NTSC capture on PAL VCR?
 

unfortunately I am forced to try capturing the NTSC tape on PAL VCR tape. (there are no ntsc players available in europe) can you advise on the best equipment to get a digital copy on a computer.
I need Player, recorder, etc

You can get this: https://vcrshop.com/product/vcr/vide...-ntsc-secam-4/

Isn't the best option, but it makes the job. You can get an S-video output with the SCART connector.

If you'd like to get a unit with line TBC and DNR, your best bet would be JVC HR-S7600AM. I own one myself and I believe latreche34 owns two. It is one of the only decks that can read both 525 (NTSC) and 625 (PAL, SECAM and MESECAM) lines without any conversion. Unfortunately, those units are extremely rare and I was able to find one only by sheer luck and closely monitoring the listings. If you'll be able to find one, however, it's very well worth having in your collection. Alternatively, you can monitor the marketplace forum and see if a recommended NTSC deck pops up, but that would most likely cost you extra with all the import taxes.

It depends how much you want to spend on it. The budget option is to a PAL VCR with NTSC Playback (most from the late 90s and newer and some ealier) + a pioneer or newer sony dvd-recorder for pass-through most of those can handle and stabilize NTSC 4.43 and PAL60 input. (NTSC 4.43 is preferable to PAL60 if available as it doesn't involve any conversion)

The TBC on PAL JVC SVHS decks and possibly some of the later Panasonic SVHS decks (does not work on NV-FS200, NV-HS1000 at the very least) work on NTSC playback (though giving PAL60 output).

Cheaper multi-system VCRs (cheaper than e.g the Samsung converting vcrs noted earlier in the thread) that do PAL + all NTSC variants incl native ntsc (aka ntsc 3.58) are somewhat common to find on the European market too which would let you use a panasonic dvd-recorder (2005 models and newer) for stabilization/tbc as those can switched to NTSC (but do not support NTSC 4.43/PAL60 like the pioneer/sony models).

If i have capture card ATI AIW/PINNACLE do I need sony/pionner dvd-recorder?
Jvc s9600 will be ok for playback?

You do need a vcr that plays your tape correctly, once you have captured it, in digital on your pc, it does not matter if it is NTSC.

it would be great. but which player available in Europe plays NTSC tape well

You can try to see if it's sufficiently stable and in sync first, need to set the capture card to PAL60 mode to get correct color. If not one of the sony/pioneer dvd-recorders with pal60/ntsc 4.43 support should help with it.

How many tapes do you have?

I have PAL and NTSC equipment, with TBC, etc in Europe, I am not a digitization service, but maybe we can arrange it in a friendly-manner.


Feel free to send a pm!

The S7600AM cannot playback SECAM in color, It's a true PAL/NTSC but not SECAM, It does playback camcorder recording that were shot in MESECAM in color, It is true that is the only S-VHS deck in history that is capable of playing back more than one standard natively without conversion and built in line TBC. JVC made other S-VHS machines that playback all standards natively but without line TBC, Other multi standard brands do exist albeit only basic VHS and no TBC such as the Samsung series.

I have a JVC HR S9700MS this appears to be both Secam and Pal and has line TBC?

True SECAM was rarely recorded direct on VHS…. the tuner is SECAM but the recording the VCR makes is mostly in MESECAM.
camcorders is a different story for SECAM, you have to do specific research for any model is my guess.

Are you serious or just trolling???

Attachment 16461

Attachment 16462

Yes, and it is one of the few devices having TBC active on SECAM signals (my JVC HR-S9500MS has not)

https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/...oo#post2686466

No offense, but this is a very misleading statement that lacks context. A random (French) reader will say oh "X said SECAM is rarely recorded, my tapes must be PAL then". SECAM is not rare in France and French-speaking regions in EU. In fact, I have seen more SECAM in France than PAL. So no, this statement holds true only in your own experience, and your knowledge of where you live, don't phrase it as an absolute general truth.

____________________


I am assuming "Robinthehood" is a very literal translation of "robin des bois", except that in English it is Robin Hood :question:

How is SECAM and 9700MS relevant to this discussion though? the 9700MS (even though I believe MS stand for multisystem, it is just French multisystem, not worldwide) is not exactly a worldwide VCR as it will not (according to the manual) output NTSC.

There is a discussion that is relevant though:

https://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vid...cam-vhs-2.html

I think the link lollo posted might be of interest to the subscribers of the other thread. Would you mind sharing it there? (or if I do it myself?).

Btw, there are proper manuals in pdf there with better quality containing the same content of the image you just shared.

@lollo, you say it is one "of the few", assuming 9700 and 8700 really do have TBC for SECAM and not just a mistake in the manual, what are the others, do you happen to know any? Thanks

Like said, SECAM is not stored on the tape

And now we pass from "rarely" to "is not stored on the tape" (ever?)

and Like I said, I have seen ALOT of SECAM recorded tapes. It depends on the VCR. To my knowledge, Many of the common VCRs in France do record SECAM on tapes. Up to you to believe it or not.

Either way, SECAM is off-topic here, feel free to open a new thread called "SECAM tapes do not exist" and we can discuss it there.

Just read message #12 very closely, SECAM = MESECAM on tape
view also attached picture in message #16

No sorry; it may happen with > X700 series, like 9800, but I ignore if they were released in MS format. Better to search in a french forum

He is joking, and confuses AM series with MS series, and French SECAM recorded on tape with MESECAM

@lollo2, Thanks for your reply.

Yes, ofc, if 9700/8700 later gen will have it, 8800MS/9800MS do not exist, but 9850MS does exist and indeed has the same phrasing as the manual of 9700/8700, so if the hypothesis is valid for x700* is should hold for x850
(x700 where x in {8,9}, the 7700 does not have SECAM TBC only PAL, 8850MS does not have TBC at all, the 8850EU version has PAL TBC)

>Better to search in a French forum
In French forums, the barely know what a TBC is, the ones who know, do not use French forums, and/or are active here/on VH.

---
I honestly can't tell if he is joking or being serious :ohmy:
Either way the manual of 9700MS explicitly mentions that it does record SECAM tapes. It can even receive PAL in and record it as SECAM on a Tape. Panasonic FS100 does the same.

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)