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These are essentially the unwanted/flawed "black" AVT-8710 from Cypress, which is why the board differs a lot. Ambery is purely late 2009 models, and is a "missing link" between green/black AVT-8710s.
You will run into frame sticking/freezing issues -- and it can actually cause dropped frames!
Don't use this for anything important, not for capturing/archiving tapes.
I sometimes suggest these to video artists, if it can be located cheaply. Or if you're a Youtuber that grab silly little segments for content adds, as it does knock out the anti-copy almost perfectly (almost, sometimes exposure issues happen, compensate with proc amp).
EDIT:
This thread actually began as an email or PM, but I always direct people to re-ask their tech questions in the forum, in order to share my answers/knowledge with as many people as possible. Unfortunately, some details were lost in this re-ask. This question specifically referred to an obvious "black era" Cypress TBC that was available (eBay?) at the time.
Anytime you discuss Cypress TBCs, the "green" vs. "black" generation issue must come up. Sometimes the tell is obvious (to me), sometimes not. The AVT-8710 rebadge is often easy, as it's literally black vs. green casings -- although re-casing are a problem in the 2020s. Other models and rebadges are not as obvious.
The root model of this unit is the CTB-100, which was never available directly for sale to consumers. It was a rebadge model only, sold to regional distributors. Worldwide casing colors differed. The Ambery (and Hall Research, and others) had mid-gen "Smurfy" blue(ish) colorings, while latter-gen had less-Smurfy duller blue. The silver/gray varied as well. But it can be extremely difficult to see these differences, without having both in-hand. CTB-100 had early-gen/"green", mid-gen, and late-gen/"black".
The "black" units were far more common under the Ambery brand, and odds are extremely high that you'll see these units "in the wild" (eBay, etc) in the 2020s. Due to construction quality, most early/"green" Cypress units have failed over the decades, including some of my own. But even the mid-gen units have mostly disappeared.
In short, "finding" an Ambery TBC-1 is a terrible idea. These Cypress need to be vetted (by me, or by another experienced user), or else you're probably throwing away good money. Random-buy units should be considered gambling, and you should never spend more than you would at Vegas or lotto tickets.
Last edited by lordsmurf; 06-17-2025 at 08:05 PM.
Reason: Context, added info
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