Hello, welcome.
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Originally Posted by aramkolt
There's a lot of talk about various TBCs and how some are "less strong" than others or that some of the less expensive ones might not actually do anything at all. Are there good demos of some of the higher end ones compared to lower end ones out there?
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Not yet. I've been acquiring samples for a while, but holding all until the site re-dev.
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There was an interesting method of just tapping a tape lightly while it it is playing to create reliable timebase errors
My thought is you could either physically tap the outside of tape or case of the deck, or have some sort of a weight on a hinge that is dropped from a certain height that should generate enough of a reproducible physical vibration to the VCR using to do the test to get repeatable results with a static recorded image to see what different TBCs will actually do to improve those mechanical errors.
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No, that's not the same. That doesn't create normal timing errors.
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I'm not aware of a way to have a digital version of a timebase error that you could play back as analog,
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That cannot exist.
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The HR-VS30U I've been messing with actually seems to have better video output with the "video stabilization" option selected instead of TBC
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That's not accurate. The stabiilzer cannot correct timing errors. All it does is attempt to lock jittery (not jargon "jitter") video, attempt to corral erratic whole-field/frame movements. It's not that successful.
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I understand the ideal workflow would be to have a full frame TBC in line to either be used together with or alone after the VCR,
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VCR > TBC > capture card
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but there don't seem to be a lot of great options out there
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What do you mean? There are quite a few decent options, the only variable is condition and availability. Don't buy from eBay.
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and I don't really want to have to buy them all to see what works well.
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Why would you? I've used and tested probably 90%+ of all TBCs, and shared my findings in summary form.
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VHS_Decode seems interesting too, but a bit beyond my expertise to get up and running and the ~100GB per hour thing for the initial capture file sizes is also a bit intimidating
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vhs-decode isn't what most people think it is, nor even what gets claimed by the fanboys of the project. It's just an alternative capture method, but with many limitation and caveats. It's certainly not any sort of TBC, or TBC replacement.
We have a vhs-decode dev here at this site, and he's very grounded in reality.
vhs-decode is mostly good a slight % recovery of sharpness, though not guaranteed. And again, it can add back errors not found in the standard VCR>TBC>card workflow. I've seen a few scant samples of other possible benefits, including a recent sample here in the forum that showed some ghosting suppression on a tiny sample. But it was very case-based, small proof-of-concept type samples.
While interesting, it's just not a project feasible for normal use.
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Last question is whether TBC is supposed to do anything for vertical shaking, or just horizontal?
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That's not the goal.
Line TBC mostly corrects visual issues. The errors can be removed/corrected/suppressed or minimized. But it depends on the root cause of the issue.
Frame TBC mostly corrects signal issues. But the byproduct can be to remove/correct/suppress or minimize whole-frame errors (namely bad/wrong whole-frame movements).
Understand that TBCs are not magic boxes intended to fix whatever ails the picture or signal. TBCs do correct a vast array of issues, the byproduct of correcting specific line/field/frame issues. But it's not there to just fix any random issue seen on screen. The VCR can be a major determining factor as well, which is why a quality S-VHS VCR with line TBC is so important for quality, in addition to the frame TBC after it.
