JVC B.E.S.T. feature: On or Off?
 

I just had a cracking bit of luck. Seriously right place, right time stuff. I dabbled in video capture a several years ago. I already had a few bits of hardware: an ADVC-100, an AVT-8170 and a Panasonic NV-HS830 VCR.

I'd recently come across a bunch of PAL VHS tapes which I have decided to archive onto DVD. So I started browsing around for up to date information and came across LordSmurf's excellent article, VCR Buying Guide (S-VHS, D-VHS, Professional) for restoring video. So somewhat speculatively, I had a brief look on ebay.co.uk, just to see what sort of money this kind of second hand gear was going for. I came across this listing for a JVC HR-S8965EK. Given that these things are as rare as rocking horse poop and that the listing and seller did check out, I decided to go for it; probably foolishly given that I couldn't go physically check out the item personally.

Anyway, I have received it, had a play with it and it seems it really was "as new" as advertised. Astonishing. Furthermore the difference between the captures from my old HS830 and the HR-S8965EK is like night and day. There's so little noise and picture is so crisp, I'm gobsmacked. Anyway, enough about my trivial little story, let's get onto the question.

I have been going through the various 'picture quality' menu options (TBC/NR, Video Stabilizer, Picture Control) and I believe I have a reasonable grasp of them, what they do, how they work together and what to use when, not least because I've read most of your recommendations here.

But I'd like to understand your view about one JVC feature that I can't seem to find mention of on digitalfaq.com. It's called B.E.S.T. And it's description paraphrased from page 36 of the HR-S8965EK's manual is "The Biconditional Equalised Signal Tracking system checks the condition of the tape in use and compensates during recording and playback to give the best possible picture quality possible." This seems to be something additional to the automatic tracking, but isn't in itself automatic tracking.

So, my questions are: What is "B.E.S.T."? Does it have any use? And what are your recommendations regarding it?

That sounds uncannily like the Dynamic Drum System description, but obviously this is named differently for you.

B.E.S.T. = "Biconditional Equalised Signal Tracking" .... It's in the JVC manual:
In other words: blah blah blah, big words, blah blah blah. :)

I don't think it's the same as the dynamic drum, as several lower end JVC S-VHS units have it, too. In fact, I think some non-SVHS VCRs have it. It looks more like the PAL equivalent to the "Calibration" setting found on NTSC S-VHS VCRs. And that setting is best left turned off. It makes the video jitter on playback, and creates an erratic untrackable "tracking signal" at recording time.

I'll have to remember that phrase. :thumb:

I wasn't saying it was DD, just that it sounded like it from the description. But all's well.

On the contrary, I've had a lot of luck with this setting. I believe it was your post I recall that described it being either good or bad depending on the tape, but I don't think I've run into a situation where it has actually made things worse. In my experience, problematic tapes seem to play better with it enabled, the setting appears to hide or tame errors that are otherwise much more visible. I've tested it on decks with and without dynamic drum also.

Of course my experience pales in comparison to yours, so I guess it's just a matter of time before it acts up. So far it's been beneficial though.

As erratic as the Calibration setting is, I don't doubt you at all. :)

It's one of those settings that should be tested, and monitored closely with whatever setting you choose.

The most irritating side effect of the calibration function is the brief infrequent jitters that I've seen on S-VHS and S-VHS-ET tapes. But it's happened on SP mode VHS tapes, too. Once every 10-30 minutes, the image would vibrate by 2-3 lines, for about a half second, and then be gone again. You wouldn't notice this until you actually watched the video. It's so easy to miss just monitoring while capturing (unless you're watching + capturing).

I stand by the advice to never use it when recording. It just makes a mess of the signal.