Correct. It is just a hypothesis for the x700 as well, until we do not see an evidence of it with a real captured video with T.B.C/N.R on and T.B.C/N.R off (I do not own one of these machines, so I cannot help, sorry)

No need to apologize, I will try to get my hands on one of these and prove the hypothesis with more rigorous testing, (unless
Robinthehood or someone else beats me to it). I have a couple of SECAM tapes that will surely show if the TBC is active or not. Thanks!

No. There are 2 different types of SECAM format on tapes, french/proper secam used in france and MESECAM used elsewhere where SECAM was used. The output from them is both SECAM but the way they're recorded differs a bit. Recordings in SECAM were obviously common where SECAM was used, not common elsewhere.

That VCR does not support native French SECAM, I have two of them, The MS version supports SECAM.

Do your homework before making wrong guesses, This is nonsense.

I'm happy to do some tests with Secam tapes and my 9700MS... I'm actually very interested in the Secam format as my transfers are very poor compared to Pal/Ntsc
And as to your earlier question... Robin.the.hood.. Robin(the)Hood... Rob.in.the.hood... I like to amuse myself playing with words... Childish I know!

Childish? not at all, usernames have to be unique and amusing, I was just curious how you came up with it.

Would be great if you have time and are willing to post in a separate thread few samples of captures with TBC on/off for secam tapes.

Feel free to pm me if you need to at any time!

:congrats:

Or according to Tom Tom Club.... "Words are trouble, words are subtle" :laugh:

@lollo2 and @Robinthehood

I just checked the manual of the 9700EU.
Attached in the post also available on:
https://data2.manualslib.com/pdf/9/8...72ee686f162602


And I *guess I* know exactly what happened in the French manual of the 9700MS.

They probably blindly translated this sentence without thinking about the SECAM that is added in the MS variant.

I would be very amazed if they developed a new feature for a format after it died, in a VCR that came out towards the end of the VHS and VCRs era.

Yes, that's what probably happened. My and others hope was that in the manual of the HR-S9500MS there is explicitely written "Reading a SECAM or MESECAM tape, DIGITAL T.B.C./N.R is not active even if the button is lighted".

Attachment 16468

On the 9700 manual the name SECAM disappeared and only MESECAM remained.

Attachment 16467

Only a real test on the field can dissipate our speculations ;)

Mesecam and secam are 2 differents standard anyway.Maybe a translation error or maybe not.It would be the first vcr i'd see that support secam on the tbc end. We're waiting for your thorough tests

Given the complicated nature of chroma encoding/de-coding in the SECAM/MESECAM standard, it could be that they decided it is not worth passing the signal into a TBC/DNR, may be the losses and complexity of design from decoding -> converting to digital -> processing -> converting to analog -> encoding the chroma is not worth the effort.

The signal is standard Y/C at the point where it gets to the TBC/DNR in these JVCs, so it would be a little odd for the TBC/DNR to only be active on one of MESECAM and SECAM tapes since the format would be the same at this stage (unless it would be due to MESECAM being more degraded causing the TBC to be unable to handle it or something.)

It would require a bunch of extra logic for the TBC to handle SECAM though yeah which would only have much value in a very limited marked compared to NTSC/PAL. That's also kinda the reason MESECAM was a thing, as it reused most of the PAL circuitry while the full SECAM tape variant used in France always needed one or more separate ICs.

What do you mean by "the format will be the same"? Unless it's decoded first into YUV and then digitized by the TBC's ADC, it is not the same, as I mentioned above SECAM chroma decoding and encoding is complicated, And if there is no chroma decoder for that format the TBC has to be set to off by design when SECAM/MESECAM is detected, Or at least that's the theory if indeed there is no TBC availability for SECAM, I don't own a machine so I can't be certain, I just go by what the members report.

I mean the signal at that stage would be the same format between MESECAM and SECAM playback. PAL and NTSC tapes would be different of course.

Here's a link to two 30 second files.... Maybe someone can see a difference?
VHSC Secam tape recorded in 1992
https://drive.google.com/drive/folde...usp=share_link

I see not much difference. There are some, but may be related to different captures at different times, and/or some N.R. active or not:

Attachment 16470

https://imgsli.com/MTc0OTk3

As oln and latreche34 pointed out, being the nature of SECAM and MESECAM different than PAL/NTSC, but very similar between them, it is highly unlikely that JVC, at some point in time, implemented the TBC for SECAM and not for MESECAM.
Strangely SECAM beeing not supported for TBC operations disappeared in 9700 documentation compared to 9500, but not MESECAM.
But you never know.

If you can provide a comparison including a video with evident straight vertical lines it will be easier to compare the TBC effect, if present.

Should be pretty easy to see if anything happens if press the TBC/DNR button, if the TBC is active you typically get a slight hiccup when it's activated. May also be harder/easier to see the difference depending on what is used for capture.

+1, this is what I told him via PM, observing correction on such a scenario is the most evident way to tell for sure. But how to fabricate such test conditions if you don't happen to have a tape that fits the description already?


If you allow me, I would say this is almost always not wrong, but sometimes it is not true (in my limited experience with my own VCRs and my own tapes), so I won't count on this as 100% proof, but it is an indicator.

+1, for the argument about secam/mesecam, you guys brought is a very good point, no reason to do it for secam but not mesecam. That makes me insist they just used the English 9700EU manual as a reference, added SECAM in input/output tables and forgot to add it like they used to in 9500/9600 manual for the TBC sentence.

Without a lineTBC most of the vertical and diagonal geometries will be distorted, so it is easy to find a significant pattern in many tapes.

If it can help, I have a "sort of demo" here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tec6g_Qjh1Q; if you are able to record that video on tape and capture with and without lineTBC you'll see the difference (the overall quality will be degradet, but it should be enough)