How to deal with jumpy video?

[egarcia]

Hello all,

I'm sure this is a common issue that happens, but I'm in the middle of a large VHS conversion and some of the tapes have some frequent jumping issues.

I'd like to think that I have an awesome setup (thank you LS!) with a JVC S-VHS, TBC, and a great capture device. It's not consistently happening, which leads me to think it is the VHS. I probably haven't played some of these tapes in 20+ years.

I'm wondering if it's something that can be corrected in editing, or if I should potentially try something different with the tapes that it is happening with? For the moment, I'm just trying to get everything converted and I'll deal with editing, etc. later, and I'm just marking the tapes that this happens with to potentially come back to later.

Thank you in advance!

P.S. Random side note, but Googling this issue I had to smile when the AI answer referenced this site's recommendations.

[Aya_Rei]

There is this avisynth script that'll help but, it's really only designed for a small amount of random frames that have like a one or two pixel offset. You have to manually find the offending frames, and specify the offset for either the top field or bottom field.

If the jittering is rather constant, then maybe try to disable the TBC that's built inside the VCR and add in a Panasonic ES10/ES15 DVD Recorder into the chain

so the setup would be like this VCR - ES10/ES15 - Frame TBC - Capture Card

since the ES15/ES10 adds audio delay, it is also best to route the audio through it before the capture card

[egarcia]

Thank you! I wish my Panasonic was still working. I may have to see if I can find another one. I did try disabling the built in TBC, but that didn't seem to make much of a difference, if at all, with the jumpiness. I am noticing that I see it happen the most consistently (at least so far) on my RCA tapes. Not sure if those tapes are lesser quality than other brands.

[vwestlife]

What is your "great capture device"? Is the picture jumping visible when viewing the VCR connected directly to a TV (preferably a CRT model)?

[egarcia]

I couldn't remember hence my "great capture device". Ha! I looked back on messages and see LS described it as the ATI USB clone capture card. On the particular video I was just reviewing, I did try it in the TV, albeit with a different VCR (this CRT has a VCR built in), and it did have some issues at first, but seemed to "settle down". Again, this is another RCA tape that I seem to be having this issue with. Currently have a Maxwell tape in there and not having any issues. Here's a quick clip of some of jumping going on. This isn't as bad as other points in the tape where it's consistently like this.

[lordsmurf]

It's not the capture device.

If JVC line TBC turned on (as it should be 99%+ of the time), then the most likely issue is that the tape has tearing (harsh timing errors at frame/field start). The JVC line TBC is unable to handle these excessive errors, as it wasn't intended for overly signal-damaged tapes. The Panasonic ES10/15, however, did expect truly awful video, and has a strong (+crippled) line TBC. So disable JVC TBC, add in ES10/15 as line TBC in passthrough, then pass to frame TBC, then ATI capture card. The reason that ES10/15 is not used full-time is because it suffers from quality-degrading aspects. So only use when needed.

If JVC line TBC turned off, and no line timing correction present, then your specific Cypress TBC may be attempting to lock a "too short" frame. Again, ES10/15 will be needed here, as it corrects wrong-length lines (aka tearing correction), as well as a missing lines that can cause image jumps. The line-corrected video can then be passed out to the frame TBC, as the ES10/15 does not fully/correctly output video with accurate frame timing (especially on nth gen messes).

As a fellow hobbyist, you often deal with nth gen sources (copies of copies of copies, etc) of rare shows. This is to be expected eventually.

Yes, RCA is bottom-barrel, one of the worst tapes ever sold in North America. I have several excellent samples of awful tapes, and almost all are RCA.

[egarcia]

Thank you LS! I have a Panasonic ES15 on the way, and hopefully that will do the trick. I appreciate the help from all involved! You guys are great!

Aside from the RCA ones, there is definitely another set that came from back when I was in active tape trading and are undoubtedly nth gen sources.

Also, good to know on RCA. Unfortunately a lot of my tapes are RCA. When I was a broke student they were the ones on sale at K-Mart and now I know why!