PAL-M tapes to capture, any Brazilian VCRs with line TBC?

[woko2]

American here with a Brazilian wife who volunteered to digitize their tapes during my 1 month stay there later this year I won't be processing all of the videos there, just mainly doing uncompressed captures while I have access to the tapes.

I've been accumulating my gear over the past year to digitize my own family's videos here in the US which I finally got my hands on. But now I'm learning that my wife's family in Brazil, uses a completely different format that is difficult to get a hold of since it's proprietary to Brazil.

The biggest problem I'm facing is trying to find a good enough VCR that has S-Video as the bare minimum since it doesn't seem like any of the Brazilian made VCR's have any TBC built in whatsoever. But even just finding one with S-Video is a challenge. I'm aware of the World Wide Video VCR's sold here in the US, mainly the Samsung ones, but it seems like even those don't really have great features.

I started prowling "Mercado Livre" in my Parents in Law's local area (Which is basically the Facebook Marketplace/craigslist over there) but only found a lot of cheaper VCR's none with good features and they were pretty expensive. I'm waiting for my father in law to send me a picture of the model VCR and camcorder he has to see if those will suffice.

The thing that sucks is that I won't even be able to test any of this equipment/workflow out until I actually get to Brazil and I'll only have a few weeks to figure everything out while I'm there. So I'm trying to just prepare the best I can right now in hopes of having everything I might possibly need.

In regards to capture cards, I can't find anything about the ATI All-in-Wonder 600 USB 2.0 supporting PAL-M, but I think I had seen LS say the ATI cards can actually support it, so I'm not sure if this one is included. My other alternative is to just get an I-O Data GV-USB2 that seems to have support for PAL-M. The only other way I saw someone else on youtube recommend was to get a regular RCA to HDMI converter since they usually take in all formats and then plug in the hdmi into an hdmi capable capture card. But I feel like I'll lose...something? with that set up, so I'm not sure.

Anyways, now I'm just trying to get advice from anybody else that has captured PAL-M before? Any specific models of VCR, capture cards, camcorders, etc. I should keep an eye out for or any tips you could offer? I'm gonna need all the help I can get

[Haunted_TBC]

Panasonic AG-W3? I think that's the one... but I don't think Brasil ever got SVHS decks made properly for PAL-M. Since PAL-M is more like NTSC than PAL-B/G, I believe if any were sold there, they were just NTSC units with a PAL-M color carrier added inside.

[woko2]

Yeah I saw there's a list somewhere here in the guides with all the "worldwide" VCR's that support basically everything. I just hate that they're so expensive (Like $800 for that one you mentioned on ebay) and they don't even have Line TBC or S-Video output

[aramkolt]

Can't say 100% for sure if this is true, but the HR-S7500AM might meet your stated requirements. It was designed to handle just about any format and at least AI thinks it can do PAL-M, but I don't actually see the manual out there for that specific model that would say for sure.

If I was you, I'd probably just use original Brazillian equipment as those HR-S7500AM machines are going to be pretty hard to find and shipping loss/damage is probably a risk as well.

Not an expert on this topic since I've never had a PAL-M tape to try, but your conversion box may still need to be able to understand the resulting PAL-M output. Google claims the chroma subcarrier PAL-M uses a 3.575611 MHz PAL color subcarrier, whereas standard NTSC uses 3.579545 MHz"

Some suggest playing a PAL-M tape in an NTSC machine and then having a format converter box understands PAL-M do the transcoding to regular NTSC or straight to digital via SDI. Something like the CVR-600 could possibly work for that.

If you have a test PAL-M tape you can send me, I could tell you if anything I have works on it.

There's also VHS-Decode, but that's probably not feasible if you have a limited amount of time do do everything and don't have many terabytes of space to store the captures.

Definitely can be wrong about allllll of the above, just throwing out ideas.

[woko2]

I appreciate your help aramkolt, I'm really just looking for anything and everything that could possibly help! I've asked all of our Brazilian friends that live close by to see if any of them might have brought a VHS or maybe even a VCR from Brazil when they moved here but no luck, so I don't think I'll be able to get my hands on a PAL-M tape until I actually make it to Brazil lol. I did reach out to MAFLP on here since I saw a post that he was from Brazil and had some experience. This is what he said incase it's helpful for anyone else in the future:

Quote:

Originally Posted by MAFLP

Hey! You caught me off guard here, hehe.

Here's the thing, the VCRs that you are trying to find, mostly prosumer models, do not really work with PAL-M, as they are imported NTSC machines. Here in Brazil, you would use NTSC for things like cable/satellite tv, video-game consoles, computers and some camcorders (as some were manufactured here, so it'll use PAL-M instead), even broadcast TV used NTSC for a lot of stuff, then converted to PAL-M for transmission, which makes those super high-end/prosumer VCRs NTSC only and very expensive (even our TVs since the mid-to-late 80s started to become multi-standard models that displayed both NTSC and PAL-M, some even the european PAL 50hz system). Your best bet is to use the vhsdecode method with a good brazilian VCR (Which can play both PAL-M and NTSC tapes, although you can only output PAL-M), or a VCR alongside a DVD recorder like the Panasonic DMR-ES10, even if you won't use the DVD recording part, just for processing the video. My recommendations for VCRs are the ones made by Panasonic, JVC (which also rebadges to another brand, called Gradiente), Sharp and Philips with Hi-Fi sound (most of them are the 6-head gimmick, as they try tried to call the erase head and mono linear head as "6/7 heads"). They are the most reliable you can get. A few models I can recommend are the Gradiente gsv-860hf (I used this one to digitize my tapes, and I loved it. Every tape i threw in it worked without too much hassle, too bad the gears and brakes wore out and no one made maintenance), Philips VR756/78 (the best Philips model from the mid 90's), Panasonic NV-FJ635 or the older NV-HD series (all Hi-Fi models, as the NV-SD series are mono units) but beware as they are the ones who blue screens on bad signals or damaged tapes, Sharp VC-1699 or VC-1799 (another High End models here from Sharp) but also blue screens. Avoid getting other models, as they are not realiable in any way, not even Sony, I had a Sony high-end model which was total garbage, Hi-Fi would not lock, switching sounds even on a good signal. For capture devices, even a cheap Easycap device handles PAL-M, so I think it'll be easy to find a device. One way to set it, is on VirtualDub. I don't have the equipment anymore, but I remember on Capture Settings, an option to set your device color system (PAL, NTSC, SECAM, NTSC-J, PAL-M and more). Hope you find the gear for it. Take care!

[aramkolt]

I suspect decode will still work on PAL-M tapes with a regular NTSC player, but for 80 tapes, you're talking about a lot of resources to devote - think something like 100-150GB per hour if just capturing video and then a separate audio capture to add later. It's technically possible, you'll just need some very large hard drives to capture all of those while you're down there.

I'm not exactly sure what the NTSC player would do with the chroma subcarrier on the tape itself if you tried to capture traditionally - with a normal receiving device, the chroma subcarrier is off enough where the color burst and phase processing stuff won't know how to interpret it. However, perhaps if the capture device is expecting PAL-M, it might actually produce color. No idea about that though.

I do have a 7500AM machine - Maybe I'll see if I can actually record a PAL-M tape with it (would just use a multiformat pattern generator as the source that can output PAL-M) and then see how other NTSC VCRs play back that tape.

[woko2]

Hmm yeah I probably wouldn't be able to do VHS-Decode since I don't have that much storage available right now with the shortage and prices and all. Also from what I've researched, when trying to play a PAL-M tape in a NTSC player, it will either come out just in black and white and/or picture is distorted. I think another option I saw people doing were changing the crystals or something to match NTSC?

I did just find this DVD/VCR combo unit that seems to have an s-video port on the back, it's about the only one I can find that actually has S-video, everything else is just RCA, even the more expensive ones. Its about $103. Says the dvd player doesn't work but the VCR works perfectly. Can anybody offer any input on this model? Gradiente Dv-570 (Which this brand is apparently rebadged JVC according to MALFP).

https://www.mercadolivre.com.br/vide...210&sid=search

[aramkolt]

Correct, if capturing traditionally from the VCR's output, I would expect the output from an NTSC machine to be black and white from composite/S-Video. Decode, on the other hand, should still be able to get the color correct in software translation of the captured RF from the tape with a regular NTSC machine.

Crystal replacement seems like an easy enough mod to do though *if* that's all it takes, or yeah if the S-Video works on some of those DVD combo units that you know supported PAL-M playback, that's probably the easiest to meet your needs. As far as a line TBC, hard to say if some of those combo units.

Do you have any tutorials about the actual crystal replacement? Not that I'd probably ever have a need for it, just curious if it's just a direct swap without other steps.

[lordsmurf]

Quote:

Originally Posted by aramkolt

Decode, on the other hand, should still be able to get the color correct in software translation of the captured RF from the tape with a regular NTSC machine.

I would not assume this. vhs-decode "should" be able to do a lot of things, and yet it doesn't, or it "works" in a way that is less than desired (thus doesn't really work at all).

I would actually be more interested in a Samsung 5000W, with ES10/15 as line TBC.

That's something I could look at, it given a tape.

In this situation, given the source format, and all the workarounds needed, I would not worry about "s-video vs. composite".

[woko2]

lordsmurf, would you say a Samsung 5000W would be better to use than a native Brazilian model VCR with about the same specs, or would it be about the same result anyways? Either way, seems like I'll have to use an ES10/15 regardless.

Actually a question I have about the E10/15, google was saying that it can convert the RCA cable's signals to basically native S-Video quality since it can split up the signal or something along those lines, but it seems farfetched, was it just hallucinating?

Would I need to buy an ES-10/15 that was made in Brazil in order to use it? This comment seems to suggest so, but not sure if the ES-10/15 was made for specific markets:

Quote:

Originally Posted by msgohan

Panasonic released some of their "good for passthrough" DVD recorders in Brazil with PAL-M support. A Brazilian guy on VideoHelp picked up a DMR-ES10 and I think he provided samples, if you feel like searching up the thread.

Also, do you have any knowledge on if the ATI All-in-Wonder 600 USB 2.0 supports capturing PAL-M? I think I had seen you make a post at some point saying the ATI cards do, but not sure if this USB one is included:

Quote:

Originally Posted by lordsmurf

- He mentioned Brazil, it's PAL-M.
- ATI AIW cards can capture most video signals, including PAL-M, PAL-N, SECAM, all NTSC, all PAL.

And if it doesn't support PAL-M, what's a good alternative usb capture device that does?

[Haunted_TBC]

Quote:

Originally Posted by lordsmurf

I would actually be more interested in a Samsung 5000W, with ES10/15 as line TBC.

I thought the SV-5000W was an atrocious deck? At least for anything that isn't PAL-M, PAL-N, or SECAM B/G and SECAM D/K. Do these unique situations allow the "junk" to finally shine some? I've also attached relevant images from the manual.

Also, what do people do with SECAM-L tapes from France, Luxembourg or Monaco? FR VCR?

[woko2]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Haunted_TBC

I thought the SV-5000W was an atrocious deck? At least for anything that isn't PAL-M, PAL-N, or SECAM B/G and SECAM D/K. Do these unique situations allow the "junk" to finally shine some?

Now you understand my pain trying to find "good gear" for PAL-M when the best you can get is an SV-5000W That's why I'm here making this post lol because nothing seems "good" that I can find, both here and abroad in the local used markets.

[aramkolt]

Can't say if it'd actually work, but here's the crystal you'd need to swap into a regular NTSC machine to have it do PAL-M (in theory) I think:

https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256806096437898.html?gatewayAdapt=glo2usa4itemAda pt

You're basically looking for the NTSC frequency crystal in there at 3.58.....Mhz - and swap for that one. You could probably just put in both crystals and have a switch that connects one or the other so you could swap back and forth for PAL-M and regular NTSC. I see no reason why you couldn't do this with an SVHS VCR. I probably wouldn't try it with a VCR containing a TBC though.

Normally, I'd doubt it could be that simple, but it does seem there are anecdotes that people did used to swap their PAL-M cable box crystals between either of those for the desired output and supposedly it worked, and it'd be a cheap mod to test out if you actually had a PAL-M tape for testing.

Might be worth a try while you're in the USA and then just bring a compact SVHS machine with you to Brazil when you go.

[woko2]

I'm not gonna lie, I hadn't looked into swapping out the crystals much, so I was thinking there was just some gemstone looking crystal somewhere inside the VCR lol But that might actually be worth looking into!
Screenshot 2026-05-14 190557.png

Gonna see if I can find more tutorials of people successfully doing this. Is there any reason you're saying not to do it with a VCR that has built in Line TBC?

Unfortunately it seems it'll be difficult to find a Non-commercial PAL-M VHS here in the states as well to test this all out before going to Brasil.

[lordsmurf]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Haunted_TBC

I thought the SV-5000W was an atrocious deck? At least for anything that isn't PAL-M, PAL-N, or SECAM B/G and SECAM D/K. Do these unique situations allow the "junk" to finally shine some?

No, it still sucks, but sometimes "sucks" is better than nothing. It can be mitigated, maybe, to "suck less".

^ Some may try to use that quote out of context, to be unreasonable cheap/lazy for typical PAL and NTSC content. It's not the same whatsoever. We have multiple excellent PAL/NTSC options, and such inferior methods are simply not needed.

Quote:

Also, what do people do with SECAM-L tapes from France, Luxembourg or Monaco? FR VCR?

The 7000W, or the PAL NV-HS900's SECAM>PAL output + ES10/15.

Quote:

Originally Posted by woko2

before going to Brasil.

I'd like to get one of your less important tapes, to run through my 5000 and other gear. I do have some weird options I'd like to mess with. Non-destructive, of course. Nothing done to the tape, just the signal.

[aramkolt]

Quote:

Originally Posted by woko2

I'm not gonna lie, I hadn't looked into swapping out the crystals much, so I was thinking there was just some gemstone looking crystal somewhere inside the VCR lol But that might actually be worth looking into!
Attachment 20533

Gonna see if I can find more tutorials of people successfully doing this. Is there any reason you're saying not to do it with a VCR that has built in Line TBC?

Unfortunately it seems it'll be difficult to find a Non-commercial PAL-M VHS here in the states as well to test this all out before going to Brasil.

Yeah, I don't see specific tutorials, either, but it sounds like the reason you get black and white with PAL-M is that the color burst on the tape is not interpreted correctly by the VCR without the matching crystal frequency.

If that mod were to work, you wouldn't need a PAL-M VCR, just a plain Jane NTSC S-VHS machine. Ideal candidates would probably be HR-S4600U or 4800U. 3800U is even more common and less expensive, but I feel like costs were cut a bit on those as the picture just isn't quite as good for whatever reason. Could be the head formulation perhaps. I'd say if you find that doing the mod works on a non-TBC containing SVHS machine, you could then try it on a TBC containing one, it's just more of a gamble since the TBC containing machines are worth more and the TBC itself might not know how to handle PAL color while doing it's line buffering in memory. Avoiding the TBC keeps it all analog until the output in an ideal situation. If you then need to add a line TBC, I'm not sure which DVD recorders would know how to pass a PAL-M signal, but I'm sure those sold in Brazil would.

Gemini says the DMR-EH67 definitely does understand PAL-M, which makes sense since it's marketed as a multiform DVD recorder. Supposedly there's a Brazil variant of the DMR-ES10 that accepts it as well. Could just be that same crystal swap for all we know, hard to say.

I really do think it should be possible to record a PAL-M test tape using a HR-S7500AM machine though, perhaps I'll have to play around with that. I guess you'd know it worked if you get a black and white image on a regular NTSC VCR and then you'd know if the mod worked if swapping the crystal brought the color back?

-- merged --

Just took a look at an SR-VS30U and HR-S machine and they both have very easy to find and identify crystals. Interestingly, they do have a spot for another crystal on both. Could be that other slot is what to use for PAL color systems perhaps?

IMG_8566.jpg

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[woko2]

Quote:

Originally Posted by aramkolt

Gemini says the DMR-EH67 definitely does understand PAL-M, which makes sense since it's marketed as a multiform DVD recorder. Supposedly there's a Brazil variant of the DMR-ES10 that accepts it as well. Could just be that same crystal swap for all we know, hard to say.

Ah man I really hope there's not a Brazil variant of the DMR-ES10, that's gonna be an even bigger pain to find lol

And thats pretty neat about the crystals being right there and easily accessible, especially that second slot you mentioned....Maybe that's how the world wide video VCR's do it and just have different switches to turn them on?

[aramkolt]

Not sure, it totally could be. Perhaps the machine detects if it is a PAL or NTSC color system and then chooses the crystal appropriate for that color system. Seems tooooo easy though, I think it's a little more likely to work in this case because PAL-M uses the same framerate as NTSC. I think the true world machines need at least 3 crystals though, so there being two slots might just be fore the more common ones like regular PAL and NTSC maybe, or NTSC and PAL-M?

If anyone has some JVC regular PAL machines or ones that are multisystem, would be interesting to know if X1 (that second unused slot) is populated or not.

[woko2]

I couldn't find any tutorial videos for changing out the crystal in a VCR but it does seem this was a common "hack" in Brazil they did for gaming systems like the Super Nintendo, so there are a couple videos out there about that (I had to search in portuguese for them to come up, but this apparently youtube now does an automatic voice translation dub for certain videos like this one, where the original content is in portuguese, but there's like an AI voice repeating everything he says, but in English)
https://youtu.be/hfqB14ED4D8?si=xY4HmYcnlMG2Dgt9

But from what I gather, it does seem like they just change the crystal out and sometimes "snip" some sort of connector in order for it to pass the NTSC signal instead of PAL-M. In the video he shows a diagram of the circuitry I believe. So maybe that's all there is to it, just change out the crystal and snip I think he was pointing to SCLN (The little half circles connected by a bar in the middle of the picture):
Screenshot 2026-05-15 115210.png But we'd probably have to look at the schematics of the individual VCR to see what it shows

-- merged --

Made some big strides today! (Also even became a premium member of the site today! How long until that gets updated?)

1st Big Update:
I managed to snag a Samsung SV300W (NOT SV3000W, apparently the SV300W was mostly sold to universities, museums etc.?). I can't seem to find too much info about it, but it does strongly resemble the Samsung SV4000W and SV7000W. I did find it for sale at this website though and they had a lot of the features listed out that I was wondering about:
https://www.southernadvantage.com/pr...lti-system-vcr

But it seems to be the only Samsung "World Wide Video" VCR that actually has S-Video for some reason. Actually one of the ONLY multisystem VCRs to have S-Video input/output from what I can find online it seems. Although I think I did read a post on this website saying that it's not true S-Video output and still actually just composite? I'd have to look into it further.

Anyways, it was listed as "For Parts Only/Not Working" but I decided to message the seller to see how he tested it and what was going on (I actually got my current JVC V101US the same way lol, it was listed as "For Parts Only" because the seller had no way to test it, so they weren't sure if it was actually working or not and I took the gamble and it's been working flawlessly!)
So to my surprise, the seller of the SV300W said about the same thing, that he put in a regular tape (from the US) and it played back fine at first, but then when he started clicking on the different format buttons, that the image didn't look so good (Which, I mean I think makes sense since the US based TV probably couldn't read the other formats the VCR was outputting).

So he said that he could not in good conscience list it as just "Used/working" since he had no way to test out if the other formats worked properly. So I'm taking another gamble and offered him $150 to which he accepted. I guess we'll see how it goes, but it still has the "Property of Illinois University" sticker on it, not sure if that's a good or bad thing regarding the state the VCR is in lol. I still won't be able to test out the PAL-M tapes until I go to Brazil later this year so it really is a BIG gamble.

But does anybody have any experience with the Samsung SV300W?

2nd Big Update
So after some research, there does appear to be a regional Panasonic DMR-ES10/15 in Brazil (Unfortunately). The exact model number I tried looking for based on what someone else said was DMR-ES10PL for that PAL-M compatible one, but after searching the local Brazilian used market, I found some that had model numbers DMR-ES10LB-S (I think the S is just the silver color code, so maybe just LB is for the Brazilian variant?). But they were crazy expensive! Probably because none of the Brazilian VCRs have built in Line TBC, so this passthrough TBC(ish) working one was their best bet. But the DMR-ES10LB-S came out to about 10k Reais (About $2000 USD!). I did manage to find a listing selling a pair of DMR-ES15LB-S for about $80, one that was stuck on "Please Wait" when turned on, and the other one apparently working well.

The neat part is that I believe it takes in PAL-M OR NTSC as input, so I could potentially use it here back in the states as well. The thing I'm not sure about though is the output, if it only output in NTSC regardless of input format (because I found a manual in Portuguese online for this model, and it says "Formats: NTSC or PAL-M(Input only)", so I'm assuming that means output in NTSC only? I wonder how that would compare to the Samsung SV300W I just bought when it comes to the quality of the conversion. I was hoping it would output in PAL-M to avoid any additional factors affecting the quality of the capture so I can try two different workflows and see which one works best:

Wishful Workflow one:
Normal Brazilian VCR(PAL-M) > RCA connections to DMR-ES15LB(Hoping it would have outputed PAL-M) > capture card

2nd workflow:
Samsung SV300W(PAL-M to NTSC) > S-Video to DMR-ES15(American NTSC input/output) > capture card.

But unfortunately it seems like both workflows would ultimately spit out NTSC so wouldn't be able to test a workflow without converting the signal to compare. (Unless I just do the Normal Brazilian VCR straight to capture card, which I still might try out)

Writing this all out so we can keep this information archived here on this site incase someone else runs into this in the future.

[aramkolt]

For a game console, I could see there needing to be a PAL/NTSC "select" wire, so the snip part makes sense there. On a VCR, my hope is that it'd just play the color as it is on the tape assuming it has the correct crystal oscillator that meshes with the colorburst also on the tape. I doubt that you could actually make a new PAL-M recording on a machine modified this way, but the hope is that maybe you could play PAL-M tapes back at least.

Also, looks like the HR-S7600AM cannot do PAL-M per the manual - at least to make off air TV recordings, so it doesn't sound like it was intended to be used there. My guess is because that'd require an additional unique crystal that the other formats do not use.