What hardware for restoring/cleaning video ?
 

I am looking to purchase an S-VHS player, a TBC and maybe a proc amp to transfer old vhs-tapes to DVD, I’d like to clean them up the best I can from a hardware standpoint.
My budget is around $1,000.

I know that the combination of the JVC 9800 and a Datavideo TBC-1000 has been recommended and that may well be the way I go. In doing some research I found the Datavideo TBC-3000 for about $200.00 more then the 1000, has dual channel frame synch, and a built in proc amp that controls Brightness, Contrast Color, and Tint.
Anyone know what the advantage is of the dual channel and how good is the proc amp ?

As far as proc amps go I’ve been considering the PA-100 Single Proc Amp $399.
http://www.signvideo.com/single_dual...r.htm#pa1_back

I have not heard to much about Sony TBC units but this one BVT-810 also has proc amp controls and is $389.00 used http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...category=21168

A solution that looks like it could substitute for the TBC and proc amp is the Canopus ADVC-300 $500. For this I would use a good S-VHS player as a source deck.
http://www.videoguys.com/Merchant2/m...t_Code=ADVC300

I’ve tried to get more info on the ADVC-300 as it looks like a great product but there seems to be a very small user base.

I appreciate any suggestions you guys may have on any of this.

Best Regards,
couldbe

It's a horrible misnomer that the Canopus ADVC (or any mere card for that matter) would substitute for a TBC or have any real powerful proc amp inside. Things like that, if they existed in the card, would be mere afterthoughts and not really that good. B&H salesman say things like that all the time, the whole "TBC is ADVC" thing. I don't doubt that the 300 has "something" but surely not a replacement for hefty dedicated a TBC and proc amps. It'd be more like a "lite" version.

Canopus is a great company, but a lot of their recent products are overpriced by leaps and bounds. For that much money, turn your head over to Matrox. Find a good Matrox RTX100 or RT2500 on eBay for $300-700 instead, and use that for the capture card. Again, no playback corrections, it's just for capture. I have an ATI AIW only because I cannot afford the more hefty Matrox RT2500, but I'm saving for it very very slowly, as my future will involved more editing and less converting.

You're on the right track otherwise, in terms of video hardware, capture card excluded. $1000 is a good starter budget that can buy a nice desk full of equipment.

That SONY TBC is a bit more than I'd use. And unless I'm having a case of bad vision, it looks to have specialized wiring needs, not the typical RCA/s-video/coax type connectors. Some of those TBC's are beyond my knowledge, though I've seen them in use in studios of various sorts. Not for the home user, in my opinion, if not because of cost and difficulty alone.

Now the DataVideo TBC-3000 you mentioned is a nice device. Now then, MOST people will not need something quite so hefty. If you're only after a clean signal processor and stabilizer, then the DataVideo TBC-1000 will do you. You can always control color, hue, brightness, etc in the capture software. The dual-channel feature should work great, but you've said nothing to make me believe you'd need that feature. It's for workign with two sources together and editing on the fly.

The proc amp you're looking at is nice, but I'd go for it last, in a future purchase. I want one of these too, but I cannot justify buying one to be honest. I deal with a lot... a LOT... of bad source, but even then I don't have tapes that would require work to this tedious of a level. (Although last week, it would have been nice, about 3 months before that I was in a similar situation. I made do with software filtering.)

The unfortunate side effect of restoring video is you can buy stuff and buy stuff and STILL not have all the devices you need for any given situation.

Also, don't forget the wiring. S-video, rca, etc... go buy MONSTER cables, you won't regret it, leave a $100-200 budgeted for those monster-priced, yet monster-quality cables.

Last but definitely NOT least .. in fact probably MOST important, is the playing VCR. My restoration guides should cover more of this soon, but the brief is that the earlier you tackle the error, the more likely it can be fixed absolutely. The JVC is the top-level line of defense in removing the errors, and the DNR (digital noise reduction) algorithms in the TBC do amazing work, almost borderline miraculous at times. If you're going to get one of these, the JVC is honestly the best of them all, as they invented the format and seem to keep on top of it pretty well. The 9000 series (9600-9900) is almost a must. If you're going to do it, then goo all the way if you can afford it. The 7800-7900-SRV10U units are runners up. You may be able to find 9600 or 9800's online, the best of them all in my opinion, and I can also acquire them for $450 each (though the supply is almost fully depleted). I may be able to find 7800-7900's for $350 each.

I'm not sure what kind of card you currently have (if any) and if you'd have a future budget. You could squeeze by with good results on an ATI AIW card for now for about $50 on eBay. Then I'd opt for the JVC 9800 and the TBC-1000. Then make you next goal the PA-100 proc amp you mentioned, or upgrade the capture card to the professional Matrox card. I've actually bookmarked that Pa-100 page, as it looks more interesting that the other one I was considering (though I probably won't be buying one anytime soon).

The JVC 9800 and TBC-1000 and good wires, along with potential software filtering of minor things like color tweaking and nose removal, would get you set. Anything beyond that would be either REAL nitpicking of quality -OR- working with just pitiful source that would be painful to work with.

I hope this has helped in some small way.

FYI: I'll shoot a e-mail to one of the other guys I have as a site supporter, see if he can toss in his 2 cents too. He's got the lesser 7900 setup and a Matrox Mac card, and aside from some dropped frames (caused from not having dedicated TBC or even a weak one), he's happy with his system from all I've heard.

Thanks so much for the detailed response, just what I wanted to hear.
I didn't realize how important the cables could be really appreciate letting me know. As far as the capture part goes I use my vx2000 as a pass thru and an ads firewire card and edit with vegas. I use a panny dvd recorder to make my discs so I was hoping that when it wasn't necesary to edit I could avoid going into my pc and go straight to the dvd recorder.

Please let me know what you suggest as far as software solutions,vegas has reasonable color corection ability but I'd need some help with noise removal.
Am I correct in assuming that I'm better off doing as much improvment as I can before I digitize as in tweeking with the PA-100 proc amp instead of in Vegas? Both from a time and end result prospective. I've got a lot of vhs-tapes to work with.

Thanks again for the tips. You'll be hearing from me on the JVC 9800

I assume a VX2000 is a digital video camera, transferring DV to the PC. Then you open the DV in Vegas. Then I'm guessing you save the AVI, or otherwise somehow playback out from the PC to the DVD recorder. Am I off base?

Yes, for time and quality, do as much as possible BEFORE the video data hits the computer. You are more limited on the computer.

If the PA-100 will do color corrections you'd other have to do later with a software editor, then do the proc amp over the software. It will almost always do a better job. Anything you alter in software adds time, sometimes LOTS and LOTS of time, to the final render of the video final, or encode to a new format.

It may be very, very possible to go from your video hardware to the recorder. I do that myself now on some smaller projects with my recorder, as long as quality is maintained. I put quality as #1 and then everything else is below that if possible (time, money, etc).

And you can alwys rip the DVD material and edit in Womble MPEG VCR, and then re-author and burn on a PC. Assuming you have a PC burner for such things (do not re-use recorder for that method).

If I missed anything, let me know. I just remembered I forgot to do something today, so lost my train of though. Off for now... gotta go do it...