BTW, I did a 3 min test clip and didn't notice any AGC on the VC500. What's the best way to test my VC500? I have a ACE video converter that allows you to manually adjust brightness/contrast/tint, etc. So I can fool around with that, but what am I looking for in order to know if my VC500 has AGC problems?

Is there anything in Device Manager or anything that can give me any info on whether or not I have a "good" VC500 or a "bad" one? I mean it looks good to my eyes, but I don't want it to have some AGC or whatever problem baked in that I may not be noticing.

This is a problem for novice users to understand. :2cents:

You don't directly see the effects of the external framesync TBC.

And if you do see a frame TBC, odds are it's not a good one. An ideal frame TBC is transparent, and transparency is a main test to gauge TBC quality.

Line TBC = fixes visual
Frame TBC (aka frame sync TBC) = fixes signal

You need both.

I recently explained that ingesting (ingest = technical term for digitizing video) requires whole pies. Every second, 25 (PAL) or 30 pies (NTSC, skipping 1 per 1000 to get 29.97) are sent, with goal to be ingested. But if a pie isn't perfect (came from oven burnt, not round, not fully done, somebody snuck a piece or bite, etc), then the pie is tossed on the floor. The ingest cannot accept non-perfect pies. Our pie eater is finicky. And when you toss even ONE pie on the floor, the ingest process is interrupted (and you have a mess to clean up).

All VHS were sloppily made. It's inherent to the format. Every tape have frames (pies) with pieces missing, malformed, etc.

To be frank (not the intention here to be insulting), the novice idea of "good" is nonsense, as that determination is based on nothing. That's one of the biggest barriers to understanding video. What you see isn't the signal, merely part of it. Some folks just cannot wrap their minds around this. I'm also a visual learner, but also realize that not all science is visual (easy example = radio telescope, which I had to comprehend for my college astrophysics course).

Even with visual line corrections, the signal can be fubar. That causes dropped frames (thus audio sync errors), but also many more problems. Some do bleed into visuals, some not.

These problems are not constant, but sporadic and random (sometimes not repeatable on 2nd attempt, but will instead appear elsewhere where previously not).

Unless you watch a video 100%, then watch it for 100% again to verify (as you do blink, and focus on some areas while ignoring others), then you cannot say it has no visual errors. Still realizing that the visual problems are not the only problems, though signal does bleed into visual for some errors.

Does this all make sense now? :unsure:

Excellent. :congrats:

No.

You can crack open the card, and view the chips, but we don't know enough about the exact chips, and currently have no idea on the firmwares therein. There have been too many variations for years now, and almost all have AGC issues reported in the past few years. The AGC is random, some tapes seem immune, some are not. Some TBCs are effective at (mostly) nuking it, some do not. It's random. The nature of AGC is random, when the AGC is badly done. ATI 650/750 are an extreme example of a horrible AGC.

Did you buy this used? There's always a chance you have an older model, like sanlyn has, which doesn't seem to exhibit this problem. But unlikely. I doubt new VC500 fixed in, and in fact doubt VC500 are even produced anymore (ie, all NOS, new old stock, until warehouses empty).

This is likely. Furthermore, most novice users don't see issues in tiny preview windows, but it becomes obvious on large HDTVs when actually viewing.