Does this Tevion card looks very noisy, wavy?
 

Hi everyone,

I recently purchased a JVC HR-S7600 from vcrshop, a DRM-15 European model, and a Tevion capture card from Lordsmuf, so my setup is:

JVC > DRM-15 > TEVION > Windows Vista > Virtualdub 1.9.11 [S-Video cable connected]

JVC settings:
- B.E.S.T. [on]
- Picture Control [auto]
- Auto Timer [off]
- O.S.D. [off]
- Direct Rec [off]
- Auto SP-LP [off]
- Digital 3R [off]
- S-VHS [auto]

- Digital TBC/NR button on the front of the player is [off]. I don't see much difference when on or off I think.

DRM-15 EU setting under the section 'picture':
- Comb Filter [off]
- Still Mode [automatic]
There's no more options in the european version of the dmr-15. No DNR o anything, just "comb Filter" on/off. Also, the only s-video input is in the front AV3, not the back like the US model.

Tevion Card settings:
- Windows Vista driver using the CD
- PAL_B / 25fps / 720x576 / HuffYUV (from this forum)
- AVI interlaced

Now that I've explained my whole setup workflow, the issue I'm having is that the image has a lot of noise, perhaps a chroma issue? with some Halo / Ghost effects sometimes.

If anybody could have a look a these clips I'm uploading and let me know if this is normal? I remember the quality of the tapes being much better and clear. The video looks like it has filters and noise reduction.

I've also uploaded a x264 progressive version done with Staxrip and deinterlaced with Yadif.
The screenshot is to show that even when the menu is on, the colors has lines that moves vertically upward, but the png file I uploaded won't show those lines because of the compression, sorry about that. Because the noise is also on the menu of the DMR-15, I assume it's not the vcr that's creating the noise but most likely the capture card? Hopefully you guys can help me to figure out a good clean setup. I don't want to spend weeks capturing tapes and then have to re-do them again because of the noise/settings.

Thanks

Take the DVD player out. You should only need to worry about 'comb filter' when using composite inputs.

Noise in menus isn't unusual, a lot of them are in 4.43 so they're an all round compromise, saves on having to run a different OSG generator for different markets.

Try again, it'll isolate where the fault is a tad.

The ghosting you're seeing on the Dragon Ball GT sample is going to be baked into the master tape on the studio's side. That's a poor conversion from NTSC to PAL. So write that one off.

The DNR setting (Line-In NR aka AV-in NR) exists on all variants of DMR-ES15; it's just hidden away by unintuitive UI design: Panasonic DVD recorder passthrough settings (DMR-ES10, DMR-ES15, DMR-ES25)

My first suggestion for troubleshooting would be the opposite (i.e. take the VCR out). Burn a test pattern DVD full of highly-saturated colours, play it on the ES15, and see if the artifacts are visible when connected to a TV as well as the capture card.

If you download VHPatterns2.rar from this post, you can compare your capture setup to mine. It's an "NTSC" disc, so set the ES15 and capture device accordingly.

I will follow your troubleshoot tips and come back with results.

I just ordered a scart to s-video connector to use on the back of the DMR-ES15. It’ll be here in 2days.

i again,
I've received the new scart to svideo connector so I could use it as an output in the ES15 to the capture card.
After using the VHPatterns @msgohan recommended me, I've notice that the actual S-Video output looks cleaner than the Scart/AV1 in S-Video mode. If you look at these raw edited clips, you'll notice the one that comes out of the AV1 has minor noise/lines going accross the image. I thought the AV1 was the better output according to other users , weird.

VHPatterns2_ES15_[SCART-AV1-SVIDEO]_TevionUSB
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ECk...ew?usp=sharing

VHPatterns2_ES15_SVideo_TevionUSB
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nSG...ew?usp=sharing

No that I know the ES15 is outputting a good signal, and the capture card is capturing properly, I can assume the noisy vhs capture I did the other day is because of my new JVC HR-S7600?

@msgohan Can you compare these clips with yours? Thanks
In the next 2 small uncompressed clips you'll see that the quality is very noisy/poor. I don't remember these tapes looking so bad. The tapes are in great conditions. I tried different tapes and they all look as noisy as this one.

JVC-HRS7600 _ SVideoFrontAV3 _ ES15 _ AV1-SVideo _ TevionUSB:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jl9...ew?usp=sharing
JVC-HRS7600 _ SVideoFrontAV3 _ ES15 _ SVideoOUT _ TevionUSB:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XdD...ew?usp=sharing

And just to finish this long post. I'm also having a bit of an issue with the audio. A friend of mine has the same VHS tape, he digitized the audio using a Focusrite 6i6 audio interface I believe. I got the same or similar audio interface, but his audio sounds fuller, with more color, with punch... I don't know how to describe it, mine is a bit muffled, so here is a screenshot of the spectrogram. His audio is on the top and mine is at the bottom. Firstable, his capture has a wavy line above 20k, while mine doesn't have it. If we both use the same or very similar audio interface, I assume the JVC player is also filtering the audio track????

Attachment 15030

Just so you can hear the difference, here are the 2 audio clips. He used a LG or Sony PAL VCR (I'll ask him the exact model), I'm using the JVC S7600 (See wav files attached to this post).

Thanks and I hope this can help others.

Maybe the SCART to S-Video adapter is poorly made?

Did you increase the Brightness of the Tevion from the default? The sharpness is set too high as well, but that's probably a default setting like it is on the ATI 600.

In VirtualDub's capture mode:

• Video -> Capture filter.... Choose the Video Proc Amp tab and hit the Default button.
• Video -> Levels. Set Sharpness on your Tevion to 0.
  (You could have also set it on the Proc Amp, but it's better to get into the habit of using Levels because it doesn't obscure the Overlay/Preview.)

ImgSli comparison of your setup vs my ATI 600. The same images are attached in ZIP.

I don't see noise; I see the temporal ghosting I mentioned before. Show us something that hasn't been standards-converted. And both audio captures sound bad to me; again due to the source.

Interesting (as all your posts). How do yo explain that different behaviour? Just connectors problem?

I don't know what you mean by "connectors problem". The ImgSli is using the straight S-Video sample, not the [SCART-AV1-SVIDEO] sample, in case that is what you were meaning.

There are some variables we haven't controlled for.

1. Is the Tevion really a straight "clone" of the ATI 600 hardware AND driver setup?
2. My Proc Amp settings are listed at the top of the image. Javidial's are unknown. Possibly default and same as ATI 600, possibly default for Tevion BUT differs from ATI 600, possibly manually changed by him.
3. msgohan DAC = DVP642 (North American purchase). Javidial DAC = DMR-ES15 (EU variant from unknown country). There will be some amount of difference caused by this alone.

Lacks tuner, drivers are generic eMPIA (not ATI custom).

Proc amp on drivers is hot, needs about -6 brightness, discussed before in past posts.

The sharpness is above 0/unity, like the ATI. I think it's actually eMPIA that boost sharp by default, not ATI. ATI was really lazy with their drivers for this card, such as not having any audio instructions (ie, that registry hack for ATi audio, down to 128 aka 50%).

Any audio differences here is due to VCR differences, maybe ES15 if used (and it should be used, as ES15 delays audio+video from in>out). I'll have to download clips later to hear any differences, busy now.

I had the default settings:
Video Standard: NTSC_M
Video Pro Amp: 128, 32, 64, 32, 2

I just changed it to match yours:
Video Pro Amp: 119, 32, 64, 36, 0

Here are another capture using your settings:
Panasonic DMR-ES15 EU SVideo [Test2]
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XMK...ew?usp=sharing
Panasonic DMR-ES15 EU AV1-SVideo [Test2]
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YwE...ew?usp=sharing

I'm capturing twice until I figure out which one is the best output.

@msgohan
Yes it is. I bought it from lordsmurf

@lordsmuf
The audio goes straight from the JVC HR-S7600 to my audio interface Focusrite 6i6 [input 3&4 on the back]. Audio captured using Audition, Audacity and Cubase 11. I tried all 3 just to make sure it wasn't the software.

@lordsmurf The virtualdub won't show anything under "overlay", I have to choose "preview". Is this normal? I thought it could be viewed either way.

Thank you guys for the help. Once I get the ES15 setup I'll try to figure out the VCR. Is there a "test signal" vhs tape that I can use to calibrate and make sure the VCR is outputing correctly? I'm not sure if this is a thing. Thanks again.

New ImgSli (again, the new image is also attached for posterity, after the external link dies)

Preview/overlay are available modes. Not all drivers (and version), hardware, and OS allow both modes. It's not a user choice, but available connection options.

Bypassing ES15 and ES25 will cause audio desync. Same is true of PAL ES10.
NTSC ES10 can be bypassed, no delay.

Why my capture shows some sort of overlay patterns, lines, ... Why does yours look plain gray and mine has all those chroma issues? I've attached an image showing the areas affected. I'm just curious.

So far I think I have the ES15 set up properly, right?

How can I do the same with the VCR? Should I record in a vhs tape color bars and other stuff and capture it? How would you calibrate the VCR and make sure it's outputting a good image?

Thanks

Oh, I didn't even notice. Most likely, you need a better S-Video cable. Those patterns are happening in areas of high-frequency luma. There is crosstalk happening with the chroma signal.

Weird since it's a brand new s-video I bought from amazon. I'll look into getting another one and see if it fixes that crosstalk issue. Thanks

:rats:

Before you buy another one, post the link to the one you already bought so we can check it and possibly recommend a proper replacement cable if needed.