Trouble with Sony TRV-350 passthru, no stereo?

[zeeboos]

Does anyone know if the Sony TRV 350 inputs stereo when using the S Video input. To get sound using the S Video cable it is necessary to connect a 3.5mm stereo plug into the Sony. I am using an audio Y cable that has two RCA plugs on one end. These two wires convert to a single wire with a 3.5 mm stereo plug at the other end. When I plug the 3.5 mm plug into the Sony only one side is played. The VCR is sending the signal down both the red and white output. When I plug the red plug into the VCR I get sound and it does not matter if the red RCA is plugged to the red or white out on the VCR. When I use the White wire from the Y cable I get no sound on either output from the VCR. I tried a second set of wires to see if the cable was bad and got the same results. Does the Sony only take in mono in this pass thru mode.
I am hoping someone is experienced with the Sony TRV 350.

My setup is a consumer VCR that is connected to a Sony TRV 350 with an S Video cable. I then connect the audio Y cable. The two cables on one side of this Y cable are RCA and they convert to a single wire with a 3.5mm stereo plug on the end. I then pass the analog signal thru the Sony TRV 350 which converts the analog to an AVI digital signal. I then use Video Studio Pro X7 to capture the video. I have a Panasonic 7650 that I plan on using but am waiting for some cables I bought on Ebay to arrive.

While I am waiting I would like to know if the Sony only does mono or if there is some software change I need to make in the Sony’s menu to get it to play out both sides. I have read the manual for the TRV 350 and it did not seem as though it was limited in the pass thru in mono only.

Thanks guys for all the help on my previous post.

Zeeboos

[sanlyn]

Quote:

Originally Posted by zeeboos

I then pass the analog signal thru the Sony TRV 350 which converts the analog to an AVI digital signal.

"Convert" is not the correct term. The SONY takes an analog signal and encodes it to a lossy video codec along with all the noise on the tape.

I'm pretty sure your SONY outputs mono through that jack. Didn't your camera come with a user manual?

I take it you're the same user who asked about a tbc-equipped VCR. A tbc that precedes the tbc in your camera renders the camera's tbc ineffective because the camera's tbc will see no incoming errors. But you'll still have the benefit of a tbc either way. It's confusing to find that you're concerned about highest quality in a player but losing quality at the other end with lossy DV. But whatever......

[msgohan]

You need a 3-ring 3.5mm jack to get the right-channel audio into and out of the Sony A/V jack.

Search terms like "3.5mm male to 3 RCA male".

3-5mm-stereo-male-to-3-rca-male-cable.jpeg

[NJRoadfan]

I can confirm the D8 camcorders support stereo audio on that jack. Using the above cable of course, but a standard stereo to 3.5" TRS jack cable should work too. If the source is VHS, perhaps it only has a mono linear audio track? Consumer VHS decks generally only output stereo when a Hi-Fi audio track is present. Some early pre-1985 decks supported linear stereo, but the decks and the recordings are relatively rare.

[msgohan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by NJRoadfan

a standard stereo to 3.5mm TRS jack cable should work too

It doesn't work, for the reason shown in the post I linked above (on the word "need"). The Sony sends/receives composite video over the conductor that a TRS jack uses for the right audio channel.

I found this out the hard way, having just bought a used Digital8 yesterday with the wrong cable included.

Sony DCR-TRV340 outputting composite video over red plug of TRS to 2xRCA cable:
audio-and-composite-amplified.PNG

[Goldwingfahrer]

Sony DCR TRV 350 Manual
https://docs.sony.com/release/DCRTRV350.PDF

[sanlyn]

Quote:

Originally Posted by msgohan

You need a 3-ring 3.5mm jack to get the right-channel audio into and out of the Sony A/V jack.

Search terms like "3.5mm male to 3 RCA male".

Attachment 5811

thanks for jogging my memory. That's what I recall from my sister's old SONY camera, which was either this model or one like it. She lost the SONY a/v cables and tried to replace with a a 2-wire cable from RadioShack. Mono audio only, that way.

See the page of supplied parts on page 9 of the 350 manual linked in Goldwingfahrer's post.

[msgohan]

It's actually a clever pinout arrangement, since it lets you at least see and hear your videos on TV in a pinch if a regular audio cable is all you have on hand (just plug the red wire into the yellow hole). I'm sure your average consumer with no S-Video connection would much rather have video + mono audio than stereo audio with no picture. Lots of people had mono TVs anyway.

[zeeboos]

I want to thank all you guys for the help you have given me. The picture msgohan sent told it all. I already had a three ringed jack like the picture. It was in the garage, I plugged it in, and out stereo came. I would have thought that a regular stereo plug would do the trick. If one looks close they will see that the one that works has three black insulating rings instead of two like the standard stereo plugs. I did not use the one I had in the garage because I thought it was a standard stereo plug and the yellow wire is for a lower quality video than S Video. I had a monster stereo plug and figured since it was free I may as well as use what some claim is the better makers of cables. I am still using the S Video cable for picture. Everything I have read tells me this should give the better video signal of the two. Thanks msgohan.

I suspect this is a common mistake. I am glad this post will be around to help others.

Sanlyn thanks for the information about having two TBC running at the same time. I had just assumed that the Sony’s TBC was turned off on passthrough. I thought it only worked when I was copying my Hi 8 tapes through the Sony.

Sanlyn as far as you being confused about the quote
“It's confusing to find that you're concerned about highest quality in a player but losing quality at the other end with lossy DV.”

I don’t know how much is lost in the encoding by my Sony. But my instincts tell me that it is better to have a decent VCR and lose some Quality while encoding, than to have a bad VCR and capture lossless. I am not looking for perfection just the best I can do without buying a new video card etc. The Video card would have to be low profile as well. Then downloading a decoder. Then I would have to figure out how to use the decoder. Then buy a couple of more trancsend terabytes hard drives to hold the lossless files. Maybe if I saw the difference I would be willing to buy the card etc. Since I can`t compare the difference I am just doing what seems like for the time and money put into the project is worth the difference. Not perfect but pretty decent.

Thank you all for the help. Been well worth the price of membership.
Zeeboos.

[msgohan]

I'm working on putting together a comparison of lossless vs DCR-TRV340. I could just post the images I have now, but I would have to crop them to a small corner of the frame because the most interesting results are in shots of family members. Some of them don't want their faces on the interwebs.

I need to test more closely, but I think the Sony always performs TBC on the stream that's output over Firewire. It has to do frame sync, at least, in order to feed the DV compression chip with a stable input.