Is the JVC BR-S822U a high-end unit?

[deter]

Is this a high end unit? It has a TBC with it. I can get one pretty cheap.

JVC BR-S822U

[admin]

The problem with these old broadcasting VTRs is that they were intended for "full setup" studio use. Units like this were excellent under certain conditions only. For example:

• many older broadcast S-VHS decks only work with SP mode tapes, not the consumer LP and EP modes
• many play VHS tapes poorly, unlike the end-of-life "prosumer" models that are more often suggested on this site, on other sites and by pros alike more. More on those at:
  • http://www.digitalfaq.com/guides/vid...k-hardware.htm
  • http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/show...uide-1567.html
• most of them have specialized audio/video in/out connectors, such as BNC, specialty 9-pin/7-pin connectors, special audio connectors, etc -- some connectors can be a bit pricey to adapt
• some even have special (sometimes optional, sometimes required) inputs for genlock and sync
• many of them required external audio mixers to function optimally

Many of these old machines -- and we're talking 15-25 years here, for most of the kinds of machines -- have thousands of hours of heavy use. Even "renewed" decks can have issues, as only a few parts are renewed.

Some of them contain various boards, and its not uncommon to find the boards stripped even on so-called "good condition" units. I don't know how it happens (or if the seller is lying), but very often these kinds of machines find their way into the hands of non-experts, and they "test" the machine by cramming a VHS release into it, watching for any kind of signal on screen, and then proclaim that it works. That's not a test of any kind.

On a related note: Medical VCRs are disgusting, I wouldn't even touch one without wearing gloves. Yuck. You never know where those were, and what kind of video novice was beating on it in the hospital or medical facility.

Some very brief past discussions on these machines can be found at

• http://forum.videohelp.com/topic287476-30.html#1434801
• http://forum.videohelp.com/topic274830.html#1344702

Yes, you can buy one, and it may work well for what you want. However, I would not drop more than $100 max on it -- about the same max amount I'm willing to gamble on lottery tickets or slot machines (special occasion only, of course, I'm not rich). It will be a pure gamble, after all.

But it might be wiser to stick to trust models listed in those other threads, like the JVC SR-, 7000- and 9000-series decks. Or the Panasonic AG-1980P.

[deter]

Fine I will not purchase this Machines since it is more than $100

Panasonic AG-1980P, I have this VCR, however through the S-video cable I get a lot of interference in the signal. Only when I use the co-axle cable does it rid itself somewhat of the interference. However the picture tends to be a tad different.

After reading and reading, learning and learning, I need to clean the videos up before they get captured. The tapes with out errors, record & playback ok, however I still think it is possible to clean up the picture. That is what I want, the best possible picture. The sound we can deal with later........

So I think I need a good TBC with chroma filters, and other junk.

However many of the TBC's, I have been looking at online, have input and outputs ports of wire connections that I don't have on my PC nor in the DVD recorder. I don't know what they are called however the AG-1980 has a few of these ports on the back of it. These machines are a lot of money $700+, so I don't want to make a mistake on something that may not help.

Here are the two major errors with the betamax tapes

1) The outline of the person
2) Bad TV Broadcasts with wavy lines in the picture

[admin]

Ewww.... only the coaxial looks good?! I'd see about using a BNC>composite adapter for a BNC connection, or look into what's wrong with the si-video. Maybe the connector is dirty? Hit it with a good vacuum cleaner, suck out dirt/dust that may be impeding a good connection.

Yes, cleaning up video BEFORE it gets captured is the best option. Further clean in software only as needed.

Good TBC, yes. There's really not anything available with "chroma filters", per se. To clean up chroma noise, use a good VCR from Panasonic or JVC (or a clone from either company's machines), using the TBC+NR system. These line/field TBCs "clean the picture".

The standalone TBCs "clean the signal" (non-visual, in many cases, unless it's a special TBC). These are mostly used for providing a clean and stable signal to the digital converter, not really for the visual quality. The VCR and other gear handle the image (proc amp, detailer, etc).

Outline of the person? -- Ghosting, maybe?

Those wavy lines are herringbone nose. And judging from some images I saw, monster-awful herringbone noise. That's going to take a complex mess of AVISynth and/or VirtualDub clean-up work.

[deter]

Well I just purchased a HR-S7900U, and than two JVC recorders the DR-MV1 and MV5.

I will try the vacuum cleaner.

"Those wavy lines are herringbone noise..."
That is a new one...

I am worried about the Betamax tapes, that is were u get the mis color outline of the objects the most. On some of those tapes you have a lot of signal interference from the cable company. The picture is ok for the most part. I need some kind image enhancement for them. Please send me a list of things that will help.

So should I record them to SVHS? Would that help?

It is ok to record over old VHS tapes, does that mess up the quality of the record, I don't really have anymore new VHS tapes. I have like 200 studio recording of never played VHS tapes, by warner brothers, that I have been using to re-record stuff.

Don't worry too much about those Van Halen Photos they were done to show errors and to learn how to fix those errors.

[admin]

Re-recording them to another tape will likely just lose quality.

VHS tapes barely handled new recordings in high quality. Re-using tapes will almost always end up looking really degraded. i did that a number of times when I was younger, and regret it. That was probably 20 years ago, before I got into video.

New VHS tapes are still sold, if you need them. Remember that TDK and JVC are the best blanks.

[deter]

I read the manual with the JVC SVHS player and it says it will record up to 400 lines of res.

The HR-S7900U, ended up being brand new, I feel like I stole that for $35. The picture quality is really good. It is a little bit different that the AG1980. The AG1980 tends to have more bleeding of the colors however sometimes the image itself is cleaner..

The only problem I found with the HR-S7900U, it that if you set video calibration to on, and you get a bad picture, it than displays "video calibration" in big letters on the screen. Is their a way to set up the VCR to not display this and just calibrate the tracking.

The JVC recorders are pretty good. I can noitce a difference with some of the tapes. I tested out about 20 VHS tapes and 20 Betamax tapes.

You have to hooked up the player to the TV with an S-Video input and oh my it is like going back to the dark ages not using HDMI.

However for playback I played them on a DVD player with an HDMI cable to the TV.

On the Betamax tapes since I don't have a TBC or anything to help the picture, they record pretty nice to this machine. On a few of the recordings I did, it almost looks like DVD quality. I would say it improved the picture by 15 to 20%.

Now my issue is the Betamax stuff is pretty much Mono. What methods do you use to go from Mono to 2 channel stereo? Just wondering....

With the JVC recorder you still get the blocks in the picture however they are kind of a blur, it seems this recorder blends those blocks better.

However on some of the SVHS recording they don't looks as good. It is only a few. My other recorder is a Panasonic which has a built in digital tuner, on some of the tapes the playback through that machine is really nice. On the JVC they look worse.

I have not tried running a signal in 2 the panasonic and back to the JVC, I don't know if that would help...

[admin]

400 lines of res equates to around 400-500x480, approximately SVCD/CVD resolution. This is discussed at http://www.digitalfaq.com/guides/vid...nd-sources.htm

Theory (Kell Factor theory, for example) may dictate higher detail in the signal is possible, theory doesn't always happen. This would be one of those times. Feel free to capture/encode at either 352x480 or 720x480. Even with the theory factored in, 720x480 is large enough to capture any and all analog video data from the Super VHS format.

VHS is less, of course, about 300x480 in a digital equivalent. Betamax is the same. Contrary to revisionist myth, Betamax wasn't any sharper than VHS. At best, it had better colors, but that was more a statement about the VCRs than the format itself.

At $35, you bought it for 10-20% of value. Good job.

I suggest against using JVC S-VHS VCR "calibration" anyway. In most cases, it just adds jitter and the tracking "sensing" is too slow. I've seen more visible tracking errors with it on, than with it off. It really screws up recordings, to the point where the same VCR that made the tape sometimes can't even play the recording. Yikes!

The on-screen flashing is simply a matter of turning off on-screen display in the JVC menu.

When it comes to TV sets, I notice HDMI increase noise too much. I only use HDMI on my HTPC and Blu-ray player. On a DVD, it looks worse than s-video or component connections. (I don't use any composite inputs for video, only video games.)

Mono means "1 channel audio", not necessary "1 speaker only". Most mono is piped to both speakers, same data recorded to both stereo channels, if it was recorded and played back properly. A lot of broadcast TV is still mono, but it comes out of all available speakers.

To fix left-only or right-only audio, I use SoundForge. Audacity probably works too. Just copy the good channel over the bad one, save file (or re-export, in Audacity). This involved decompiling a DVD, of course, and re-authoring when done. There may already be a guide for this in the forum, I can't remember.

If you get blocks, you need to change recording settings. The prized JVC recorders talked about on this site are best when used in 3-hour mode or 1-hour mode -- not 2-hour mode! This goes back to bitrate allocation. 1-hour and 3-hour (FR180) modes use high bitrates, while SP mode is very compressed. Discussed at http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/show...best-1507.html

Some of the Panasonic machines have special synchronizer filters that clean up certain errors. The JVC VCRs often fails on these specific errors. But the Panasonic recording is very inferior, so the Panasonic machine is used in "passthrough" mode. Search the forum for the term "passthrough" and it will bring up a lot of results on this topic: http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/search.php -- the ES10 model is spoken of most often.