So I've thought about this, and if you treat it like a maintenance plan (like ToyotaCare) with a $500 biannual fee ($250/year) then it makes a lot more sense. At the 2 year point, send it back for maintenance and he'll replace any capacitors that have gone bad since the last repair plus test and fix or replace the power supply, eject mechanism, front panel and so on.

With that philosophy, he doesn't really need to replace all the capacitors every time, just the bad ones.

No.

It's a $2k MSRP VCR, not a $20k+ car. :wink2:

A VCR is a singular main mechanism, with some satellite boards for the more-complex AG-1980.
A car is multiple systems/mechanisms.

It's just lazy shoddy work. Replace all the caps, the end. He knows they'll all go bad within a short time window. So if the game was to force me to be a repeat customer, he lost, I've gone elsewhere entirely. Past decks, new decks, and recommendations to others on where to get their repairs.

I'm out $2k+ from crappy work, and I'm pissed. It wasn't just main VCRs, but the VCRs on standby went bad simply sitting on the shelf unused. While I realize decks go bad, used or not, and constantly mention it, these were refurb'd decks. All caps should have been replaced, as it's the #1 known fail point, and known to infect all caps on all boards.

I could never understand why people record in low speeds? Yes the obvious reason is cost saving but have you looked at their recordings? 90 freaking minutes of shaky video that no one wants to watch, Could have used the 45 minutes in SP mode and still recorded plenty of enjoyable memories if only cared about quality not cost.

What a ridiculous post. Have you watched the other millions of hours of video that others took at LP to cast judgement on them too? How could you possibly sit here, 25 years later, and criticise people who thought they were doing the right thing? I remember very well that VHS tapes cost the absolute earth and people would try any way of reusing them or putting more time on them (LP) to save the cost.

Do I now regret making up second generation tapes to archive instead of just keeping all my 1st Gen tapes? Yes I do. But on the TV, at the time, when I checked them, they looked fine. Pity I didn't have a smart-alec like Latreche as a mate who could have forewarned me about what we'd be doing with video 30 years later.

Sheesh.

It's more rediculous to feel guilty and offended becuase you think someone is addressing you when not, I didn't judge people for saving money, I judged them for wasting tape by shooting crappy and lengthy useless videos when they should have learned how to use the camcorder in the first place and use the tape space wisely.

I personally did use low speed for recording TV shows on VHS that I can care less about their quality but for home videos and vacation I've always used SP and never had a problem with cost of tapes even when I was a student because I don't waste 90 minutes on people faces or the same scene. This is the right way I see it, If you have a different opinion we can discuss it in an appropriate manner without been childish.

Without getting in the personal dispute, I'm inclined to agree.

I'm a cassette nut, but I wouldn't admonish anybody for using a shoe-box recorder and a cheap cassette forty years ago, what's the point? I agree blank video cassettes were frighteningly expensive (in the UK at least, various old catalogues tell me one VHS-C tape cost £8 in 1987, that's £25 today or $33US ) during the 80s which did force many to use trick speeds or reuse cassettes.

Obviously, pricing strategies were different in different markets, and no doubt cheaper tapes were available but it's easy to forget how expensive they were in some markets in their heyday.

Yes and choosing to buy affordable recording media and equipment often meant for many folk capturing precious and lasting recordings of family members and events, as opposed to no record at all.

Even with all the technobabble on why it works how it works, the issue remains that VHS-C was flimsy and cheap, both the cameras and tapes, compared to the best S-VHS VCRs. Even S-VHS-C is equally craptastic as format. All the head count, etc, should be seen as a crutch that allowed the tiny crappy cameras to work, not a reason for it being superior in any way.

As Robust has said, as a format = :laugh:
But most of us only realize that in hindsight.

It's mostly just trivia.

A coin flip, and you won. Congrats. :)

Too many folks are revisionist with their choices. "Well, I knew <blah, blah, blah.>" No, those people didn't know anything either. They just got lucky.

- Yes, costs.
- On typical 19-32" TVs, it looked fine.
- Shaky video has nothing to do with recording mode. Shaky EP = shaky SP.

Agree.

No. These were all live events. You don't know what's going to happen. Shoot first, edit later. Sure, a wedding may have a set procession of events, but not a birthday or swim party.

And when was that? Even well into the late 90s, VHS-C tapes weren't cheap, $5+ each in bulk (10 tapes) for only 30 minutes SP (TC30).Full VHS tapes weren't cheap until the late 90s (>$2), actually more into the 2000s if you didn't want to use random brand junk and/or didn't want to buy bulk (~50 tapes).

I hate revisionism, or misremembering.

I was a videophile well in the 90's, Everyone loved my shooting skills and I stand correct on my points, I criticized people then and I do today just like Lordsmurf does when people use $5 easycaps to save a buck, I'm not attacking anyone personally but I'm entitled to make judgments on the general public technical skills.

To the OP: Sorry this thread got so totally out of line. No excuses for the crap being thrown around.

It’s funny to see in my email that my old thread was revived, as I’ve actually kinda been picking back up on this project to some extent as of this week. Great timing!

I’ve been going through some of the tapes I have, just watching them again if for nothing else other than pure enjoyment. And I was thinking. I really should just do a capture at the same time. Even if it isn’t the best capture possible or strictly going by the textbook best practices, it is at least SOMETHING - and should be better than having absolutely nothing archived digitally while I wait around and chase perfection.

Just to recap my options :

• Broksonic (ever heard of em? Me neither) DVD-R/VCR combo deck. Has the ability to dub to DVD, or alternatively I could find a way of capturing the composite output. Since the signal has to be stable enough for DVD, I am assuming this employs a TBC of some kind (though no idea if it is active over the composite out)

• a late 2000’s Sony DVD/VCR combo deck - without DVD-R recording functionality. This is made late enough that I assume the VCR mech is as cheap as it gets and probably was not made by Sony either. I never put a single tape in it, not even once. So, if nothing else at least the heads are factory fresh. No idea how it looks. Also only has a composite output.

• the aforementioned BR-S822U with TBC

This still seems like my best option as far as I can see, or at least the least-worst of a bad bunch.

It was mentioned upthread by LordSmurf that this would be a bad choice for capturing, but unless I missed it, it wasn’t explicitly explained how/why this would be the case. And I certainly can’t say I’m not pleased with the picture coming off of it - so if I were to just get a capture of the tapes as I play them, I would be pretty content. Even if only for the time being before I pursue something better. It would be a better situation than me just watching the tapes and capturing nothing in the process.

Right now I am just hooked up via component straight into my TV. And it looks, well, fine by me! I’ve seen a lot worse from VHS! Again, almost every single one of the tapes I intend to capture are in-camera originals (full sized and C-sized)

I had unsolvable problems directly loading C-tapes before as it is designed to do, but now I just stick them in one of those adaptor doohickeys. Problem not really solved so much as sidestepped, but it works either way.

Now, conventional wisdom seems to be that the S-video output is the most ideal for the VHS format. However, there are two reasons this may not be the case specifically for this JVC model:

1. it doesn’t have S-video, in the strictest sense. Rather, it has 7 pin “Y/C 358” connectors that are functionally/electrically identical to S-video. Problem is, I can’t find a single place online that is selling the cable (or an adaptor) for this connector. No cable, no capture! So unless this changes, I can’t use it.

2. I did some research and it seems that the TBC in this unit actually natively processes the video in YPbPr - so, the video is already converted to component anyway for digital processing, and is then either output directly by the component card, or bounced back to y/c (or composite) Capturing directly from the component out may avoid any unnecessary additional conversion stages.

Curious to hear your thoughts on the above and what may be my best route going forward with what I have available to me at this moment.

I've moved that threadjack to a new thread. :)

Get a quality setup, and do it.

recommended JVC/Panasonic S-VHS VCR with line TBC
> DataVideo/Cypress type frame TBC
> ATI/Pinnacle type capture card, or LSI based DVD recorder

... and use it. Don't fiddle with histograms per tape, etc. Just capture the video. Go back to certain tapes as needed.

The problems happen when you leave recommended hardware, and use random items, or 2nd/3rd tier type items. This is what causes wasted time, frustration, loss of sanity.

Sanity has been lost a long time ago, that’s how you end up with boxes and boxes full of these tapes in the first place :)

I have no problem going to a totally different capture setup and have been planning to do so anyway, based on your various stickied threads here. I’d gladly drop a couple thou on an AG-1980 overnight if I could! But I can’t, not at this point anyway. So the reality of the situation is that as of now I’m just waiting for “someday”, watching the tapes with what I have, and capturing nothing in the meantime.
I’d rather at least attempt a preliminary capture with what I’ve got rather than just running the tape this whole time anyway, accomplishing nothing in the process and still putting myself at risk of having absolutely nothing archived in any form. If the tape is rolling one way or the other, something may as well be grabbing it.

What is your current digitiser?

Currently I have… nothing! So I’m a blank slate on that front, I can pick up anything. Main priority is figuring out the playback side of things first before moving forward.

Minor correction, I do have an older Hauppage capture/tuner PCI-E card (unknown model at this moment - sorry) that I got new more than 15 years ago. Only problem is, I never really used it, so no idea how it actually performs, and if the best practice is to capture component out from the TBC then I’m out of luck anyway, as this will only capture RF, composite and S-video. So I’m not really considering it in the running as a usable piece of gear for this workflow.