AIW worth the hassle? (vs. AJA Kona LHi)
 

Hello all you helpful friends,

I’ll try to put down my results and ponderings in a sorted manner below.

My situation is this: I’ve got my shiny Datavideo TBC-3000 (bought from LS) and also an ATI AIW card. As for now, my VCR:s are hooked up to the Datavideo and then to an AJA Kona LHi. I’ve tested a few 1-2 hour VHS-tapes with this setup and the AJA GUI doesn’t complain of any dropouts, and audio and video stays in sync all to the end of each tape. There are some disturbance att the bottom of the image regardles of what tape I’m capturing (see attached images) and regardless of which VCR I use (Panasonic NV-HS960 and JVC HR-S7700). I don’t know why it occurs or how to deal with it. I’ve used the same VCR-TBC chain hooked to a BMC Intensity Shuttle (Mac) and the error is visible also there, if perhaps to a somewhat smaller degree. I also wired the Pana directly into the AJA, bypassing the TBC-3000. Still same error. What might be the problem?

Attachment 13488

My second but perhaps main pondering is this: After having skimmed through all the pages about how to get the AIW card up and running on a Windows XP computer, I realize I won’t succeed with this. I’m not a computer guy, even the less a Windows guy, and I have a medical condition that limits the time I can work to about one hour at a time and then have a long rest. And if even the Windows skilled tech wizards are having problems to make it work, there’s not a chance I would.
So, considering my AJA setup seems to work quite well, how much quality would I gain if I actually got the AIW working? Would I get rid of the line at the bottom of the image? I’m aiming to make a business of this, and of course I wan’t to deliver the best possible result to future customers.

Lastly, I’ve noticed a significant difference in image sharpness between my two machines. The JVC looks more fuzzy. The JVC has TBC/Noise reduction on/off in the same button, so I can’t turn the noise reduction of. But even with the NR on, the Pana looks significantly sharper.
Would this be typical for the JVC HR-S7700, or is it a sign of a dirty or worn down head drum?

Panasonic with NR on:
Attachment 13489

JVC with NR on:
Attachment 13490

The bottom of the frame is normal for video tapes, It's not seen on old TV's that have over scan, but modern TV's and capture cards show the entire frame, There is nothing you can about it other than just mask it or blur it.

Many AIW are the best cards ever made for VHS capture.

What you see is head-switching noise. It exists on all tapes being played.

BTW, most modern HDTVs also have overscan. The CC data is common on the raw stream. When you seen overscan, it depends on the player, codecs, and TV on how it's handled. Some situation still don't show overscan, some now do.

Never crop. Mask.

It's normal that newer JVC decks tend to give a bit of a softer image than panasonics (and other brands). You can reduce the noise reduction/softness if you set the picture mode setting in the menu to "edit". I prefer to use the JVCs with that setting as I find the noise reduction to be a bit excessive on the other settings and can end up eating detail but people have different preferences (may also be some difference between models and NTSC/PAL).

Panasonic tended to set their decks up to produce a bit sharper output with less agressive noise reduction, but they can sometimes get too sharpening instead so it's a bit up to preference and tape. Annoyingly though, on their late models they didn't bother including as much adjustability of the image, while JVC put the picture mode setting which included EDIT on their newer decks they produced themselves (even the lower end ones).

JVC isn't really softer as much as Panasonic artificially sharpens. It's obvious with the haloing.

Yes.

I share the same impression.

Panasonic with NR on:
Attachment 13495

Just for curiosity, did you disable the "Digital 3R" option in the JVC (if it exist on your model)?

Yes, off, the R3 (3R) is lousy.

Thank you guys for your swift and useful replies. This forum, or should I say the people contributing to it, really is stellar.


As for now I haven't got any remote for the JVC HR-S7700 so I'm not 100% sure if this model accommodates this feature. But there is no Digital 3R NR button on the unit itself, only TBC and NR on/off in the same button.

Still curios for some info on in what way an AIW is superior to a pro segment card like the LHi.

And lastly, what paths are there to choose for masking the head switching noise? I've seen other threads suggesting just adding a black bar instead of cropping. But with today's video editing softwares at hand, there must be more sophisticated ways to tackle this?

Premiere is the video editing program that I'm most familiar with, and I like the ability to import uncompressed files from the AJA capture and then batch export to h.264 with the Media Encoder. So maybe just a preset to clone and fill with a few lines from above the noise bar?
What is your method to mask the switching noise?

it is not a button, but a menu option, accessible by remote.
In general on my JVC-9500 i turn it on because I do not see a bad halo effect; just wondering what was your set-up in the JVC-7700 because I do not see too much halo in your JVC image and wanted to understand if it is because D3R is off or because D3R is on without causing damages...

If you are familiar with AviSynth:

will replace the bottom noise with a black region

You want to look for a remote for it in any case (most jvc remotes from the time will work, so you don't strictly need an exact replacement) to turn off the on-screen display which you don't want on captures.