Is the Panasonic AG-1980 or AG-5710 still worth it?
 

It is 2016 is a Panasonic Ag-1980 or a Ag-5710 still worth it for transferring tapes over? Is the Ag-5710 any better than the Ag-1980?

Thanks

2016 doesn't matter.
- VHS was the format on the late 70s, 80s, 90s and early 2000s.
- Panasonic's AG-1980P/5710 was the best Panasonic machine made for NTSC VHS playback, during the late 90s and early 00s.

So in terms of being "latest", for VHS, it is the most recent best technology that exists.

Now, after about 15 years, the capacitors start going out. That's not a Panasonic issue, or a VCR issue, but a general electronics issue. But unlike these high-end VHS players, most other electronics was long ago junked. So it only seems like Panasonic and/or VCRs have caps issues. But it's not hard to fix, and even a repaired deck is less that the cost of the deck when new.

new = $800 street (1999)
used with issues + repairs = $100-200 deck + $300 repairs
used in good condition = $350-500

That tracks pretty well to pro camera equipment, musical instruments, etc -- ie about 50-60% of new.

The 5710 is the 1980 without a tuner. And tuners don't matter. The 1980 is just far more common that the 5710.

Okay just won this on Ebay. I hope they Ebayer is correct about there not being any problems. http://www.ebay.ca/itm/322185347030?...%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

Let us know how it goes. :)

If everything is working fine will I see better picture quality/stability when compared to a JVC HR-A5U and a Citizen JVS3968?

When waa thw Ag-5710 manufactured? Same as the Ag-1980?

It seems to be working great from what I can see. Bright lcd, good picture output.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCGHnUQIYzY

A simple video this time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rROL...ature=youtu.be

Did UTube processing screw up the color, or does the tape really look that dim and reddish, or does it just play that way through the VCR?

That is a good question. The tape was recorded with the TBC on. Without it on the tape was brighter.

From Vimeo https://vimeo.com/176547447

What recording software is that?

The tape looks to be a typical off-level recording from a retail tape. I see too much of that. Retail wasn't necessarily good, or even better than a homemade tape.

To decide if the VCR is good, I'd need to see several tapes, with TBC both on and off.

Vidbox for Mac was the recording software.

Mmm, I have to disagree, unless the UTube and the Vimeo clips are the same clip, but they don't appear to be. Both have exactly the same brightnes and color values, as any histogram will confirm, although the tbc version is cleaner with better looking lines and edges.
http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/atta...1&d=1469718516

Histograms from both frames posted above look alike:
http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/atta...1&d=1469718561

I'm unsure that the samples are conclusive, as both are improperly processed. The original film was telecined, but your posted videos show field blending and object distortion in telecined frames (2 of every 5 frames). The result is horizontal motion stutter. Both clips have frame hopping on the same frames, but the non-tbc also has vertical jitter, line twitter during motion, and many more broken lines, ripples and dropouts. Both clips have been incorrectly encoded as progressive, where VCR playback was interlaced with hard-coded pulldown, which is usually encoded as either interlaced or would be inverse-telecined to progressive 23.976 fps with 3:2 pulldown flags added for 29.97 play. The low 400 kbps bitrate is not a reliable guide for playback ability or motion handling. And large-GOP interframe lossy encoding would be disastrous for frame-specific edits.

You have some tracking problems:
http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/atta...1&d=1469718698

Try fast-forward rewind to the end of the tape, then fast-rewind back tot he beginning a few times to even out bumps and lumps in the tape winding. It helps to get smoother tape feed. The frame above also shows the typical field blending double-image not interlace or telecine combing. Note that there is a left and right image from two blended fields: in telecined video, one of those fields will be duplicated in the next telecined frame, so the next field-blended frame is going to show part of the same image. You can also see object distortion from field blending and low-bitrate encoding.

Why not post a couple of chunks of original, unprocessed capture here in the forum? Those would be a more reliable and conclusive test of playback pros and cons, the low quality of the tape itself notwithstanding. The most one can say here is that the tbc is needed with this tape. If the samples are indeed original and otherwise unaltered edits (they appear to have been lossy encoded more than once) you have some very low quality video on your hands to work with if you intend to spiff up the images, and restoration work on lossy captures will only look worse.

Amen. I've struggled through plenty of those.

Amen again.

Both versions on vimeo and youtube should be the same with the tbc on. There was no editing done just recorded through the vidbox then uploaded to youtube. I am going to switch to an ATI 600 or 65p USB card soon.

Whatever, I don't know what 65p is (typo, I guess. I confess to many msyelf!). Double frame rate deinterlacing of NTSC results in 59.94 fps. But with telecine you'll just get duplicate frames from deinterlacing and lots of ghosting. If you want progressive video from telecined NTSC film source transfers to VHS, capture at 29.97fps interlaced, then inverse telecine for 23.976 progressive. If you want PC-only or external media player operation, film speeds usually work OK, although playback isn't as smooth on 60Hz or 120Hz displays at 23.976. If you want 23.976 fps progressive as DVD or SD BluRay, it isn't allowed.

An ATI 600 via Virtualdub lossless capture is more flexible and precise. But it won't work on a Mac.

I forgot:

The vimeo clip has different encoding parameters. Of course, a website's processing presents unknown factors. That's why we suggest posting original samples directly to the forum.
:wink2:

65P was a typo should have been 650.

Here is a raw video uploaded to my google drive. from 0 - 16 seconds the tbc was turned on. 017 to the end the TBC was turned off.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bw...lZWZkJDU09vSWM

65P was a typo should have been 650.

Here is a raw video uploaded to my google drive. from 0 - 16 seconds the tbc was turned on. 017 to the end the TBC was turned off.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bw...lZWZkJDU09vSWM

Should be able to download it from there.

Here are some more samples:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bw...1FETnAxTTZ5SFE

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bw...jJxZ1gyMnd0S1k

Thanks for the post. :salute:

The levels change is pretty obvious here. I'll give it a closer look at report back.

To which tbc do you refer? The VCR's built-in or an external frame tbc? The player's line tbc appears to be working in all parts of the sample, brightness change aside. And, are you using the AG-1980?

The vcrs tbc. I am using a Ag-5710.

Thanks for that info.

Again, you have interlaced source with hard-coded telecine, but captured and/or encoded as progressive. I've attached a MediaInfo report on the original .mov. The MediaInfo data indicates that the original video used pulldown, which here has become field-blended. The chroma ghosting is pretty obvious. What concerns me more is that the 5710 appears to need clean new caps in its color and tbc board (lordsmurf can look things over, but that's what it looks like to me). The color board is outputting a dim, discolored image that looks pretty much like the previous samples. Besides chroma and field ghosting, colors don't look clean -- that could be a problem with the tape itself -- and there are tonal shifts typical of VHS plus chroma shift and bleed. Some of that can be fixed in post processing. Some scenes look as if they have audio sync problems.

Another major concern is that capturing to lossy codecs throws away 50% of the original chroma resolution. NTSC VHS is 4:2:2 YPbPr, not YV12. For restoration you want a losslessly compressed 4:2;2 (YUY2) original with all of the source chroma data for cleanup and color work. But that's up to you. AVC encoding is a final delivery format not designed for edits or restoration, so limit your expectations when working with that codec. There are a few very mild sharpening halos, but not enough to worry about. There are a lot of lossy compression artifacts (block noise).

I worked in YUV with your .mov file, mainly increasing luma gain and reducing red contrast, then moving to RGB in VirtualDub. The more one works with this capture the more one can see problems caused by ghosting, field-blending, and lossy capture. The results are attached as tbc_mov_rework.mp4. You'll see a definite "blip" at frame 533 where the tbc was changed. Luma gain increased at that point by about RGB 30, which I corrected with a negative luma offset in YUV.

I don't see that further work would make much improvement, considering the problems mentioned. The MediaInfo report on the original .mov is attached as tbc_mov_MediaInfo.txt.

DVD1.mov and DVD.mov look cleaner and sharper. But they're permanently damaged by field blending, are degraded by encoding with a lossy low-bitrate codec in final delivery format, and they still have blue and green channels crippled. There are pro shops that can replace aging Panasonic capacitors with new ones (try TGrantPhoto). If you take that VCR to your local repairman, you might possibly end up kissing it goodbye unless he has the training to work with prosumer players.

There's little to gain from getting into further restoration detail until you have the resources to avoid low-bitrate lossy captures and can get normal color and tbc performance restored. Avoid the newbie superstition that interlace and telecine are evil. The technology is still the worldwide standard for professional newscasting, HDTV shows, live sports broadcasting, news reportage, DVD, many BluRay formats, etc., etc., etc. You can get better results and save yourself a ton of trouble by learning to work with it. If restoration and cleanup are not on your agenda for the future, you could get better results with a repaired VCR and a DVD recorder.