Is there any advantage to using a DVDR in line with TBC?
 

Is there any advantage to using a DVDR in line with TBC, or does it become overkill/counter-productive?

Right now my plan is:

JVC HM-DH40000U -> Datavideo TBC-1000 -> ATI Radeon 9800 Pro AIW AGP

I've been reading about the Panasonic DMR-ES15 as a passthrough device also providing some image quality benefits. Would it be worth adding to the above workflow? And would it go before or after the Datavideo?

JVC HM-DH40000U already provides a line TBC and frame sync, but doesn't remove copy protection: http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/news...html#post41893

The VCR's internal TBC can't be disabled, which means adding in the TBC-1000 provides no benefit unless you want to capture Macrovision tapes. And I would argue if you want to do that, it makes more sense to use a capture card that ignores Macrovision rather than a $$$$ TBC box.

Adding a Panasonic DVD recorder or any other device to attempt external line TBC is completely useless, because the line sync information has already been stripped from the signal and re-generated.

I'm only copying home videos, so I don't think I need to worry about copy protection.

I found this thread which clarified that the DVR features on the ES15 only work if you can disable TBC on the VHS player, so that seems counter-productive.

I wasn't aware that I couldn't use an external TBC with that model of VHS player. Is the TBC on the JVC HM-DH40000U worse than the Datavideo TBC-1000?

With another VCR that doesn't feature a full frame tbc, using a DVDR can be an alternative to using a TBC unit to maintain sync and deal with the remaining instability (as long as you're not dealing with macrovision/copy protection), there is not much purpose in adding it in addition to a TBC unit though.

As noted a ES15 or similar will not be able to correct horizontal jitter/work as line TBC if there has already been a tbc of any sort in front of it as that will have replaced the non-visible part of the image used to compensate for those issues. (There are cases where the ES10/15 etc can do a better job than the internal TBCs in most VCRs as it can handle much larger errors than those are usually capable of so it's useful to have for those cases. The TBC in this model is a bit different to the ones in most SVHS decks though as noted.)