Where to find a TBC?
 

Hello hello! First time on here! I don't know where to post this, so I'll put it here, hopefully it's fitting for the topic!

Anyways, I am aged 16, and I am greatly interested in VHS and VCRs as a whole. I even managed to digitize a couple VHS on my own, using my own VCR!

However when watching other digitized VHS videos, such as on archive channels, it felt weird to see how "clean" they looked, as mine has light horizontal "bend" (As in, the left/right sides of my footage look bent, as it's recorded straight from the VCR).

I am aiming to have the best quality footage as possible, and deinterlacing interlaced footage and interpolating it using VirtualDub did not feel enough for me. Besides, I still had to fix the common audio delays using a video editing software.

After a lot of research I found out about TBC's, but even then I couldn't find any that were or affordable, or available at all. The CTB-100 I was aiming for ended up not being up anywhere!

Are there any available, affordable TBC's I can find for under 200$? Do I even need a TBC to have proper footage?

Thanks a lot!

TBC's became collector's item now, With Panasonic DMR-ES15 or ES10 hooked up as a passthrough you can get an image stable enough to watch with minimum tweaking, Even those are rising in prices as demand surges.

The sync audio to video option in VirtualDub should fix that.

So I could buy one of these and have a stable enough picture, right.
But do these work for SECAM-format VHS? I've heard about different formats not working.

This is lack of line TBC. You need a better S-VHS VCR with line TBC.

If all tapes look bad, adding an ES10/15 should come 2nd to simply using a better VCR. All tapes do not have tearing, and anti-tearing is what ES10/15 is mostly intended for on passthrough. (Using ES10/15 at all times as a TBC is generally not advised, as it has negative side effects as well as good.)

Loss of audio sync due to dropped frames. This is lack of frame TBC. Not line, but frame.

Define affordable. TBCs were always in the $500+ (quickly jumping to $1k+) price range about 20 years ago. Add in inflation (2020s dollars vs. 90s/2000s dollars), continued demand AND ceased production (due to lack of chips needed by fabbed anymore), and you arrive at the current $1k+ pricing for the best models. (And under $1k for crap that doesn't work right.)

You need to look in the marketplace subforum: http://www.digitalFAQ.com/forum/marketplace/

Most likely that was a bad model, aka "black AVT-8710" generation Cypress. You didn't miss out.

TBCs were never under $200, never will be. The raw components needed per unit easily double that amount and more.

It's like asking for a decent car for only $500. No.

No. A collectible has no value aside from being collected. TBCs are functional tools, no different than washing machines or lawn mowers (many of which are easily over $1k). It's not something you display, but something to be used. TBCs are boring boxes, but perform magic (complicated tech) on videos. The videos look better, transfer properly in quality. That's the role of a good TBC (as made for videotape sources, not broadcast rackmount units).

ES10/15 has quality-reducing properties, it's not all good. ES10/15 is ideal on when the net result is better. In general, a better S-VHS VCR with line + external frame TBC are suggested.

- frame TBC cleans the signal
- line TBC cleans the image
You need both.

ES10/15 alone has a high fail rate, as it's a strong+crippled kine TBC with non-TBC frame sync. So you can still have legit+false anti-copy issues, as well as a audio drift. The output of the ES10/15 is not perfect, as it was never intended for passthrough. The output waivers some, not fully frame locked like frame TBC would do. This is more easily seen on bad nth gen, but always exists.

That's not how that works. Sync re-modulates the audio, so you get chipmunk and "Barry White" audio in response. That's no good for noticeable audio sync issues. That setting is only good when the frame inserts happen, or rare dropped frames in a proper TBC workflow. Very tiny adjustments.

No and no.

For SECAM, TBCs are a larger problem. Not impossible, but harder. My last SECAM TBC just sold, but I can some in from time to time, few times per year. It was an uncommon format, and TBCs supporting it are equally uncommon.

This is very complete! Thank you very much for that!

It happens often I stumble upon posts from 2002/2003 talking about how a better S-VHS VCR with TBC included will work, but is it really true though?
Perhaps a SECAM-Compatible S-VHS VCR can work, wouldn't it? I only have regular tapes, I don't know if the TBC would work on those, as they're regular VHS tapes.

The tapes don't look "bad", they simply have occasional horizontal bend or "waves", but they're very gentle, there's no important damage of any of the tapes.

So I could use an ES10/15 as a passthrough then, right? What are some of the negative aspects of which? If there are, are there any way I can prevent said negative aspects from happening?

Something consumer-friendly, but it's a little ridiculous now that I say it given it's a professional tool, used for broadcasting...

I'll try to find an external frame TBC using the marketplace link you provided.

If that's even possible, I could convert SECAM(_L) tapes into PAL, maybe?

Thanks again for the complete post, lordsmurf! :)
It is a confusing topic, but I'm hoping to understand this whole thing better :D

VHS tapes are from the late 70s to early 2000s. Why would advise from the post-VHS era change? S-VHS VCRs with line TBC is as true now as it was in the mid 2000s. People were just starting to discover what quality gear was, and discussing it on the still-new internet.

You don't own S-VHS VCRs for S-VHS. You own it for high playing quality of VHS tapes.

Semantics. Wibbly-wobbly bending flippy images are bad.

There are no SECAM ES10/15 units.

I ended up getting myself an S-VHS VCR, with a Line TBC with it!

Thanks for all the information! :congrats: