Best capture card for glitch effects? (bad signals)

[OldZisty]

Hello There! First post.

I'm a video artist who works with a lot of circuit bent devices, and I'm looking for a capture card that can handle these esoteric signals.

In the various video art forums, most people actually recommend rescanning (which is just taking a video of a CRT with a DSLR.) The reason being that most capture devices cause some loss of fidelity in the glitch effects when digitizing the signal, whereas CRTs display them well (as long as you maintain some semblance of sync).

I figure if anyone has any good ideas for capturing these crunched signals effectively, it'll be here!

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Anyway, I'm looking for the highest quality raw capture possible. If the card does anything to "fix" the image, it probably won't work.

I've read through many threads here - but many of the cards recommended for professional capture of SD footage seem like they might not be suited for the task of capturing utterly destroyed signals.

I'm thinking that means I'm looking at older professional gear - but I don't know where to start. Any advice or insight would be much appreciated!

(No requirements such as OS or cost... though winders 10.0 spyware edition compatible devices would be a bonus. I know the OS is terrible for capture though.)

Pic related - it's an example of the kind of wild signals I intend to capture.

Video Nasty Gltich Effects.jpg

[dpalomaki]

Not sure what you mean by "glitch effects." I generally think of a glitch as the result of recording over a previously recorded area without a flying erase head.

You say it is art so precise reproduction of the original physical scene may not be the goal.

If the intent is to preserve the trashed signal aspects that a TBC would try fix or would cause a capture card to drop frames or otherwise hic-cup, but a generic TV set would coast through displaying what it may (because most TV sets were forgiving of sloppy signals) recording off screen might be the better bet. Use a TV with good color reproduction, and camcorder with variable shutter (e.g., clear scan) to avoid the scrolling retrace bars that results from the camcorder and display having slightly different speeds.

[latreche34]

You need something like the Ensemble Design BE75 or equivalent of pro devices, Those act just like TV's. Here is a TBC stress test I've made from a no RF signal just like you see your TV displaying when there is no TV channels.

[hodgey]

Another probably cheaper option is to try sending it via video mixer (panasonic, videonics etc), though some may try to "correct" the signal a bit. Most of those will output something stable with any errors baked in that a capture card can then handle.THose are also popular thing for glitch video art in general. Nearly all capture cards will output nothing if the signal is too bad to varying degrees, so not sure how easy it would be to find one that doesn't.

[OldZisty]

Quote:

Originally Posted by dpalomaki

Not sure what you mean by "glitch effects." I generally think of a glitch as the result of recording over a previously recorded area without a flying erase head.

You say it is art so precise reproduction of the original physical scene may not be the goal.

If the intent is to preserve the trashed signal aspects that a TBC would try fix or would cause a capture card to drop frames or otherwise hic-cup, but a generic TV set would coast through displaying what it may (because most TV sets were forgiving of sloppy signals) recording off screen might be the better bet. Use a TV with good color reproduction, and camcorder with variable shutter (e.g., clear scan) to avoid the scrolling retrace bars that results from the camcorder and display having slightly different speeds.

The community generally refers to the effects produced from circuit bent analog video devices as "glitch." I know, it's not a true glitch if you're forcing it - but that's what they call it.

You are totally correct about recording off screen. Most people in the community use rescanning, and there are loads of guides on shutter speeds, moiré fixes, etc. I'm just hoping for a capture solution, because I hope to pipe the captured video directly into other streams.

Quote:

Originally Posted by latreche34

You need something like the Ensemble Design BE75 or equivalent of pro devices, Those act just like TV's. Here is a TBC stress test I've made from a no RF signal just like you see your TV displaying when there is no TV channels.

THIS is EXACTLY what I'm looking for! Thank you so much!

Also, holy heck those things are expensive! Time to start saving I guess lol.

Do you know of any other similar devices? Do you think other, perhaps cheaper ED gear might work?

Thank you again!!

Quote:

Originally Posted by hodgey

Another probably cheaper option is to try sending it via video mixer (panasonic, videonics etc), though some may try to "correct" the signal a bit. Most of those will output something stable with any errors baked in that a capture card can then handle.THose are also popular thing for glitch video art in general. Nearly all capture cards will output nothing if the signal is too bad to varying degrees, so not sure how easy it would be to find one that doesn't.

Yep - I've actually got a couple mixers from lucky auctions. A large part of my current effects is a quad feedback loop between two mixers, with one of the weak chromakeys tuned to the other's feedback, then the other's chromakey tuned to the first chromakey. It's wild!

Anyway... you're totally right too that these help cut down on blue screens. (I also built this small sync restoring circuit recently too.) But, I'm not so worried about the capture card not functioning - as I am about it not capturing a faithful reproduction. It seems like most try to "correct" the image in different ways - and I'm trying to purposefully modify those signals.


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Thank you again to everyone who replied - I definitely have a decent starting point with the Bright Eyes 75.

If anyone else knows of any capture devices that create 100% faithful reproductions of what they're fed, please let me know!

[BW37]

If you are not processing the audio signal, you might want to look at the Ensemble Designs BE1 and BE3 as well as the BE75. They don't process audio at all, but appear to be comparable to the BE75 in other capabilities. Also, if you are using composite signals only (not s-video) then the BE25 should be an option.

That said, this post seems to be a bit of a concern. I'm not sure why the BE25 would be any worse at handling "a low end VCR" signal than the BE75 since it includes a TBC/Frame Sync as well. But the results discussed in the thread do raise concerns on whether any of the Ensemble Designs devices will pass a bad signal faithfully.

To be fair, the whole point of all of these systems is to fix and standardize the signal when it is "bad" so you are asking them to do almost exactly what they are designed to prevent...

Still, an interesting proposition

my

BW

[OldZisty]

Quote:

Originally Posted by BW37

That said, this post seems to be a bit of a concern. I'm not sure why the BE25 would be any worse at handling "a low end VCR" signal than the BE75 since it includes a TBC/Frame Sync as well. But the results discussed in the thread do raise concerns on whether any of the Ensemble Designs devices will pass a bad signal faithfully.

To be fair, the whole point of all of these systems is to fix and standardize the signal when it is "bad" so you are asking them to do almost exactly what they are designed to prevent...

Right? It's an odd situation for sure. 90% of this hobby is using equipment in the opposite of how it was intended lol.

I do plan on trying to capture via s-video, and I have a sync-restoring circuit as well that a member of the community built. I haven't tested it very thoroughly though. It seems like the BE-75 is the way to go.... now to find one for cheap!

[latreche34]

If you are lucky you might be able to find one where the seller doesn't know what it is for, but eyes are watching for those things, I've sold 3 lately auction style and they were all sold for little under $1000. Such devices were under $200 just few years ago.

[themaster1]

looks like time delay related glitch, pretty sure you can do that with the vhs-decode project if you tweak the settings, no ?