Is Horita BSG-50 Blackburst a good timebase corrector?

[broadcastronauts]

I'm looking to purchase a time base corrector and wondering if the Horita BSG-50 Blackburst will do the job? I know of the Datavideo TBC-1000, but that is too much money for me. Or are these two different things? Any other cheaper options out there?

Thank you!

[hodgey]

It's not a TBC at all, it just generates a blank video signal.

[latreche34]

It's a genlock to sync two video sources together, though if your VCR or capture card has a sync input it might help with dropped frames. But it will not store frames like a TBC does, it just feeds a dummy VBI signal.

[broadcastronauts]

Thank you so much for your reply.

Is anyone familiar with the DPS-470 or Key Digital KD-VPHD3 units? Would those be good TBCs?

Happy New Year BTW!

[latreche34]

Those are two different devices for two different purposes, The DPS-470 cannot be used as an external TBC, its analog output is for monitoring not capturing, It can however be used as a capture device if you have a way to get the SDI digital signal into your computer usually via a PCIe SDI card.

The KD-VPHD3 is a an upscaler/processor/source selector, It may not cope with a noisy VHS signal, mainly designed for upscaling to 1080p.

[broadcastronauts]

Thank you for dropping all these knowledge bombs on me latreche34. Is there a TBC you could recommend that I should pick up?

Would something like this work?
https://www.ebay.com/itm/FOR-A-FA-37...4AAOSwvl1fbXG-

Here's another link to Ebay search of TBCs:
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_fro...ector&_sacat=0

TBCs are new to me, so I appreciate all of the input. (no pun intended )

Thanks!

MK

[latreche34]

If you have an analog workflow that uses an analog capture card, an external analog TBC is the right device, All those rack mount pizza box style are made either for a digital workflow using a digital tape deck, or for an analog workflow that uses a broadcast analog deck such as uMatic and Betacam.

What problems are you having with your captures, post sample maybe we can help you fix them, Buying more gear can be fun but only if it addresses the problem.

[broadcastronauts]

Well I am capturing some U-Matic and VHS tapes but when I capture the video and audio go out of sync due to glitchy tapes so I'd like to circumvent the issue with a TBC.

[latreche34]

Well here is a guy I helped over at VH (I go by Dellsam34), You may have to have the right gear to begin with, Consumer stuff may or may not work:
https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/...apture-project

[lordsmurf]

Quote:

Originally Posted by broadcastronauts

Well I am capturing some U-Matic and VHS tapes but when I capture the video and audio go out of sync due to glitchy tapes so I'd like to circumvent the issue with a TBC.

U-matic and VHS have different needs, different workflows.

U-matic is an old broadcast form at from the 70s, and ancient rackmount TBCs from the 80s are what you may wanted here. Maybe into the 90s. It has DOC (dropout compensation), and the TBC expects the U-matic signal

VHS is a consumer format, and broadcast TBCs are extremely ineffective. That's because the VHS format is very chaotic, and has errors inherent to the format that are not expected in a broadcast format. Hence the rise of prosumer gear, with S-VHS decks and TBCs created with digital ingest/capture in mind.

Quote:

Originally Posted by broadcastronauts

Is there a TBC you could recommend that I should pick up?

Rule #1 = Understand that eBay is very often (almost always) a video dumping from in the 2020s (and was so in the late 2010s). You're not buying gear, you're gambling that it even works. That includes all the BS "tested" and "working" units. The people selling the gear are almost never qualified to judge whether it's actually working. Any image = tested, any lights on the machine = working. It's ridiculous.

Back in the 2000s, even the early 2010s, I remember when broadcast rackmotnu TBCs were in the sub-$50 range (including shipping, no tax). That ended. Those crappy ancient TBCs (for VHS, maybe not U-matic use) are now 10x+ the price.

VHS TBCs were (on average) $500 in the 2000s, dipped down a bit in the early 2010s, rebounded in the late 2010s, and then doubled in the past year or so. All the cheap TBCs you still see on eBay are often flawed units (bad Cypress aka black AVT-8710 or 1T-TBC, latter BV, etc). Sometimes I have extra TBCs in this site's marketplace subforum, but consumer formats like VHS/S-VHS, Betamax, and Hi8/Video8 are the intended use.

Be careful. You can gamble on eBay if you wish, but broadcaster gear may be safer coming from a used broadcast store. Those have folks that (hopefully) know how to test and vet the gear. It's not just junk out of a warehouse, sold by a Storage Wars flipper wannabe on eBay.

Timebase corrector is a wide term, and can mean anything. So if you type "time base corrector" into eBay, you're going to get all sorts of random results -- much of it outright crap.

Quote:

Originally Posted by latreche34

If you have an analog workflow that uses an analog capture card, an external analog TBC is the right device, All those rack mount pizza box style are made either for a digital workflow using a digital tape deck, or for an analog workflow that uses a broadcast analog deck such as uMatic and Betacam.

Quoted for emphasis.