Full frame overscan mod for SignVideo proc amp?
 

I have the SignVideo PA-100 and it works great, except the black level adjustment does not operate on the overscan portion of the frame. Thus, I get a prominent dark or light bar at the bottom of the screen that's quite visible in digital captures. I understand this is by design.

There is a website that advertises a modification to expand processing to the full frame. Has anyone ever heard of this modification or this company? Kind of want to know what I'm getting into before I ship my amp to them.

TGrant Photo is recommended by the people who run this forum. Example.

I don't know whether anyone here has had this modification performed, though. Weirdly, the Studio 1 proc amp I bought off eBay recently does appear to process the whole frame. Maybe the previous owner had it modified, or maybe newer units were set up differently?

Okay, thanks for the information. I bought mine new in 2011, toward the very end of production.

UPDATE: I did a little digging and found the screw that needed to be turned to fix my problem. I'm all for supporting our fellow professionals, but $90 to turn one screw is a bit expensive. :wink2:

Surprised it wasn't a little more involved than that. Mind sharing your info? :)

Here are the four trimmers that control processed picture area in the PA-100. One must take care not to extend the right and bottom edges out of the visible raster or sync signals may become distorted.

Perfect, thank you!

We'll need to ask him for an explanation.

Even cameras have some overscan noise, so this situatino makes zero sense. Just mask it. Problem solved. The overscan isn't shown even on modern HDTVs. HD feeds also have overscan noise.

Here is a frame from a capture made before I adjusted my proc amp. The head-switch noise has been masked. As you can see, there is a prominent band of video at the bottom of the frame which was not affected by my black level adjustment. Sure, I could have masked it out as well, but I am preserving tapes from an historical archive and it's simply not acceptable to lose image to misadjusted equipment. Moreover, these files will be frequently viewed on computer monitors, not HDTVs, that have zero overscan.