Is this result of different alignments?

[PizzaTime]

I am trying to determine the best way to recover this video. It is from a b-day in '97, and it appears that the tape is a conglomeration/edit of two different sources. I'm wondering, will I have to adjust the path alignment to get this to work? And if so, is it a pain to change it back? I don't have any external TBCs, so I would have to adjust my nice JVC players, I presume?

I should mention, I already tried messing with the tracking on two different JVC decks. It is not EP, but I threw it into my Panasonic AG-1070 for kicks and giggles. Same image results.

Anyway, I have attached a short sample of the tape in question.

Any and all help welcome!

P.S. The sample I attached starts at about the 15min mark of the OG capture. There is footage preceding this of static shots of photos of the birthday girl. Those are all clear.

[aramkolt]

That doesn't scream alignment issue to me - usually that's more like horizontal lines of sparkle static that tends to be in thicker bands towards the top or bottom of the picture.

Generally, if you were to attempt to mess with the alignment, you'd want to do it on a deck that you don't care about because it's often hard to get them back into the appropriate alignment afterwords. But I still don't think that is what is going on here.

The vertical jitter at the beginning may be improved by a frame TBC potentially as that is one of the things they do, but the rest looks more like perhaps baked in errors from being a second or third generation copy. The horizontal lines being off like that usually would be partially or totally repaired by using a line TBC-containing VCR --- IF it is a first generation tape. There could still possibly be some improvement if it isn't a first generation tape though.

What's your full capture setup/chain for that look like for that capture and does it have a line TBC that is enabled?

Also, how long is that bad segment since you mentioned that the first 15 minutes of the tape are clear?

I'd be happy to do a full conversion of it for free as I've been looking for tapes like this that have really bad timebase errors for equipment testing. I have just about every SVHS VCR with a line TBC and many different frame TBCs for testing, so I would be very surprised if some combination doesn't result in a significant improvement. If it isn't a first generation tape, then the results likely won't be as impressive as an original recording. If interested, PM me.

[PizzaTime]

Quote:

Originally Posted by aramkolt

What's your full capture setup/chain for that look like for that capture and does it have a line TBC that is enabled?

Also, how long is that bad segment since you mentioned that the first 15 minutes of the tape are clear?

Capture chain is: JVC SR-VS30 --> ATI All-in-Wonder VE --> Windows XP. Using Vdub on the XP machine to capture.

The whole capture is about 53min. Also, I need to correct myself, the bad part starts at about 13:30. So, the bad segment is about 40min.

I think the bad segment is at least a 2nd gen copy that was edited onto this tape.

[lordsmurf]

Quote:

Originally Posted by aramkolt

That doesn't scream alignment issue to me - usually that's more like horizontal lines of sparkle static that tends to be in thicker bands towards the top or bottom of the picture.

It may be audio head alignment, not video guides, which visually presents different.

I need to look at the attached sample.

[themaster1]

strong timing issues, you need a good tbc to fix that

[timtape]

Quote:

Originally Posted by aramkolt

... the rest looks more like perhaps baked in errors from being a second or third generation copy. The horizontal lines being off like that usually would be partially or totally repaired by using a line TBC-containing VCR --- IF it is a first generation tape. There could still possibly be some improvement if it isn't a first generation tape though.

As I understand it, TBC's were used on the ' stitch in time saves nine' principle, or 'look after the cents and the dollars will look after themselves', meaning the relatively small time base errors of the first generation tape playback were corrected before copying to the second generation copy, then the 2nd generation timing errors were corrected before copying to the third generation, and so on down the line. So they didnt just use a TBC randomly but used it at each critical stage of tape editing/ duplication. In theory time base errors could be managed even over multiple generation copies. Other generational losses inevitably occured regardless of time base correction. But at least the time base errors could be corrected even if the other losses couldnt.

This video seems to represent the time base errors of maybe three generations all mixed together. Can all these errors be repaired now when they've been baked in over multiple generations? I doubt it but others will know.

It's always best to hang on to original analog footage wherever possible, whether videotape, audio tape, film. The mixed, edited tape generation might seem to be the most important one to keep but usually it looks and sounds worse than the original, sometimes a lot worse. Sometimes if it's a family footage, a relative or friend may have a better quality tape, maybe even the original camera tape.

[Aya_Rei]

Quote:

Originally Posted by timtape

As I understand it, TBC's were used on the ' stitch in time saves nine' principle, or 'look after the cents and the dollars will look after themselves', meaning the relatively small time base errors of the first generation tape playback were corrected before copying to the second generation copy, then the 2nd generation timing errors were corrected before copying to the third generation, and so on down the line. So they didnt just use a TBC randomly but used it at each critical stage of tape editing/ duplication. In theory time base errors could be managed even over multiple generation copies. Other generational losses inevitably occured regardless of time base correction. But at least the time base errors could be corrected even if the other losses couldnt.

This video seems to represent the time base errors of maybe three generations all mixed together. Can all these errors be repaired now when they've been baked in over multiple generations? I doubt it but others will know.

It's always best to hang on to original analog footage wherever possible, whether videotape, audio tape, film. The mixed, edited tape generation might seem to be the most important one to keep but usually it looks and sounds worse than the original, sometimes a lot worse. Sometimes if it's a family footage, a relative or friend may have a better quality tape, maybe even the original camera tape.

Not the OP but I agree here, it is always best to use the original source if available. As an example, had a 2 hour tape that was an edited together wedding video from 2000, but also had access to the original raw footage tapes captured from the full size VHS camcorder, sucks they were stored in an attic instead of a temperature controlled living room, but thank god they didn't develop mold. Funnily enough I managed to talk to the videographer, who believes the raw footage tapes I had access to were actually edited down VHS tapes from S-VHS masters, which sadly no longer exist.

The raw footage tapes were digitized and then edited together using a PC by the videographer, who made a video file to be played back on a VCR so that the then newly married couple could have their edited wedding video on VHS, another copy was also created from the same source, being a video file on a computer. Comparing the two copies, quality wise they were pretty much identical, but one of them had Hi-Fi audio while the other did not, but that's besides the point here.

Sometimes a VHS copy can be extremely bad, if not outright unusable to work with. I got a tape of somebody else's wedding, this time from 1999. The Kodak tape, while physically appearing fine was completely screwed up signal wise. Looked like the control track was so messed up one of my VCRs couldn't detect it properly, it was an EP recording being played in SP, leading to a blue screen and sped up audio, it could've been recorded from an extremely misaligned VCR. My second VCR detected the recording speed properly, but the footage kept on cutting in and out.

For now, I'm on a quest to fully determine if the contents of the tape were a copy by seeing if the person who filmed the wedding (which I was told was a friend of the bride, they only hired a professional photographer) was using a small compact camcorder instead of a big shoulder mount VHS camcorder. If so, then the original footage must've been either video8/hi8 or VHS-C and is hopefully still in the friend's possession.

[aramkolt]

Agree that if line/frame TBC was used while making each of the following generation tapes that timing errors should not accumulate to such a significant degree. I would still expect the image to lose a bit of detail or perhaps have added image noise with each new generation though.

That's actually on my "testing" to-do list - Make a 5 or more generation tape using line+frame TBC versus just line and just frame TBC and post the results. There are lots of YouTube videos about regular generation loss where presumably no TBCs are used, but I've never seen one that shows generation loss while using TBCs at each step. It's a little late to be particularly useful these days, as tape-to-tape editing/copying doesn't really happen anymore, it's more for science. My guess is that those generation loss videos are also only using composite (and possibly crappy cables) since they want the losses to be pronounced for dramatic effect.

But back to the OP - Have you enabled the line TBC on the VS30? It's one of the few models that doesn't have a button for TBC enable/disable on the front and it has to be done in the VCR menu using a remote. I've had something like 5 VS30's at different times and I don't recall their TBCs "going bad", but I have seen it on the SR-MV series which are of similar vintage, though they use a completely different deck design and circuitry. Recapping the SR-MV series TBC card fixes that (so I now do that regardless of whether the units show issues or not), but they have a very annoying RF shield that needs to be removed to get access to all of the capacitors. Typically you'd know that something is wrong with your TBC if the image gets visibly worse when enabling the TBC versus leaving it turned off on tapes that already play well.

Offer stands to convert your tape for free if you're willing to send it to me in the USA.

[PizzaTime]

Yes, I have enabled the TBC. I think I even tried turning it off and messing with some other menu settings. suck as, turning off video calibration. I know it usually helps with this deck to have it on more than other decks, but I thought I'd try it. Same issues.

I do appreciate the offer to take a look at it! But I think I will hold off for now. It is not even my tape nor a family member's. It's a coworker's tape. But, based on the feedback, I might ask him if he has a family member with an original.