Panasonic DMR-ES15 Passthrough for JVC DR-M10?

ddw_119 · #1 11-02-2021, 07:53 PM

By circumstance (or luck, depending on your viewpoint), I now have both a Panasonic DMR-ES15 DVD recorder and a JVC DR-M10 DVD recorder. I was planning on simply using the JVC DR-M10 to record VHS straight to DVD and retiring the Panasonic for a possible future project. I see much about the ES15 being used as a passthrough device for direct video capturing, but would its TBC-ish benefits extend to another DVD recorder? If I used a workflow of:

VCR> DMR-ES15> DR-M10

Would the final DVD have the TBC of the ES15 and the chroma noise/grain reduction of the DR-M10? Or should I just burn straight to the JVC?

Sorry if this seems like a silly question, but since I ended up with both I thought I should ask before going through the whole setup process. On the surface, it seems like a good idea...but I still consider myself a novice at all of this.

msgohan · #2 11-03-2021, 10:45 AM

My thinking would be: don't do it generally, but the added ES15 may be beneficial for tapes where direct M10 still has horizontal wiggles (or worse, flagging).

I don't know whether adding the ES15 would negatively impact the M10 image cleaning filters, but I think the latter is regarded as having a better MPEG-2 encoder anyway. So in that case the chain should be better than recording direct to ES15 regardless.

ddw_119 · #3 11-04-2021, 10:59 AM

So I went ahead and burned three different DVDs. The first I burned directly to the JVC DR-M10. The second burned on the M10 using the ES-15 as a passthrough (NR off, Black Level Input set to "Darker") and the third burned on the M10 using the ES-15 as a passthrough (NR off, Black Level Input set to "Lighter").

To my eye, the direct to JVC disc looks the best. However, the M10 does overdo the color saturation in every one of my home video tapes, making my family members look like they all have really bad sunburns.

The ES15 passthrough eliminates the oversaturation but, with NR on the ES15 off, there seems to be more grain/noise that the JVC isn't filtering. Not 100% sure of this, though.

I do not have as trained of an eye for this as many on this forum, so I'm posting three frame captures of each video for those who want to analyze them for me and give me input. Thank you in advance!

hodgey · #4 11-04-2021, 11:34 AM

If you're using a VCR that does not have a TBC, the ES15 is much more capable of handling video instability and reducing jitter than the M10 at least so i think it's worth using. I can't say for certain with the NTSC variants, but at least for the PAL ones with the same hardware the line TBC-function in the JVC video IC in these is a bit limited and somewhat prone to dropping frames on bad parts compared to the excellent abilities of the Panasonic ones.

As far as I know the noise reduction in the JVC is part of the DVD encoding process so I think it will be active regardless of it gets a direct signal or not. This is unlike on the Panasonic where the NR is active even on pass-through if turned on, the JVCs don't do any NR when just passed through from what I've seen. If you were using composite input from a standard VHS deck there could be some differences in how Y/C separation would be handled between the units (not sure which does a better job at that) but since it's a SVHS deck with S-Video that won't matter.

Afaik, Input Lighter- Output Darker is what you want to set the Panasonic to (at least when capturing with a capture card, not sure how it is when capturing to a dvr since you can't adjust video levels on the JVC.)

ddw_119 · #5 11-04-2021, 01:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hodgey

Afaik, Input Lighter- Output Darker is what you want to set the Panasonic to (at least when capturing with a capture card, not sure how it is when capturing to a dvr since you can't adjust video levels on the JVC.)

I am recording to DVDs then making lossless rips of the videos using MakeMKV for viewing on a media player I have hooked to my TV. Currently I can't afford all the necessary components for capturing video directly to my laptop. I have a JVC Super VHS VCR (HR-S29U) using S-Video output but the unit lacks TBC/DNR functions. I am disabled and on a fixed income so purchasing one of the recommended higher-end models is near-impossible for me (I tried for almost two years before settling on the HR-S29U as a "well, it's better than a regular VCR" type of option). Some of those recommended JVC VCRs go for about half of my monthly income.

I purchased the Panasonic DMR-ES15 for a song at a local pawn shop and later came across the JVC at a vintage electronics store and picked it up based on recommendations on this site. Honestly, if it wasn't for the JVC DR-M10's oversaturation of colors I would have been 100% fine with the video quality. I guess I could always lower the color saturation and then re-encode the ripped video but I don't want another downgrade in quality.

hodgey · #6 11-04-2021, 09:16 PM

Yeah I just mean that I normally you would set the ES15 settings like that for the reasons noted in the linked thread, but it the fact that you are passing it to a dvd-recoder instead could in theory mean that it was not the optimal setting, you will have to test what looks best.

SVHS + ES15 + the M10 for encoding is already a very solid setup IMO, it's nothing to scuff about.

lordsmurf · #7 11-04-2021, 09:59 PM

So non-TBC JVC S-VHS VCR > ES15 as line TBC(ish) > no frame TBC > JVC DM-M10
Not bad.

Actual frame TBC can be important. Frames just get duped by the DVD recorders. But that's really the only way to improve the workflow. ES15 acts as line TBC, JVC recorder does chroma NR and some grain NR, best VHS transfer unit that exists (only drawback is NTSC IRE, not perfect, but no recorder is).