LS, you'll be turning people away from here carrying on like that.

... and we're back to aggressive and unfriendly. That was fast. :screwy:

Which community is that? :hmm:

I come from the video hobby community, especially in the 90s and 00s, specifically cartoon and TV show collectors (but also some news/documentary/etc type content). We'd seek certain shows, and do our best to crowdsource (before that was even a word) sets of episodes in the highest quality we could find. Sometimes locating would take weeks, months, or years. Early on, others would acquire, and I'd just do the ingest for us. The reason I started to teach video online was so that more collectors could capture in quality, as I did, using TBCs and proper settings. And back then, hobbyists didn't whine about costs, as we all understood that all hobbies have costs. Within that community, there were us actual creators/collectors, there were helpful/useful non-creators, there were leeches, and there were profiteers (the fat slobs sitting at bootleg tables at comic shows, scummy SOBs, a subset of leeches).

In those earlier days of the community, quite a few content creators (showrunners, producers, actors, etc) were seeking copies of their old shows (often to show grandkids), as the originals were locked away, even to them. This was an era before TV DVD box sets took off (still lots of unreleased content), before Youtube existed, back when Netflix mailed DVDs, before streamers, etc. I met some interesting folks in those days, we'd trade multiple emails before saying goodbye. The quality of my work (both ingest and restoration) got the attention of the right folks, and I suddenly found myself doing professional work by the end of the 00s. Health is the reason I'm not still working for studios.

As our analog hobby turned digital (VHS became DVDs), I noticed a bad habit developing. People started to collect shows simply "because they can". They'd never watch the content, never enjoy it ... just collect it. Bad, good, didn't matter. I never understood the point of it. Not then, not now.

Most normal people have goals with video.
- to convert home movies, their family history and memories
- for nostalgia, to watch an old programming block (commercials and all) that contained their favorite childhood shows (ie Saturday mornings, weekday afternoons, Cartoon Network, etc)
- to watch certain shows, especially to binge
- to create new content from old, mostly documentaries (but also lots of Youtube clips these days)

So when I see "here's 50 VHS tapes of random stuff I converted" (on torrents, on archive.org, etc), with no apparent goal, no content logging, I just shake my head. Who's going to do that? Why? Especially now, when we can all access vast libraries from Netflix, Disney+ and Hulu, Paramount+ and PlutoTV, Amazon and Freevee, Tubi, etc. You also have to wonder how carefully those 50 random VHS tapes were monitored and QC'd, since it was not done with any end goal in mind (content likely not watched, probably not even timeline scrubbed). In my experience, monitoring/QC is non-existent (and sadly, that's too often true even at the studio level, where low-level grunts are tasked with encode/ingest, too many errors gets broadcast now).

In hindsight, I sometimes ask myself if I wasted years worth of time on a hobby that would become irrelevant due to streaming. Sure, I still have some unreleased content, but not too much now. It's mostly some inferior copies of shows, compared to the studio releases we now have access to -- and often for free, too! So much wasted time and money (mostly the storage discs/drives, not the capture workflow gear).

These days, I focus heavily on
- DIY'ers that are preserving family history
- organizations with original content to preserve
- working with documentary filmmakers
- collectors of non-released non-retail sources (old news footage, "bonus" type material, pre-2000 commercials, etc)

You have to balance time with costs.
- vhs-decode has cut video gear costs (and foolishly so), but has not saved on the storage/compute costs. And it requires excessive time.
- standard VCR > TBC > capture card workflows have varying costs (everything from uber-budget costs of $500, to recommended in the low +/-$3K range, to higher needs of $10K+), and time is not wasted on further required processing or bloated resource overhead.

I think you lack perspective, about your role, about your importance, and even about what communities do and do not exist (and sizes of those that do).

Again, I think you're too boastful, too eager, and too proud of yourself. You participated in an open source project, great. You didn't invent some game-changing life-altering new technology. And the attitude of "previous method worthless now, my new method best" is ridiculous and wrong.

Which people is that?

What I see is a very small group of folks that wants to "archive everything" for $0. That's not the norm. If they like their methods, great. But it's not for everybody, and in fact not for most. Nor does it do everything that some of them claim.

"We worked really hard on this and therefore it must be good!"

Can you convince latreche34 and hodgey that vhs-decode is better than LordSmurf's recommended equipment and workflow?

I don't see why the defensive behavior? If I was developing something and get criticized for it, that means I have to listen to those critics and improve upon not be mad and seek affirmation. It's a community of hobbyists with coding skills, don't expect anyone to join in who doesn't know how to troubleshoot a script, Sure there are wikis but it doesn't mean that anyone comes to these forums can understand them, The majority are struggling getting a USB driver to work properly or can explain a certain video artifact.

Lets assume for a moment LS becomes a cheerleader and started recommending the workflow, the first thing will happen is members coming in and asking where they can buy the workflow, And then what? send them to your wiki page instead of a page where they can buy an actual capture device?

Not just defensive, but downright childish, immature. :rolleyes:

He's trying to "get back at us" (all of us, the whole community here) by marking the forum generated response subscription emails as spam. We were notified by the SMTP. Therefore, as per our email policy, he is now banned.

Point them to the wiki page and let them have a go at it. If it's not for them, they can use RCA cables. Nobody said every process has to be made out of a cookie cutter to satisfy the end consumer. There are all kinds of devices, systems and processes that would fly over an off-the-shelf consumer's head but that doesn't mean they're not useful for the tasks they're designed for.

It's somewhat like buying a car -- or a car kit (kit car), with online instructions in a wiki.

And that's perfectly fine. :noworry:

I think some kit cars look fantastic. General Lee, anybody? :)

But don't state BS like "ready-made cars will never be a thing anymore, we can all build one ourselves now!" It gets doubly ridiculous when the kit is inferior to many of the ready-made cars. Kit cars are made by a tiny % of car enthusiasts, which is itself a tiny % of car users. I'm talking to the 1M+ audience (literally), not the 100+ audience (if even that many).

That's where we are. Overstating. It's a character flaw of certain devs more than a flaw of the tech itself. The tech isn't making the asinine claims, and RF method results (and lack of results) speak louder anyway.

I also did not miss the "they can use RCA cables" comment. That's a misdirect. Recommended workflows rarely use "RCA" (actually composite), with some exceptions (most of them budget related to the TBC).

I'd like to comment on why I got into this hobby. It was entirely because I wanted to document my family and friends history. Outside of my film collection which dates back even earlier, I had lots of VHS and Hi8 home movies from my family in America from the early 80s and onward. My original plan and goal was to upload them on YouTube to share as sort of a preservation project for documenting the past.

When I received advice on this forum, I didn't smirk, I didn't get angry... I listened and did what was necessary to obtain the best equipment which I wanted for my collection.

VHS is not software. It's a physical analog format, and in my view... my preference will always be that most of my corrections and editing are done in the analog realm. The entire concept of VHS-Decode is the idea that "you don't have to buy expensive equipment". Buy a low-end VCR, and miracle software will make all the corrections. No more reason to buy SVHS decks. No more reason to buy TBCs.

At the end of the day... even if software ended up catching up to the workflow of the past 20 years, it's still compensating for the real thing... which is a high quality VCR setup (heads, components, mechanism etc.) and a simplified workflow that involves analog proc controls, and transparent frame and line correction. Why fix something that isn't broken that everyone already knows how to use?

Any errors, blips, and glitches are permanently frozen into the image once you convert to digital!

Are we also forgetting about capturing good audio? Not all VCRs sound the same.

My approach has always been, it's best to start from the best source possible. You want to make the least amount of corrections and spend the least amount of time in post process. This is incredibly important when you have a large collection and don't have time to fiddle around in software. I want it to look good coming out of the VCR.

It reminds me of the Pro Tools plugins that try emulating analog mic pres from the 60s. My first and foremost love has always been working in the analog world and you have to come from that mindset to understand. I'm not against software (having been a software developer myself!), but I am very much weary of claims of perfection and not being open to healthy criticism.

I continue to use this forum, because it is one of the few places left I can turn to for reliable information. Most of the VCR and VHS experts (that really know their stuff) are getting up in age or have already passed away, and as Smurf alluded to, we only have a limited amount of time to archive the analog material that is left.

I'm open to learning new ideas and seeing examples, but why the hostility?

Because we're mixing facts with opinions and use them interchangeably, contributing to infodemiology in this niche, leading to confusing people willing to learn.

The facts here are:
- no, you don't need any TBC for decoding RF on your computer
- ld-decode works
- vhs-decode works
- you can check the source code if you want, have an opinion about it and send a PR
- you can test the process by yourself, spreading knowledge is encouraged

The opinions are:
- *-decode doesn't work as I like, I think the colour is a bit off (maybe next month new version will come out)
- I prefer my traditional workflow involving $brand VCR with $TBC
- TBC will never been archived via software (wrong, code is on github, have a read)
- I don't like eggs for breakfast
- traditional analogue workflow is better, because more mature

The last point might not see as easy to understand as other points, I'll explain that

**catch a breath**

On your traditional workflow, at every step, at every filter, at every cable you connect to the VCR that goes to the TBC and then to the capturing card: you are approximating the original signal sent from the heads of your VCR.

Hence, you are introducing an error, you can make that error as small as possible, you can buy the most expensive hardware to make it really really small, but it's still there. It's intrinsic, there are maths formulas on signal processing textbook, that stuff is complex. For example, dot crawl is one of the most visible error introduce into the chain...

This is valid on every block of the chain, have you got a fancy frame sync that will help to capture the signal? It's an approximation of that came out from the tape, video pipeline inside the VCR has its own flaws, it has to transform the ENV RF into some s-video/cvsb, and it will lose some details.

You know those TBC boxes, once analysed, don't have anything exceptional. They have to sample the signal coming from the VCR, store it somewhere and then after the correction re-convert back. How many steps this image have been through already? The final result can be appreciated, can look nice to the eye, but we can do way better now.

Also, not to mention we're playing a totally different game, those boxes and everything related has to run on the same pace, fixing frames in time for the next to arrive. Every part of the chain has to run at 25i/30i fps, no delays, no error, or we have to drop a frame.

We don't have to stay at that pace, we sample the RF signal, and we can think about some fancy algorithm to catch up and fix the errors. We sample at a rate that is enough to do so, there are again textbooks about sampling and replaying the sampling signal (also measure the error).

People are doing that for free, I can't stress enough, they are not selling you anything. Sinking hundreds of hours of work and release everything online.

That's why this system is so revolutionary, you get the signal from the source and play with it. Decode today with software v1.0, if tomorrow a new version will get better colours and stability, just get the sampled file and replay.

Also, the signal preservation is much, much better, you fetch the image at the beginning, not after have been through many steps. You are not slave of the spec of your traditional gear. Colours might be washed out because of 411 format, some other approximation down the line might affect the stability. Again, there are so many variables. With the RF signal, you can decode and use 10bit per colour, and run some fancy maths there to show the real colour space of the device.

This is a mind blow to me, you can use open hardware like domesday duplicator or a cheap CX card, because someone has the knowledge and willpower to hack the driver. This is insane, we should appreciate the work of people.

I remember insane avisynth scripts to fix errors made on analogue domain, because not everybody has the money to but expensive gear, did I mention this is a game changer?

They will break, not now, maybe not in 10–20 years, but one day they will become so fragile to handle like nitrogen films. Let's not glamorise the analogue format, the VHS is made of plastic, electronics of reproducing them can fail. From e leaky capacitor to a breaking down pinch roller that will ruin the tape.

Colours can fade out, because materials on the tape can be attached tomorrow by some fungus. Some electronic component can go wrong, there are so many variables that can affect the play of a VHS. Playing those things is incredibly complex, event the cheapest mechanism has to deal with incredibly small tracks on the tape.

Also, there aren't going to be any new VCR. The gear has been produced, we have to stick with that.

There is still lots of media out there in tape format only, look outside the English speaking countries, there is a ton of stuff. Things that deserve to be preserved, young ones are going to do that, because the people that made the footage are retired or sadly dead.

This post is already too long, I'll leave you the Nyquist–Shannon sampling theorem, it doesn't care if you use a TBC or your vinyl sounds better. It just samples, it's up to you where to sample.

good night

The disagreement is not if it works, but rather how well it works. That's always been the difference. Not just in terms of addressing video errors (hit or miss), but simply being user friendly (and it's not whatsoever).

I just do not have the time or energy to reply to every point made. But much of that is disingenuous, because it discounts the fact that hardware also contains algorithms, and is usually able to crunch data vastly faster (better, more accurate) than any Win/Lin/Mac type box. End user software lags toward infinity, zero direct hardware access or optimization. We have more compute available in this world than standard desktops.

Many of the vhs-decode samples of color truly sucks. It has some positives in the details, but it totally misses the mark where it counts. The PAL seems to be mostly fine, but the NTSC is a mess.

No. This is false, always has been. The colors cannot fade on a tape, period. It's not film, that's not how the data is stored. The color now is the color is was 20/30/40 years ago, and will be the same in 20/30/40 years more from now. When people miss these simple aspects of consumer analog formats, it makes me question everything else they're claiming.

I've never been fond of this. It's overstated, misunderstood, overly simplified. Simple oversampling is not the panacea many claim it to be. Video is far more involved than that. The same is true of photography. To quote Ken Rockwell, it's often nothing more than "measurbating" to prove my number is bigger than yours. The actual factors of resolve/etc are fully ignored.

This has bothered me some in recent years. I truly miss some of these people. I was younger than them, and now I'm alone with certain knowledge on certain topics. I've done my best to share what I can on this site, and in this forum (and other forums). Not too long ago, I did manage to reconnect with somebody I'd lost contact with over a decade ago. We had a nice chat, she retired quite some time back.

My opinion here: messing with professional gear is not easy either, also you have to dig some manuals and knowledge that were accessible to a small part of professionals. Gathering that knowledge today is hard. Even have a hobby here is cumbersome, knowing the brands, what they meant in the 90s and how to repair them, that's a lot to process. Again my opinion here, tapping an RF cable from a VCR, not a big problem. You have less moving parts, fewer variables, and to me this looks simple, easier, on top of all accessible.

Don't be so dogmatic. Engineering is so vast that some applications can be archived in digital domain as well as analogue circuits, we have to define the problem and specs. All that part was already done, it's online, it's there.

I didn't mean to compare to the film. I have some tapes with some colour degradation, I can't tell if it's because it was mastered in that way or something else. But still is a problem to me, in any case tapes can degrade, not as much as we might think but still.

too bad, the theorem is proven, it's a fact. You need it to understand any modern signal processing system. Your paragraph remembers me what audio enthusiasts said about compact discs, because the audio experience is analogue and plays with physical waves to our eardrums, can't be captured from digital domain. Takes time to change idea, you will be absorbed, one sample at time :D

Can you point me to a comment here where anyone claimed this project is a ready to go replacement for traditional video captures?

The fact that you believe a color signal modulated into a high frequency carrier can fade tells me everything I need to know about your intelligence, So why should I consider everything you said above is true?

No one is denying that vhs-decode works, what we are saying is that the results are not consistent, therefore it is not a final product yet, Even when it is finalized and works just like the chips inside a high end VCR it will still not available for the masses because requires software and hardware skills.

Even after all the waves of TV DVD sets and streaming options, there's still so much more that isn't available. There are still showrunners, producers, actors, etc. that cannot find digital copies of their work. I'm not telling you anything you don't know or trying to be argumentative. I'm just lamenting how much more content is either locked away or may only exist in a private collection of a showrunner, producer, actor, etc. I am getting to experience this for the first time after reaching out to an actor that mentioned in an interview they had a tape collection and no equipment to view it with. It's quite a thrilling experience when you get to see things that you never knew existed or things you haven't seen in decades. Of course, it's also quite a thrill to help preserve someone's legacy for them and allow them to share it with their family. Decades of their life's work only remains in a box of tapes. You know how valuable it is to them, because they've still held on to it long after they got rid of the tape player. So you know that you've done something very special for them by giving them the opportunity to playback some of the highlights of their life.

This frustrates me as well. If I do manage to find something valuable to me, it is buried in a pile of low quality, often unwatchable stuff. You wish you could have been the one to get a chance at that tape so you could make a decent copy. It's a tragic waste of time and resources to burn up precious remaining hardware digitizing so much needless stuff in bad quality, rather than taking the time to extract the potentially valuable portions with more love and care. If only the time they spent cranking out all those hours of video were spent finding out what is already available elsewhere and reading about how to get a decent capture of what's left.

I joined this game so much later than you, and so I feel like there's much less of a chance that the stuff I've been preserving will ever be made commercially available. My perspective is I regret not starting this sooner than I did. So much of what I've been preserving has remained in copyright hell or just plain neglect of the rights holders. Stuff that millions of people watched on TV, but has been virtually erased from existence in today's world if not for the VCR generation. Although, I do realize that content could still be released. The longer something goes unreleased, the less likely I expect it ever will be. The rights holders are in the same shrinking window that we are. And maybe they have digitized it. But copyright law will prevent it from ever being released in my lifetime. I'm reminded of this when silent comedies I'm interested in from 95 years ago are finally able to be released because they are now public domain. If it were released, I would gladly throw out my inferior copies without regrets. Of course, so often official releases have something edited out. When you really care about the content you preserve, the risk of never being able to see it again makes it easy for me to be free of regret or doubt of how I spent my time. I feel the regret would be my future self saying why didn't I seize the opportunity while I still had it.

thank you for the compliment sweetheart :hearts:

I would say it's not even an opinion here -- it's fact. :congrats:

And that's precisely why I'm now refurb'ing and selling gear to the community. I'm the easy button, no need to DIY repair. You can get a ready-made workflow (video capture kit), just plug it up, and start to use that day. And I will continue to do this for as long as I can -- as long as refurb candidate gear can be sourced, and assuming my health continues to be stable (even if ups and downs).

Again, it omits far too much. The VCR is still a variable, and the full setup ("computer hacking") is a big problem for 99%+ of would-be users. That sliver of 1% then has to manually futz with aspects that were once handled automatically by hardware, in command line software/scripts. Remember, we're talking users that can even handle Avisynth with AvsPmod or Hybrid GUIs.

Huh? :question:

Are you trying to state the obvious here, that hardware (chips) have software/firmware on those chips? Well, yeah. But you don't just copy/port dozens of Python scripts to a chip, and call it a day. Coding chips takes an entirely separate skill from banging one out on a keyboard on your typical home/office computer.

This is 100% impossible. And honestly, to me, as it has to latreche34 here, it speaks volumes about your understanding of VHS signal theory. I'll reply to latreche34 here a second, expand on this more...

Degradation is physical, and vhs-decode doesn't solve that (or even address it whatsoever).

Furthermore, most degradation is storage related. That's a nice way of saying people are morons, and store their "valuable" VHS tapes in attics, garages, outbuildings, storage units (especially non-temp controlled), etc. That's not proper storage. And that's not the tape's fault. Those same people ruin lots of things, not just their tapes.

When tapes truly degrade, and the person has taken great care of the tapes (in sleeves, indoor storage, clean house, etc), then we have to get into discussions.

Yes, but that wasn't my point. Nyquist is too often weaponized by internet trolls (who have a tenuous grasp of imagery), or usurped by marketing. Sometimes Nyquist discussions remind me of kids arguing on a playground. "Because Nyquist, haha, I win!" Not to different from "I triple dog dare you" (from A Christmas Story).

Both self-described "audiophiles" and "videophiles" are insane, and make up whatever BS fits their narrative. I put them right next to flat earthers, 9/11 deniers, and the like. Spouting nonsense to be ignored in almost all cases.

However, audio CD is an interesting case, and actually provides a great example to my early point. Specifics matter. For example, the Metallica album St. Anger. When it was released, it got criticism that was falsely "debunked" as being typical audiophile rantings. However, that was false. St. Anger levels were boosted too far, and distorted. It wasn't acknowledged until the Guitar Hero version came out, and fans could finally hear the undistorted tracks as Metallica intended. That had nothing to do with the Audio CD book format, but rather crappy mixing.

So go back to Nyquist. While the theorem is great and all, it only cover a tiny sliver of overall signal theory. You could have a video that's been degraded in multiple ways, and it could "pass" whatever Nyquist "test" or discussion you're having, to "prove" whatever twisted logic you want. Weaponized. This has been the case since I first learned about Nyquist (and Kell) in the 90s.

To go further yet, when I hear/see this bastardizing in realtime, I generally know to ignore the person. Nyquist and Kell can both be the "Hitler rule" of video, as far as I'm concerned. When it's the defense, the argument is lost.

I'd have to scroll back through the thread, but several participants here -- namely msgohan aka Brad at VH, and Harrypm -- have made numerous claims to this end, either here or elsewhere. Harrypm makes quite a few false claims, on various topics (see attached image for an obvious example of his BS; that's obviously been badly processed on purpose; or he's quite inept/incompetent at capturing, and/or using crap gear).

While I'd normally edit posts, with the note to "Be nice!", to keep the site more professional, I'm not going to here. We've literally heard this BS for 20 years now, and it's wholly false.

It was either
(a) stated by shady conversion shops, to pressure you into sending them tapes "before it's too late!", or
(b) parroted by somebody that didn't know much about video.

The most damning situations were when
(a) the shady shop did a butcher conversion job -- and too often trashing the customer tapes, forever leaving them with nothing but a crap conversion to watch
(b) the parrot argued it, pretending to know video, when he didn't know much at all

Seriously, 20+ years of that crap.

Name some. :)

It's usually not the legal aspect itself, but joint rightsholders not coming to an agreement, seemingly not understanding that keeping it unavailable is a total loss.

As an easy example, NBC owns partial season 7-9 rights to Smurfs (or at least did), which is why it's never been released to physical media in North America. It did get the Aussie release, and I had that on preorder as soon as it was announced (about 10 years ago; that set is rare now, about $500 when you do see it). Much of the toon is available on streaming now, though not complete.

After 99%+ of the fans are dead. Sad.

That was my feeling in the moment, not wanting to miss anything when I had the opportunity. But in hindsight, I feel differently.

I want to reply to your first version of this reply, though I'm glad you edited it. :)

What you wrote is sometimes true, but not always. The exception to the rule is exasperation. When you see/hear/experience the same bogus info, over and over, you do get tired of it. And you tend to question the one repeating it (and rightfully so!). And experience has shown many of us that the person saying it is wrong about more than just that one item. So the tendency is to just shut down the conversation before it repeats for the nth time. But sometimes aggravation gets the better of us (any of us; you, me, whoever), and a simple insult is what gets uttered. For one thing, it's the short version, the simply summary.

But again, I prefer your edited version. It is amusing, maybe light-hearted enough to turn the conversation back more cheerful again.

eheh :D :D

Yes, I realised wasn't helping the tone of the conversation. About the other points, I realise it would require a very long explanation, but essentially, I believe in the long run this is will be the main method to digitalise tapes, as long as we have a working VCR on this planet. I perhaps lack of some knowledge on how the tape tech actually works, but I think the engineering behind vhs-decode is very good, and it's catching up with traditional gear.

About the circuits/electronics I didn't mean to generalise too much, for some tasks it's possible to fit an algorithm to process a signal. The story of engineering teaches new solutions might start as experiments, can have flaws but with time and efforts can be good enough if not better. I think this is one of those cases.

I mentioned the sampling theorem because we have cheap tech to get the data out of the signal, and process it later, I should have clarified in the first place. I remember the story about Metallica's song, it was one of those cases of loudness war.

Yep, and I already get more screen time that I want. :wall1: :screwy: :laugh:

Maybe. As I wrote earlier in the topic, tech doesn't always play out as it looks when the project is still in early phases. And yes, a mere decade is an early phase. I would imagine that something, someday, will go further, and remove the traditional spinning head entirely. The VHS loading needs to go away entirely. Instead of having the tape go to the head/RF, we need head/RF to go to the tape. ASICs/etc of some sort will be involved, as scripted crap on a Wintel box is for the birds and nerds. But none of it will happen until the tech looks more solid, and not be so easily outperformed by a prosumer VCR from the 90s. Nobody really cares about sidegrades, we want upgrades. The problem here is time is not on our side, and it's a vintage media format now. It may be another case of too late.

I want to be clear here: I think RF will be potential in the future, but vhs-decode will likely fail due to being overrun by too many immature devs and fanboys/cheerleaders. Either that, or they grow up ... and fast.

"good enough" is the enemy to good.

And then the main ingredient to almost anything is time. You can't run a project, like an impatient child, declaring it ready when it obviously isn't. But to reiterate, it's a time race in this hobby/field, and I'm not that confident RF will happen while people still care.

Good talk. :congrats:

Morning! I've been a lurker and don't want to add to the drama, I'm just intrigued by this statement:

From a technical point of view, how does tape degradation affect the signal? If it's something like spontaneous demagnetization (some grains flip their magnetic domain orientation), it results in an overall reduced magnetic contrast, akin to a reduced recording current. This shouldn't really affect the luma signal (other than overall SNR) because it's FM. Chroma, on the other hand, is QAM and the amplitude carries the saturation information. Wouldn't it be at least conceivable that a reduced SNR could affect this amplitude-modulated signal non-uniformly (i.e. frequency- or amplitude-dependent), which would manifest not just as noise but also as reduced saturation contrast in the image? I don't know how severely magnetic degradation affects tapes in the real world (as opposed to e.g. physical damage or mold) and it certainly depends on storage conditions, but I wouldn't straight-out discard the possiblity of loss of color definition as hallucinations...

As for the rest of the discussion, I've seen the argument of "time is running out" being brought up a lot - and fair enough, it definitely is. But isn't it an argument for RF capture at least of the most important tapes in addition to traditional capture before they turn into dust? All analog processing is permanently baked into the capture, so wouldn't it be prudent to bypass as much of it as possible by digitizing the signal directly from the tape and not after the analog processing? The RF capture process (just talking about capture) is arguably more accessible than a high-end traditional setup and the storage requirements are comparable to lossless video, so it shouldn't deter enthusiasts who were already willing to invest so much time and money in a traditional setup. Obviously it's not satisfying to "wait for the software" (or make your own), but you still have your traditional captures to play with until then. The point is that tapes will degrade, a digital image of the tape won't.

I would see it as a kind of speculative (but low-cost!) investment to potentially get a better picture from your tapes someday, you don't have to (and are not supposed to) wait until software decoding has been perfected. Surely that's not something for the mainstream (like people who are satisfied with some HDMI upscaler thingy), but so is high-end hardware decoder equipment. The whole RF capture project is driven purely by enthusiasm for perfection beyond the question of whether it's "worth it". Nobody is in it for the money because it was never supposed to be a commercial product (which already exists elsewhere to some extent), maybe that's the whole point of contention.

Welcome. :)

You're somewhat mixing up concepts here: PAL vs. NTSC, write/storage vs. read, the quality and features of the players, etc. (I'd like to expand in this, but I just don't have time for it right now. I'd need to pull out my signal theory books, brush up on facts, and try to write it in a format readable to mere humans.)

No ... at least not as typically presented ("use bestest ever vhs-decode, not the old poopy method").

I agree with this. Capture with proper workflow first, best possible quality. Then feel free to attempt vhs-decode, see what can be done. I would never be opposed to that approach.

Odds are the current RF method version gives lackluster results overall. Overall. However, some segment may be better. It's really not any different than what many of us already do: capture 1st pass in JVC, 2nd pass in Panasonic, capture 3rd in whatever, 4th, etc. Combine best parts. That tedious process is often what is required for some projects, and it's not something 99% of people will need/want to do.

Something to keep in mind is that tapes may be "one and done", literally self-destructing on capture. So you get one shot. Don't waste it hobby tech that is unproven and known to be variable output. Those must be captured in the best known-quality workflow. I'd no more suggest current RF/vhs-decode than I would a thrift store VCR in this situation.

The problem here is that it's somewhat BS. vhs-decode does not bypass as much as you're led to believe. Yes, it takes out some steps, that might potentially (maybe) cause signal degrade. But the main difference is simply native sharpness. Most other samples that show difference in dynamic range, etc, and comparisons using a junk/crap VCR with the RF method. It's not a true comparison.

Not at all. The RF methods still need quality decks, not thrift store junk. So no cost savings there. The method ignores TBCs, to its own detriment, so I guess you call that a "savings". And then a capture card is still needed. Furthermore, it's not plug-and-play, and has a very steep learning curve, with a large time requirement. So that's not "more accessible" whatsoever.

No, not at all. Loss is about 35gb/hour, and RF captures are way larger sizes.

The issue is impatience. Most of us have stated "DO NOT THROW AWAY YOUR TAPES!" fro years now, decades. Someday, the RF method may mature to the point of reliable usability.

Yes, there is risk with tape loss/failure, but the lifespan of VHS tape is 35-65 years. Some go quicker (rarely, mostly junk grade off-brand tapes), some may last longer than 65 (likely). There should not be a rush, but simply mindfulness of impending timelines. You can probably wait 5-10 more years for vhs-decode to mature, without many (or any) tapes being lost.

Certain vhs-decode devs are way too eager to state "mission accomplished". It's like a kid telling his parents that he's done painting the fence -- but it has streaks, he missed some boards, and he accidentally painted the grass. And it's still all wet, not even dry yet. "Not a bad first coat" you tell him, then he gets pissy and throws a temper tantrum.

Agreed! :congrats:

That's a problem. Software, especially open-source, has a way of just .... ending. Not with a bang, or even a whimper. Just poof, gone. Most here can readily think of software that did this, including video, especially something scripted like Avisynth plugins.

That's a false equivalency there. Not wanting to use RF doesn't mean we want $5 Chinese junk. Discussions here should compare a quality setup to RF, not junk to RF.

I think a lot of people underestimate the use of quality gear, due to their own bias of cheapness. Apple is literally the richest company in the world, mostly due to selling overpriced iPhones, iPads, Macs, etc. But people want it, and buy it. Complaining about costs doesn't affect them, it only affects you. (I have a Mac, several actually, in addition to Windows and Linux boxes.)

Additionally, too many people seem to think only certain gear is viable. No correct. Certain gear is "best", but you can trade down for budget reasons. The only caveat here is that the trade-down incurs trade-offs in quality and/or ease of use (aka, headaches, loss of sanity).

Ah, but you'd be mistaken! There is definitely some shady stuff going on. But to keep this thread drama-free, I'm not going to go into details here.

The main points of contention =
- overstating abilities/needs
- understating existing "competing" methods
- false comparisons

I've long been intrigued by the project, but I'm vehemently anti-myth and anti-BS. Certain egos need to be removed. I think oln/hodgey should be the one leading the project.