Philips/Conexant video decoder capture chips?

[enois]

In the last years I have collected some PCI TV card with Philips and Conexant chips.

(example)
S1051053_.JPG

I have a couple of question:
1)Are these video capture ICs suitable to capture with VDub in Huffy 4:2:2?
2)Which of the followings ICs are comparable in video quality to ATI Theater chips?

Philips:
SAA7114H
SAA7131E & SAA7131F
SAA7134

Conexant:
CX23881 & CX23883.

Thanks in advance.

Side note: the data sheet of all the above ICs, claims that they can handle unstable video signal (specifying from VCR) in statament like this:
"The SAA7131E recovers horizontal and vertical synchronization signals from the selected video input signal, even under extremely adverse conditions and signal distortions. Such distortions are noise, static or dynamic echoes from broadcast over air, crosstalk from neighboring channels or power lines (hum), cable reflections, time base errors from video tape play-back and non-standard signal levels from consumer type video equipment (e.g. cameras or DVD)."

This means that with these chips is possible have less dropped/inserted frame? (I mean in the case of capture without the use of frame TBC)

[jwillis84]

Philips Tomson is an old venerable European Fab

Conexant is a young upstart

That doesn't mean very much.. but NEC and Texas Instruments or Analog Devices are better known and documented.

Your delving into Video decoders.. which i look at from time to time.

The problem is whatever they do inside the Video decoder may require external support.. especially external memory, which for cost cutting reasons the circuit board manufacturer may choose not to include.

Take the Analog Devices ADV7842.. it is mostly an HDMI chip with legacy 7400 ADLLT and other A to D features.. but most manufacturers today won't partner it with external ram.. and run it in standalone mode. So the TBC and Frame buffer features of the chip make no difference.

Analog Device engineers started steering designers away from enabling TBC features about 2007 or 2009.. by 2010 they didn't even include full documentation in their user guides.

sorry to be dourer but finding a Video decoder with extra filters to help "stabilize" sync signals.. is not a home run

the whole system has to target being a TBC and being a Frame sync .. and usually the design should try to keep the audio samples in sync.. like with SDI and a audio sample embedder

from my perspective.. only expensive DVD recorders.. with their massively complex mainboards continued to flesh out the requirements of chips that could perform TBC and Frame sync at a reasonable cost.. up until they stopped making them in 2018 .. but they specialized in 4:2:0 not 4:2:2 or 4:4:4

i am not saying "No One" offered a 4:2:2 or 4:4:4 video decoder with tbc and frame sync.. but they were not cheap.. and mostly aren't discussed.. and they are pretty rare. more often we talk about a chain of AtoDtoA connect the dots and do again.

[enois]

Thanks for the clarification about video decoder ICs with built in frame sync feature. This to me it is more a curiosity that arose from reading the data sheets, my main question is if Philips or Conexant can be comparable substitutes for ATI Theater video decoder.

Actually I'm lucky enough to own a frame TBC, but there is always the hope to eliminate an AtoDtoA step in the video chain from tape to HDD.

[jwillis84]

That is understandable.

Philips Tomson chips were found in many Dazzle Video capture USB 2.0 "turtles" and in a couple fed some WISG007 DCT compression chips very early days.. between 1995 and 2005.. those sold in Circuit City and Best Buy for about $100 for a long time. They do their basic job, but need an extra companion chip to capture sound.

Philips somehow exchanged that IP to NXP in later years.. they specialized in custom ARM chips.. but picked up the old SA7xxx line as well... they are pretty basic.. the TDA9975 series really replaced them in the (Philips product line put out by NXP) when they got HDMI capture features and was used in the Blackmagic Intensity Pro.. before they abandoned Philips tech altogether in the Blackmagic 4K cards and went strictly Analog Devices ADV7842

You still find SAxxxx chips in inexpensive $5 capture dongles.. they're kind of on an EMPIA level.. they really have nothing other than filters for sorting out bad or corrupt horizontal or vertical sync problems.

They had a "good reputation" long ago.. before alternatives became available.. now the same tech is likely to be found bolted inside an ARM chip for basic capture purposes.

In my opinion the Japan designed and made "Techwell 99xx" capture chips are superior.. but that's just me.. they are more tolerant of noisy garbage video.. they aren't perfect.. just more tolerant. The IO Data GV-USB2 has the Techwell.. as well as the no longer made high priced Elgato game capture HD.. (when using the optionally purchased S-Video cable) but those are hard to find, sold used for a lot.. and only capture to H.264 .. very nice for someone looking for those.. but (again) no TBC and no Frame sync.

The ATI Theater chip is best pursued either by getting a motherboard that has an AGP port and getting a TV All in Wonder and running Windows XP.. or pursuing the USB 2.0 - ATI TV Wonder USB2.0N capture device and using either the old ATI MultiMedia Center capture suite or an old copy of Cyberlink PowerDirector.

The few ATI 2006 or 600XL or 800XL that support PCI express (might) work with Windows 7 or 8 but I doubt 10 or 11 and that's a lot of work just to find a way to use an ATI Theater chip.

Thinking of avoiding AtoDtoA and reducing that to AtoD needs something that combines TBC+Frame sync and Audio interleave into one box.. that's basically sdi .. but then your talking around $500 for a used video converter and then a separate USB/Thunderbolt or PCIexpress sdi capture recorder.. so its a whole new level of cost and complexity.

sdi is like dv, but uncompressed over a faster bus.. but unlike dv there are fewer options with TBC+Frame sync in one box and even fewer of the devices available used.. actual manufacturer and chip vendors are "finished" with SD video.. which means they aren't interested in TBC+Frame sync .. even if its in their chips for legacy reasons

i'm wallowing in depression over the choices left

i have no good recommendations.. the unicorns exists.. i have some of them.. but there is no general solution to share or point people to

-- merged --

I suppose if you want to compare the Philips SAA7xxx series to the ATI Theater 200 chip you have to take a census of all the SAA7xxx variations and the years they came out. Some datasheets will provide that information.

You can do the same thing for the EMPIA chipsets.

They all evolved over a long period of time growing in Input bit width from 8 to 9 to 10 to 12 bits

The ATI Theater 200 was 12 bits wide from the start, so it instantly shot to the top as "better than the rest" for oversampling and noise rejection reasons. But it was also multi-functional. The 200 could also perform the "first" step in all H.26x compression schemes.. it could perform DCT (Discrete Cosine Transform) during the capture so that it was partially compressed.. a little like DV video.. but without color space loss. That made it lighter on the capture bus or USB2.0 capture port speeds.

The Philips SAA7xxx decoders started low bit width but grew up over time.. so did the EMPIA.. but they never hybrid offered the DCT feature.

A more fair comparison would be the ATI Theater 200 chip and the WISG007 chip which both offered a "capture stream format" that could be later transformed into an H.26x format after capture.

We're talking kind of ancient tech here.. and trying to substitute noise rejection for Time Base Correction and Frame Synchronizatrion to avoid frame loss altogether. The worse the video signals got.. from SP to LP to EP to SLP.. the worse it got.. and as tapes age and VCRs get more rickety.. those old tricks just don't work as well anymore.

If you have a great video signal you can get away with a lot less.. but if you really want Uncompromising Uncompressed capture.. you either have to have the right gear.. right source.. or seek out a service provider that has the right gear or can rent it to you.

.. i am cursed.. with seeing what the right gear can do

In the end the high width Input bit range gets distilled down into 8 bits wide and output over in a standard digital format.. so 12 bit to 8 bit is really better than 10 bits to 8 bit.

Some professional gear even captures from 14 bit to 8 bit.

Its fun to learn.. read data sheets.. and I do hope you find a magic door to bring a hidden tbc+frame sync device for $10 to light.. but I'm rather jaded now.. more like Gollum.. the ring has corrupted me.

TDA9975

[hodgey]

The SAA7114 specifically is the chip used in the avtoolbox/cypress time-based correctors. The datavideo TBC1000 and tbc3000 use the older SAA7111 I believe. The philips/nxp chips are on the better end of not choking on unstable video, hence why they're used in these TBCs, though how the chips are configured and how the output is handled is also relevant. I don't know to what extent you could replicate what the TBC units do with the output when the same/similar chip is used on a capture device - the microcontroller in the TBC will have instant/direct access to signal pins for sync etc on the chip which it may or may not make use of in addition to the video data itself. In the USB thingies the data goes via some usb bridge chip so it's mostly up to what that does. On the PCI and PCIe ones a driver would have very direct access on the other hand, the combined PCI/Video decoder chips even have direct system RAM access via DMA I think so maybe more viable there with some custom driver setup to do things better than the default supplied drivers.

[jwillis84]

This is a list of some capture devices that use the Philips.

[lordsmurf]

Quote:

Originally Posted by enois

1)Are these video capture ICs suitable to capture with VDub in Huffy 4:2:2?

This is a question based on wrong assumptions. While chipsets matter, capture cards are more than simple chips, as well as default on-chip software and settings.

Quote:

2)Which of the followings ICs are comparable in video quality to ATI Theater chips?

None.

Quote:

Side note: the data sheet of all the above ICs, claims that they can handle unstable video signal (specifying from VCR) in statament like this:
" time base errors from video tape play-back ."
This means that with these chips is possible have less dropped/inserted frame? (I mean in the case of capture without the use of frame TBC)

No.

Furthermore, such statements are to be taken lightly. "TBC" is a wide term, can mean many things. Same for "time base errors" or "timing errors". From the POV of consumer analog videotape formats, like VHS, it's a nonsensical statement. But even in general, it's a nonsense statement. Those chips do zilch for timing. At most, those chips simply don't make matters worse, but certainly don't improve anything.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jwillis84

Take the Analog Devices ADV7842.. it is mostly an HDMI chip with legacy 7400 ADLLT and other A to D features.. but most manufacturers today won't partner it with external ram.. and run it in standalone mode. So the TBC and Frame buffer features of the chip make no difference.
Analog Device engineers started steering designers away from enabling TBC features about 2007 or 2009.. by 2010 they didn't even include full documentation in their user guides.

This has been true for decades now. I firmly believe the flawed "black" Cypress units (black AVT-8710, etc) were a direct outcome of RAM chips. The chips designed with the unit were no longer available, so the unit was adjusted to accommodate the then-new only available RAM. But it failed, and as a result those "black" units actually cause errors, not just fix errors.

That ADLLT stuff is also nonsense. It's alpha/beta grade, and just does not work correctly. It has potential, but nobody has yet been able to make it reliably work. (And I'm including a lot of people here, not just the few companies like Blackmagic that halfass implemented the chips.) Odds are some serious external chips, RAM and others, will be needed for it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by enois

Thanks for the clarification about video decoder ICs with built in frame sync feature. This to me it is more a curiosity that arose from reading the data sheets, my main question is if Philips or Conexant can be comparable substitutes for ATI Theater video decoder.

That's what many of us did as well, but many years ago. I was deep into TBC research more than 15 years ago. When new items came along, hopes were always dashed. The ADI chips disappointed, and Blackmagic turned out to just be another BS'er like Canopus.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jwillis84

You still find SAxxxx chips in inexpensive $5 capture dongles.. they're kind of on an EMPIA level.. they really have nothing other than filters for sorting out bad or corrupt horizontal or vertical sync problems.

Most of these are actually counterfeit, poorly reverse engineers Chinese crap chips.

Quote:

Thinking of avoiding AtoDtoA and reducing that to AtoD needs something that combines TBC+Frame sync and Audio interleave into one box.. that's basically sdi .. but then your talking around $500 for a used video converter and then a separate USB/Thunderbolt or PCIexpress sdi capture recorder.. so its a whole new level of cost and complexity.
sdi is like dv, but uncompressed over a faster bus.. but unlike dv there are fewer options with TBC+Frame sync in one box and even fewer of the devices available used.. actual manufacturer and chip vendors are "finished" with SD video.. which means they aren't interested in TBC+Frame sync .. even if its in their chips for legacy reasons

It's also what is referred to as a "closed loop" system. The signal is ingested from the VCR, and that's it. You lose control of your own workflow. That was fine for better pro format ingest. But with consumer analog video, there are nuances to line TBC, frame TBC, proc amp, etc, which often require swapping and removing. The A>D>A>etc isn't really as bad as some suggest, same for colorspace changes. It's nothing to stress about. It just is.

Quote:

i'm wallowing in depression over the choices left
i have no good recommendations.. the unicorns exists.. i have some of them.. but there is no general solution to share or point people to

Just horses what toilet paper rolls Scotch taped to their head. Be wary. Don't be a sucker to marketing hooey. Or for fanboy nonsense.

Quote:

Its fun to learn.. read data sheets.. and I do hope you find a magic door to bring a hidden tbc+frame sync device for $10 to light.. but I'm rather jaded now.. more like Gollum.. the ring has corrupted me.

Welcome to our club! Orsetto has been the VH grump for years, and I've started to sound more like him in recent past years. Why? Stuff is failing, scarce, and plain damned lied about. Good stuff exists, but you have to weed through wrong/fake information, bad sellers (mostly eBay), etc, in order to get to it. Nothing new exists, nothing new will exist.

Quote:

Originally Posted by hodgey

I don't know to what extent you could replicate what the TBC units

Most have key chips bitlocked, so you can't do anything.

[enois]

I apologize for raising this question about "frame sync function in chips", it was not my primary topic. I didn't think I'd start a discussion on the subject again.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lordsmurf

This is a question based on wrong assumptions. While chipsets matter, capture cards are more than simple chips, as well as default on-chip software and settings.

Right, I hadn't thought of that, but in theory Philips and Conexant can work with VDub?

Staying on the subject, anyone have feedback about video quality of Samsung S5D0127X01 video decoder chip? (It's mounted on my Matrox RTX100)

[hodgey]

If you mean the capture cards, most of them should yeah. Whatever card you have with SAA7114H may or may not be mpeg2 only, depending on how it's set up hardware wise. The others are combined pci and video decoder chips and should all in theory work let you capture lossless in vdub if the driver is set up for it.

[lordsmurf]

Quote:

Originally Posted by enois

I apologize for raising this question about "frame sync function

Well, the reason that conversations tend to skew this way is because most of us started to investigate, or more heavily investigate, chips from that POV. I knew about capture chips, but didn't start to read datasheets until DVD recorders and TBCs, as well as patent documents. There was also a heavy (and fake) smushing together of TBC+capture by the chipmakers and capture card manufacturers.

[enois]

Quote:

Originally Posted by hodgey

If you mean the capture cards, most of them should yeah. Whatever card you have with SAA7114H may or may not be mpeg2 only, depending on how it's set up hardware wise. The others are combined pci and video decoder chips and should all in theory work let you capture lossless in vdub if the driver is set up for it.

Thanks, this is the information I was looking for.
Are mainly TV card with tuner, to watch TV on PC with extra composite & Y/C input, and i don' t think they have mpeg2 realtime encoding.
If I found the correct drivers, I'm curios to make some test with VDub.