Japanese TBC 3DW Pro SKNET any good?

[tnxyz]

hey lordsmurf,

since i am currently looking for an external TBC (better than the ES-10), i stumbled across this perhaps rather unknown japanese TBC from a now bankrupt company. it’s called SKNET 3DW Pro.

https://www.ebay.de/itm/265878040360

in the link above you can find some specifications. you can get it for pretty cheap from amazon japan (used of course), but it wouldn’t help me personally since it’s NTSC only.

i’m merely interested in your expert opinion—at first glance

thank you & best wishes

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[lordsmurf]

The Panasonic chipset in it is flawed, lots of documentation on that about 15 years ago. Not a unit I'd bother with. Values are screwed, introduces quality issues. I forget all the details now.

Somebody necro posted about it on Twitter in recent years.
https://twitter.com/nappasan/status/...468096?lang=en

Quote:

3DWPro has got an older TBC chip named MN673744 and it causes the said rainbow artifact. All the Panasonic recorders that come with this chip have got the same issue as well.

It was also mostly line TBC, not really frame. It's like a crappy beta version of the ES10/15 units.

Other items badly used the chip, and it ended up doing nothing at all.
https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/...Reference-info
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...9rs/edit#gid=0

Quote:

Canopus ADVC-300 and Edirol VMC-1 both used MN673744

That person on eBay just randomly copied something inaccurate. eBay now often has bad info on TBCs, sometimes outright absurd BS. As I always mention these days, eBay is not a trustworthy place to acquire TBCs, odds are against you finding a good unit now. And that includes all the "tested" and "working" nonsense.

If you truly do not care about quality, then it's better than nothing. But that's really an oxymoron of sorts, somebody that doesn't care doesn't spend even $100. Those that care should pass, they'll be frustrated and disappointed. It won't be what they wanted.

Other Panasonic chips that have similar numbers don't necessarily act the same.

A lot of the video gear from that exact era, from these exact companies, were (at the time) infamous junk that many people avoided. These days, it's mostly forgotten gear.

Update/Edit/Note: There are versions of Edirol VMC-1, both decent and bad.

[lordsmurf]

This needs to be bumped because eBay sellers are still shilling these devices.

Namely this seller: https://www.ebay.com/usr/aaron_sells_premium_things

His nonsense eBay description:

Quote:

Tested and working perfectly. This device is mainly used for VHS Stabilization or video glitch devices. Signal is clean and tested with a Chroma corrupter video glitch synth - no dead signals when adjusting knob parameters. I can provide a video demo and proof of functionality, just send a DM
This works nearly on par to the quality as a Datavideo or an AV tool works; which tends to get listed here for over double what I’m selling for. This helpful video by Emerald Coast Digitizing does an excellent job of demoing; be sure to check out the test clips starting at 8:55
https://youtu.be/W2I7gV1apD0?feature=shared

That description is BS at best, purposely lies at worst.

The seller is either unknowledgeable about these items, or he's just lying to newbie suckers.

These units use primitive flawed versions of the line TBC chips used in Panasonic ES10/15 recorders. But these are worse, because there is zero frame correction. At least the ES10/15 have a non-TBC frame sync, these Japanese SKNET boxes have nothing.

Do not buy these. It is worse than a cheaper ES10/15, and not at all like DataVideo/Cypress gear.

I don't know what the MSRP on these was, but we have to assume it was quite cheap, probably in the $99 range (sold in Japanese ¥), as it had limited functions, very comparable to Sima boxes in the $99 MSRP range. I would even wager SNKET was competing with Sima devices from Taiwan.

Quote:

For video glitch artists; This is a pretty straight forward device, you can crank any knob on your glitch device and the signal won’t go dead

This won't really help with glitch art, either. Line TBC will interfere with the art, frame TBCs with high transparency are needed.

[aramkolt]

The Emerald Coast Digitizing video does show that it does something for chroma stabilization at least, so I could see some situations where it might be useful. To me, the color looks a bit more natural with it compared to the others, but hue and saturation could likely be changed in post to make them all look similar.

I actually have one of those for testing that basically looked like it was crushed in shipping before I bought it as a parts unit, but I swapped out all of the missing components and I am pretty sure it now works as intended. I don't have an actual test designed for how to really evaluate effectiveness versus other devices, but it's on the "to do list" somewhere.

[lordsmurf]

Quote:

Originally Posted by aramkolt

The Emerald Coast Digitizing video does show that it does something for chroma stabilization at least, so I could see some situations where it might be useful. To me, the color looks a bit more natural with it compared to the others, but hue and saturation could likely be changed in post to make them all look similar.

I actually have one of those for testing that basically looked like it was crushed in shipping before I bought it as a parts unit, but I swapped out all of the missing components and I am pretty sure it now works as intended. I don't have an actual test designed for how to really evaluate effectiveness versus other devices, but it's on the "to do list" somewhere.

I don't disagree that it can have a place in a gear stack -- though, again, it is based around a known-flawed chipset. I own comparable (and better) devices, including the ES10/15 recorders. It helps when you work with lots of screwy nth-gen type tapes.

The problem is that it's being touted as a Cypress (AVT-8710, etc) or Datavideo (TBC-1000, etc) replacement. That's simply false.

The main issue with these exact Panasonic chips relates to the chroma, and rainbow artifacting.

[Aya_Rei]

Another thing is the Ebay seller is touting it to be for glitch artists, which is a different ball game from digitizing old analog tapes.

Isn't it like with converting analog tapes some are rather clean signal wise, others are bad. Meanwhile glitch artists are intentionally making extremely messed up dirty signals as an artistic choice. Which is why certain TBCs are best at stabilizing terribly created signals. It is like you intentionally turn off auto tracking and set the manual tracking to a point that the video is garbled tracking mess.

This might do well at that front, but perhaps not for serious analog tape archiving.

[latreche34]

Aramkolt, Try using it with one of your u-matic machines to see if it helps with line timing, A simple test will be with and without it being in the chain, it should be a straight forward comparison.

[lordsmurf]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aya_Rei

Another thing is the Ebay seller is touting it to be for glitch artists, which is a different ball game from digitizing old analog tapes.

Isn't it like with converting analog tapes some are rather clean signal wise, others are bad. Meanwhile glitch artists are intentionally making extremely messed up dirty signals as an artistic choice. Which is why certain TBCs are best at stabilizing terribly created signals. It is like you intentionally turn off auto tracking and set the manual tracking to a point that the video is garbled tracking mess.

This might do well at that front, but perhaps not for serious analog tape archiving.

I forgot to address that in my last post, so I've edited it.

This won't work for glitch art because the line TBC messes with the artwork. It needs a strong high-transparency frame TBC for the signal, that also doesn't mess with the image.

These SKNET boxes will be as bad as those low-end mixers that have weak TBCs.

I can only assume this seller has zero experience with glitch art.

[Aya_Rei]

Okay now on the topic of glitch art I am reminded of a reddit post where a user forced a VCR to read a VHS tape upside down

You wouldn't want a TBC to try and correct glitch art, that is defeating glitch art's purpose. Intentionally being well, glitchy and crappy.

[lordsmurf]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aya_Rei

Okay now on the topic of glitch art I am reminded of a reddit post where a user forced a VCR to read a VHS tape upside down

You wouldn't want a TBC to try and correct glitch art, that is defeating glitch art's purpose. Intentionally being well, glitchy and crappy.

That's all crazy neat stuff.

[aramkolt]

Quote:

Originally Posted by latreche34

Aramkolt, Try using it with one of your u-matic machines to see if it helps with line timing, A simple test will be with and without it being in the chain, it should be a straight forward comparison.

I should be able to do that soon.

The other machine that I've got that seems to create a lot of "flagging" is an SLV-R1000, so might give it a try with that as well. I'll probably make a separate thread that shows the results.