I'm running a VCR into the Panasonic DMR-ES15, to the RetroTINK 2x Pro, then the Magewell USB Gen2, capturing in VirtualDub. But when I bypass the ES15, I get a few more lines of signal at the top of the frame. This isn't enough to be concerned but is there any known reason why the ES15 is cropping a tiny bit off the top?

I've attached a single frame from each signal chain with close-ups of the differing image outputs.

Attached in a 30-second clip showing a side-by-side comparison between the straight-from-VCR signal, vs the passthrough signal from the Panasonic DMR-ES15. There are obvious differences but the clipping on the top of teh post-ES15 signal is curious.

Why use the Retrotink pro with the Magewell instead of just using an analog capture card? A regular analog capture card would be cheaper I think. Not trying to pick your workflow apart I’m just curious about why people do that one. The prices on the Retrotink and the Magewell card are kind of up there. Just from my quick search I am seeing the Retrotink 2x pro and the magewell used from eBay for like 300 together and if you buy new the Magewell is 300 alone. A lot of the videos I’ve seen where people use HDMI are the worst but I don’t know about the Retrotinks because I haven’t seen many samples from them.

I don’t think even the Retro RGB people recommend the 2X pro for capturing analog.

Your captures are clipping.

Thanks for the reply - I appreciate your time.

I have not liked any of the USB analog-to-digital capture devices I've seen yet (I'm on a laptop). I guess the IO Data, and one other do an OK job. But almost none convert as cleanly as the RT 2X Pro. Watch the Reasonably British review of capture cards - funny but informative. I think he gets a dig in on this forum.

I bought 2x Pro direct, so paid full price, but Magewell was $40 off eBay - works like a champ. This fall I will likely buy the RetroTINK 4k and sell the ES15 and RT 2x Pro - unless some other amazing thing comes along.

The VCR I used for that capture was worse than I realized. Three VCRs later, I'm getting much better results. I have a JVC HR-S5902U arriving tomorrow, which should be a drastic improvement as well. I can maybe follow up with new reference captures.

Mostly, I'm just curious if other people's ES15s clip a littler off the top. Thanks again for the reply.

Just to be sure, this is basically then capturing 480p at 59.94fps with the way you have it set up? Apparently the signal off of the ES15 is stable enough for the 2x to not choke, eh?

Funny thing is I have all of the items you do for testing (well, an ES10 instead of ES15), I just never really thought of hooking them up that way haha.

The Magewell USB Gen2's seem to have gone up to about $100+ possibly due to that RetroRGB video came out, but what's mainly unique about them is that they can capture 480i or apparently 480p over HDMI, not sure they really are special otherwise, just known to work for SD capture over HDMI.

Out of curiosity, what were the stregths/weaknesses of the 3 VCRs you went through and what were their model numbers? Seems there are a lot of tradeoffs in terms of apparent sharpness/detail across brands/models with JVC not always looking the best depending on the desired look you're going for. I suppose VHS decode would give the best representation of what's actually recorded on the tape, but that might not actually look the best either.

This is just a basic comparison I saw recently, but the JVC is surprisingly much softer, though one could also say that the sony is just oversharpening (though I'm not seeing the typical halos associated with that?). It's funny because the original poster of the comparison below thought the 3800U was an obvious step up in quality whereas I see it as the opposite personally. All that it's missing is a line TBC, some better dropout compensation, and better handling of chroma errors which a line or frame TBC might also improve (well, everything but the dropout compensation). Of note, neither of those have a line TBC to begin with, so it's a pretty fair comparison:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbYl6nUS3GU

No - it's definitely 480i @ 59.94 fields per second. You guessed correctly - playing my old EP tapes, there's absolutely no way the 2X Pro could cope. The ES15 is required for those, unless I'm capturing a commercial grade tape, or something that my 20 year-old self fortuitously recorded in SP.

I initially tried the EasyC[r]ap capture dongle because it came free in a mixed box of items I bought. After I saw that the video in my camera's viewfinder looked better than what I captured, the autodidact in me kicked in and I start learning what's what.

So why the RT Pro 2X? Mostly because I needed a way to digitize the analogues and Reasonably British covered it pretty well. I have this video time-marked, since the opening is a rant:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flc8pOWm6YQ&t=240s

I got super lucky with the Magewell, It looked like an edit house divest itself of a bunch of gear, and I found it as a new listing and they accepted my offer.

I tried an Emerson and a Phillips VHS/DVD combos - both budget models. They both looked nearly identical from a build standpoint (like rebadged models), but the Phillips was a bit better - image and sound. And I also have a much older Panasonic. It has good color and better dynamic range but the image is too noisy. The Phillips performed best but I had to "massage" the moving parts to get it to play tapes - it would power down sometimes - so it needs service. It ate a test tape, so it's a no-go for anything valuable.

Yes - the S3800 is way softer but the color and dynamic range are much better. I see plenty of sharpening (edge enhancement) in both, but I'm going to image the source video had some, and teh Sony added more. Most JVCs have a Sharp, Edit, and Soft/Normal modes. S3800 was likely in "Normal" mode, which a applies a low-pass filter to make tapes look less noisy. On a CRT, it's probably very effective. You can restore a little bit of detail in post - see the attached photo in the lower left-hand panel, both there wouldn't be much you could do to reverse the Sony's brutalization of the tape's color and luminance levels.

Thanks again for the feedback. I'll let you know how the HR S5902U works. So far, I've noticed the menus are 240p - which sucks. The Video Stabilization also seems to pop VHS playback into 240p intermittently. Unacceptable. I'll post another cap of the Welcome Back Cotter clip capped from it when I get a sec.

Composites comb filter reduces your lumas bandwith.
https://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vid...-lossless.html

The dynamic range you can capture to is usually 16 to 235 for luma. Most cards clip luma beyond those limits. You have to have a special card like the ATI AIW cards to be able to capture 0 to 255 in YUV but those require XP OS.

With the Retro RGB people they don’t really seem to know what they are talking about. I’m not saying I know a ton but these guys do. That device is really made for video games. It doesn’t have a TBC. I think of it as if they really knew what they were talking about people would be asking them for advice and not asking here. Even when they try and prove the TBC functionality I’m thinking what? That didn’t prove anything. https://youtu.be/Br6YRkOM9jA?si=oBYh3NYtlVtO13hl

-- merged --

Actually in the video I sent the first comment I saw was a person saying the 4K and 5X are fumbling with timebase errors and they are getting an actual TBC from here. I would just look into it before you buy it. If that’s what you want then cool. Anyways hope it goes well.

Yeah - the Sony was exhibiting blooms and blown out highlights in spots. See attached screen cap - notice the wood grain on the hand rail, the letters in the signage and the inset on the window. The "New VCR" preserved all that information. This would give the user some hope in post to restore the image.

I'm not sure what experience the Retro RGB guy has either, but he shows his homework so he's getting decent results. I haven't seen any DataVideo TBC vs the RetroTINK 4k yet. I did find a RT 5x vs a Big VooDoo+5x. The Big VooDoo was awful. https://youtu.be/58M3OkkHMrI?si=PRdjqj_xK8Ndx6qZ

I'll end up doing a ton of research before I buy anything I think is an upgrade from the ES15.

Of course I might have saved some money just getting the IO Data GV USB2. It's $60, seems to be able to handle a wobbly signal very well - according to the Reasonably British channel's tests. The only thing I didn't like was it cropped the video a little bit.

Do not use a video game capture card for video tapes. Both are "video", but not the same. No more than a cat is a dog.

That's a terrible comparison, because I don't think he has the BV TBC setup correctly. I would wager money that he has the comb or pedestal set wrong. Or more likely, he never set anything, just plugged it in, didn't RTFM.

The ES15 has slight AGC issues, heavy posterization issues, etc. It's not hard to find an upgrade off it. It's not a frame TBC whatsoever, merely a strong+crippled line TBC in a consumer DVD recorder.

Reasonably British is an AI generated channel. No idea who is behind it. He/she/it (script writer) is amusing, but there is wrong info being presented there. He/she/it has admitted to being a newbie in past comments, it's not some seasoned quality advice. Newbies mislead newbies far too often. Telephone gamed schlock.

Yes, I've tried a couple and have been very disappointed. In this case, however, the 2X Pro has a 480i pass-through mode. If there's a better analogue-to-digital video device outputting a clean 480i signal for around $130 USD, I never found it. If anyone knows of one, then I'll sell the 2x Pro on eBay and upgrade, so I'm open to ideas. My only loyalties are with the bang-for-buck.

That what folks are saying. I'm not seeing any sign of that yet. From what I understand, shutting off its Line-in Noise Reduction prevents it? Would posterization show up as banding in the sky? I attached a frame grab - VHS camcorder shot in 1994.

The content is most certainly scripted and acted out by a human. He admits he has absolutely no idea what he's doing but the tests were simple enough to connote the right ideas. If there's a better YouTube resource it would be useful to know that. 99% of what I could find uses the Elgato or EasyCap.

In terms of YouTube channels, I personally feel like Video Capture Guide is great compared to the sea of YouTubers talking about Elgatos and other lower quality equipment, he uses recommended equipment and just offers comparisons for you to decide if X is better than Y.

:smack:I shoulda stayed on topic.

The cheap easy way really isn’t this site. This site is about quality. It’s the right way to do it.

If you’re not seeing the clipping then you aren’t going to see banding. Some stuff is more noticeable on a bigger screen and played by VLC. YouTube makes a mess of videos.

Dave’s Archives is a popular channel. Here’s a video on his workflow
https://youtu.be/9W37qO4fnjQ?si=FsVvW-07o0nSMj5M
He got both of his BigVooDoos for $20 a piece in 2017. If someone goes really cheap like that with legacy gear like this then that does happen. If you see a comparison it is important to look into it.

Yes - that's why I'm here and maybe I didn't communicate my approach. I need to know "the right way" so that I can understand which compromises I can tolerate given my budget constraints. So I meant "bang for buck", not "cheap and easy". They are very different philosophies and nothing about my approach so far has been simple or easy. It's been painstakingly methodical.

I'm capturing uncompressed and playing back on a 32" 4K monitor, pouring over the results, frame-by-frame A/B comparisons, and pixel peeping in DaVinci. I attached a screen cap - I guess I'm not sure what I'm looking for in terms of posterization. Although this video isn't ideal ( https://youtu.be/hM4XUczSb1w ) you can see some obvious color shift from the ES15 0 which had both the Line-in NR and DNR turned on.

Hey thanks! I've actually seen some of these videos but for whatever reason I wasn't subscribed. I subbed.

Comparisons are like that a lot. It’s gear they bought for nothing on eBay or wherever that was in bad shape or they don’t know how to use it then they have a big channel so there comparison gets to a bunch of people.

YouTube in general has a lot of misinformation about this. Anyone can make a channel. It’s a better idea to get a card from the marketplace on this site and read through this forum than it is to go looking at a bunch of YouTube information. Capture guide’s channel does have accurate information because it is parroting information from this forum.

Yes - absolutely. 90% of what I've seen is useless for decent quality captures. I actually have been reading this forum for many years - it's just that my interests have changed recently. 20 years ago, I was dealing with DV video, but now analog video is my focus. Thanks for the feedback.

You’re welcome.