Play US VHS tapes in Japanese VCR? (NTSC vs. NTSC-J)
 

I've been searching for a good deal on a JVC HR-S9600+ deck for a few years now, because I just can't justify the $500+ price.

I recently found a few Victor D-VHS VCRs listed for a much more reasonable price. (Victor is JVC in Japan from my understanding.)

However, I'm wondering if the resultant playback will be worthwhile. I know NTSC-J has a higher color subcarrier frequency and more video bandwidth.

From my research so far, playing a Japanese VHS on a us VCR will result in crushed blacks because the US IRE Black signals are at 7.5 vs the Japanese 0 - similar to PAL.

So... would playing a US tape in a Japanese player result in more nuanced blacks? Or will it crush them all the same? Any other issues?

Finally - even if the signal turns out fine, will any of my other video equipment accept such a signal?

Thanks in advance for any answers!

It's not "more nuanced", but just the wrong IRE, too bright. Similar to DVD recorder IRE issues.

Yes you can capture a NTSC US tape with a Japanese model, Just make sure you have the right voltage going in to the Japanese deck which is 100V AC, and set the correct IRE in the capture setting, The NTSC-J as far as I know is an off air broadcast standard it is not related to tape.

Lemme rephrase: I mean, "without data loss." Crushed blacks = lost data. Too bright should be much easier to correct with a proper proc amp... right? :hmm:

Where, exactly?
No such setting exists, as it's tied to NTSC or PAL, or the variants.

Wrong IRE = crushing in either direction, damage regardless.
If not blacks/darks, then whites/highlights.

Good question, You're right most consumer capture cards don't have that feature, in that case just tweak the gain until satisfactory results are achieved.

Ah, okay that makes sense. Thanks as always Lord Smurf!

I think I'll just wait until I can snag a proper US model instead of fiddling with NTSC-J.

Regarding IRE settings (where available) for capture of NTSC video.

I used a SMPTE color bar pattern from a US standard signal generator with setup at 7.5 IRE.
On a properly setup US NTSC monitor anything below 7.5 IRE is displayed as black.
0.0 IRE is blanking level.

I fed this signal through a BMD analog-to-sdi converter and captured with Media Express.
I configured the analog-to-sdi for both 7.5 and 0 setup.
I viewed the captured AVI file in Edius X

With the 7.5 IRE setting anything below 7.5 IRE was clamped to digital 16, the REC 601 black level
With the 0.0 IRE setting signals above 0.0 IRE had digital vales above 16 as expected.
In both cases white was digital 235, the REC 601 white level.

No surprise there. But what this means is that capturing a signal with brightness/contrast level issues may lose shadow and/or highlight detail, or dynamic range. These can arise from a variety of sources including poor original recordings, improperly aligned playback gear, impedance mismatch in the signal path, capture system settings, etc. Playback and capture system components' AGC may or may not compensate for this.

I guess the take away here is know what your gear is doing and check the recordings you are about to capture. It is where a waveform scope and proc amp can come in handy if one knows how to use them.

Hi, sorry to revive an old thread but I want to digitize a bunch of Beta tapes recorded by a North American Beta deck but want to digitize the tapes using s-video so I need a high end deck (one of a few models). They seem to be common in Japan.

Will the Big VooDoo by Key West fix this? I bought one from LordSmurf awhile ago and am wondering if I can buy a Japanese Beta deck, run that signal into the Big VooDoo TBC I have to fix?

Thanks for any assistance someone may be able to lend.
Cheers,
Jeff

I don't see why not. That TBC model can adjust quite a few values, including IRE/pedestal.

Note for others reading:
This is not any random BVTBC. What he has is a specific early-gen model (high transparency, no noise). Most BVTBCs spew noise, stability issues, etc. Lots of "wrong versions" were out there in past years -- but almost none now, good or bad.

Thank you sir,

Much appreciated. So far with my NA Hi8 tapes I haven’t changed many settings. There are some darker videos but the results have been fantastic with this particular TBC. Only took me like 5 years to find time to do this but look great.

Hope you are well and thanks again for hooking me up with this TBC.
Cheers
Jeff

Personally, I like just looking at a realtime waveform monitor in the chain to verify that levels are set such that the waveform never or rarely goes above or below legal zones using a proc amp which can either be part of the TBC or a separate device or capture setting. It's even more useful in an SDI capture setup where you can look at the digital values being produced before it goes into the capture card since SDI devices typically record the levels as is as the signal is already digital.

Even with regular NTSC tapes played back in NTSC machines, it's not uncommon for a VCR to output at illegal levels depending on the tape. At that point, you are relying on automatic gain control of the capture device which I believe in most cases is looking at peak white levels and generally doesn't do anything to increase black levels if they are too low, but I could be wrong on that.