A Kickstarter campaign for modern VCRs?

[ddw_119]

Hello, everyone.

I recently settled with a VHS/8mm to DVD project. Notice that I used the word "settle" because I'm about 65-75% blind and living on a fixed disability income, so purchasing higher-end equipment is near impossible for me. My personal holy grail is the JVC HR-S7900U and it typically costs about half of my monthly income. Over the summer, I did manage to purchase a non-TBC/DNR JVC-S29U, Panasonic DMR-ES10 and a JVC DR-M10 DVD Recorder and successfully transferred my home videos to DVD and DVD rips.

Despite my handicap, I've always had a decent eye for video. Don't ask me why; just a hidden talent, I guess. I don't consider myself an expert but I seem to notice the smallest flaws in video that my family/friends (who have way better eyesight than I do) tend to miss completely. While I was satisfied with my DVD transfers, I started to think about how great it would be if I could just do lossless captures for video restoration. A personal restoration project is something I always wanted to try. But after researching the total cost of all the equipment necessary, I pretty much gave up.

But last night I had a dream...a dream that involved members of this forum banding together and starting a Kickstarter campaign to assemble and manufacture a new line of VCRs specifically for digital transfer. These VCRs would have built-in features such as:

Line TBC
DNR
Chroma Noise Reduction
Jitter Correction
Correction for VHS Tearing
Composite In/Out
S-Video In/Out
HDMI In/Out
Probably many other features I don't remember

Instead of a DVD recorder, the VCR unit in my dream had a HDD built into it. Not sure of the size but I'm guessing a minimum of 1TB. There was a USB port on the front or side of the VCR that allowed the user to easily transfer the captured video files from the HDD in the deck to a PC/laptop. There was also a second, cheaper model with no built-in HDD but allowed an external HDD to be connected through USB for the storage of captured files.

Of course, all kinds of digital capturing options were available in the menu (with lossless being the default option, of course), and features of the VCR like the DNR, Jitter correction, etc. could be turned on/off. Further picture options, like those on JVC Super VHS models, were also on the unit.

Not that I think this could happen, but sometimes you have to share an idea, whether it's a good one or not. Lol. I have no clue if something like this would ever be possible. But when I woke up this morning I felt like I had to share this.

[lordsmurf]

Unfortunately, several of those aspects are incompatible with one another, or requiring quality compromises to achieve. Namely composite, HDMI.

1tb is way too small. If you go to all the trouble of building such a masterpiece, I'd insist on 16tb drives, exFAT formatted, that directly writes to a format easily read on Win/Mac/Linux system. Furthermore, it'd have to be caddy trayed, to extract easily. This alone would probably add $500+ to the unit.

It'd also need to avoid missteps of past gear, namely marrying features, like TBC+DNR. Also providing gradation, not just on/off.

We can all dream, yes?

FYI: Many years ago, I used to dream of a camera with then insane sci-fi features. It now exists. So never say never? (But you can say "not likely". Sadly, market for this is nada, so not likely.)

[ddw_119]

Quote:

Originally Posted by lordsmurf

Unfortunately, several of those aspects are incompatible with one another, or requiring quality compromises to achieve. Namely composite, HDMI.

1tb is way too small. If you go to all the trouble of building such a masterpiece, I'd insist on 16tb drives, exFAT formatted, that directly writes to a format easily read on Win/Mac/Linux system. Furthermore, it'd have to be caddy trayed, to extract easily. This alone would probably add $500+ to the unit.

It'd also need to avoid missteps of past gear, namely marrying features, like TBC+DNR. Also providing gradation, not just on/off.

We can all dream, yes?

FYI: Many years ago, I used to dream of a camera with then insane sci-fi features. It now exists. So never say never? (But you can say "not likely". Sadly, market for this is nada, so not likely.)

I understand completely. That's why if this ever would to happen, you're in charge.

I assumed that the cost of a deck of this kind would be a bit steep. But I think something like this would be a little more attainable than the maximum capturing setup yet still a better option than lower-end, where I'm perennially stuck at.

And what you said about avoiding the missteps of past gear is right on. And even if I were to find a 7900U in my price range, I would still be worried sick about potential hardware failures. Avoiding past mistakes and using better materials would also be a must.

[dpalomaki]

It all boils down to how many will be sold at what price point, or some multi billionaire wanting to fund it as a community benefit. My pockets are not that deep

[latreche34]

There is a VCR project in the works by Singmai. but that would cost you few of your paychecks, dreams are dreams, you have to be asleep to live them.

[Idocinthebox]

Just a thought, I have an old Tivo ota recorder w HD that I think records mpeg or mpeg2, ??? add vcr mechanism and disable all the other video processing?? Maybe a starting point for a stand alone unit. I will have to review the specs a little more but it may have analog in an VHS AND HDMI out. I had a aftermarket firmware on this to allow a larger drive and copying off files without the Tivo encryption. A little testing will be in order. I have a Diamond usb and an ATI AIW and they work treat so never really thought of this option until I read your post.

[latreche34]

MPEG-2 is not recommended for VHS capture nowadays, and adding a VHS mechanism is not as easy as it sounds, you need to process RF, time base correct the signal which requires engineering, There are DVD recorders built in VHS already and they can output HDMI from VHS, all you need is a HDMI card, The problem is that the VHS part of such machines is crappy, cheap mechanism, low end video processing chips ...etc.

[aramkolt]

I think the main reason you won't see new hardware come out is because this is all a rather niche problem to convert older tapes and there are millions of older VCRs still out there that work well enough for the task for most people's needs. The ones that want more probably don't have deep enough pockets to reinvent the wheel that multinational corporations spent decades and hundreds of millions of dollars getting us to the peak of technololgy that it had. That, and there are so many components of a VCR that you can't just do a small run and have it be even close to profitable because small scale manufacturing is crazy expensive and even more so if you need very tight tolerances like VHS does.

The closest I could possibly see is some sort of linear magnetic scanner (similar to a flatbed scanner or extremely sensitive linear audio head that is much wider and can read lots of individual points in a very small space - kind of like a photosensor, but for magnetism) that slowly scans any type of magnetic tape perpendicular to the tape itself, stores all of that data in a very large file, and then reconstructs what the helical scan of whatever angle the original player would have been scanning that data at. So something like that would work with any magnetic media tape type, be one fixed speed (however fast the scanner can read) and reels to turn the tape, possibly while still in its shell like a very slow VHS tape rewinder. Something like that is "more possible" because it has relatively few parts and does not rely on fancy angles, tracking, or knowledge of the type of tape it is looking at - that's all done in software and not in real time.

You're not going to get any realtime video out of that though - and even that may or may not be possible, but that's how I'd go looking into it if I were to try to make a modern converter. There'd also be zero timebase errors with that, again because it is not real time, just reconstructed data.

[latreche34]

It's easier to make a video head than making a scanner with a resolution of 1/1000th of the human hear to scan magnetic particles which is a technology that probably never existed and not worth R&D for a VCR, As I said before, dreams are just dreams, let's leave it at that.

[thecoalman]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ddw_119

I assumed that the cost of a deck of this kind would be a bit steep.

Too steep. The cost of something is relative to how many you produce. A VCR manufacturer for example might pay a penny a piece for a small screw but they are buying a few billion of them. If you buy 100K of them you are paying 5 cents. Same thing is going to apply for every component in that device.

Even if it were manufacturer building this because of the low demand they can't leverage their buying power and the cost of the product sky rockets.

[Idocinthebox]

Let's just keep this thread open for any new tech ideas. It is probably possible to build better video heads at a lower cost with modern technology. The problem is analog signal processing as A to D conversion does have problems but they are not insurmountable. Let's just promote ideas and maybe one of us can put it into workable solution.

[Idocinthebox]

Here is a discussion on VHS heads. https://www.tapeheads.net/threads/di...r-heads.58032/