LOL! I'm keeping that bit about the shoes, saving it for the right moment.

Thanks guys!

I've also checked the health tab on both HDDs multiple times and they all showed up with a white line with "ok" at the end so I don't believe it's the hdd. I've also touched the HDDs (just to make sure there's no clicking) and have been able to do it for minutes without discomfort.

I only have the example of the ADVC110 to demonstrate the computer/hdd does not normally drop frames. I've sold ADVC110 and was happy to sell it as it's flawed as per Lordsmurf.

I'll recompile my notes on an excel sheet and upload when I get the chance. Damn Averlogic... Do we know approximately from which year they replaced IC3&4? Is there a reason why one AVT (newest batch black model with Chinese characters instead of "LBT") wouldn't drop frames but the other two would? Is that from a different IC# or is it still dependent on the Averlogic?

According to njroadfan and lordsmurf's older AVTs, the JVC screen shouldn't flicker but should show clean. My AVTs all flicker. They also shouldn't freeze frames/fields but should show color bars if dropped or move onto the next field/frame. Mine are unfortunately freezing on certain spots

I just finished testing out the 3rd new AVT-8710 and it dropped frames as well as freeze fields/frames. Also retested the one AVT that didn't drop frames on the previous test and that started to add the initial 1 dropped frame in the beginning as well.

I know definitively it's not the hdd because I've also ran test captures without the AVT-8710 and it did not have the mandatory 1 dropped frame at the beginning with all four of the current AVTs in my possession (which I'm going to promptly return).

I do have one part about the full field TBC I'm still a little fuzzy on.

Lordsmurf mentioned that the ADVC is nothing more than an overhyped frame synchronizer. My (limited) understanding of a full frame TBC is that it provides clean full frame timing. How are the two nuanced differently?

Latest addition to the list:
-B&H black/black AVT-8710:
Serial# 2 238406 027101
IC6 - (Chinese characters) v2.2 2218-0C22
IC2 - Altera EPM3064A
TC44-10N
S HCC77
1319A
IC1 - Trident SAA7114H
IC3 & IC4 - AVERLOGIC
AL440B-24-PBF
IC5 - Trident SAA7129AH
(Dropped frame)

The first 30 seconds or so of the beginning and end of a tape are the most stressed because of the rewind/fast forwarding of the VCR putting the most stress on these sections of tape. This is why commercial tapes not only have a black runoff section before the FBI warning, but also one of the reasons why previews on a tape actually help maintain the integrity of the main title.

If you are capturing and get a dropped or inserted frame on the VCR screen/color bars/beginning or end of tape, its not the end of the world, nor is a one-off sign of a bad piece of hardware.

Capture a whole tape with each before you discount the lot.

Thank you premiumcapture.

I have captured that whole tape before I received the AVT-8710 with just the panny's line TBC and had 0 dropped frames. It's interesting the hdd and computer was put in doubt before the AVTs with the Averlogic chips. Without fail at the minimum on every capture, the very first frame is dropped on all captures with the Averlogic chip AVTs in the line. I just did another test last night as per above and I saw 0 dropped frames. My hdds all show healthy. This would seem to point to only one place.

So, we have the following:
-No dropped frames without AVT (with Averlogic chip)
-no dropped frames with ADVC110 (a frame synchronizer in DV)
-prerequisite first dropped frame with the above mentioned AVT
-frozen frames/fields kept at longer than a second with the newer AVTs
-no frozen frames/fields without the newer AVTs
-newer AVTs having failed the JVC menu screen as it constantly freezes frames/fields there as well
-no errors or warnings on hdd nor is it running hot
-no other software being run while virtualdub is running

I'm still confused about the below nuance:
"Lordsmurf mentioned that the ADVC is nothing more than an overhyped frame synchronizer. My (limited) understanding of a full frame TBC is that it provides clean full frame timing. How are the two nuanced differently?"

You have two items:
- a frame sync
- a frame sync TBC

They're not the same. ;)

Hi Lordsmurf,

As promised, please find the spreadsheet attached below
Attachment 4308

After returning all of the AVT-8710s, I was able to find another green/black AVT-8710 not too long ago (took a long time to find one). The model on that shows it's 2 years older than the first one I've picked up. It uses the KOL chips and delivered different results as expected. When I ran the same tape through the Panny without it's line TBC but put it through the AVT-8710, it did not produce ghosting like the previous 2007 green one did. It also did not drop frames every time (didn't suspect hard drive error due to drop frames not occurring prior to the AVT-8710s I had before). However, it does drop frames 7 out of 10 times at the very beginning which is fine. It also passed the JVC menu test. The blue blank screen looks perfect as well as the menu pages. I hope this information helps anyone looking for a proper AVT-8710 unit as this definitively confirms that not all green AVT-8710s are created the same. Without knowing Lordsmurf's AVT unit, I'd say it's from 2005 (or late 2004).
I've also noticed the 2005 AVT-8710 I have doesn't produce as brighter a picture as my previous 2007 after reseting the unit which was interesting. I'm wondering if each unit resets to a different level or if it's only units after a certain serial number.

On a different note, I've been capturing Hi8 tapes using a Sony DCR-TRV520 following the same procedure (VTR->AVT-8710->ATI card->Huffyuv) and settings as my VHS tapes. It seems the DCR models signifies it records DV and CCD models records analog. If I use a DCR-TRV520 just for playback purposes and use SVideo out and Audio out from it, am I safe or does it convert to DV and reconvert to SVideo/Audio analog mucking up my image? Is there a better player I should be looking for? Also, am I assuming properly to use the same set up as VHS for Hi8 tapes?

Thanks!

Hi,

Close to a week and haven't heard a response for the above queries.

In the meantime, I've been working out my other problem in regards to capturing through my second hdd. It turns out it's not due to the hdd itself as I've suspected. It's from the IDE cable type that came with my computer. My primary IDE controller had the 80 conductor IDE cable (only open slot for the main hdd) but my secondary controller had a 40 conductor cable plugged in. When I swapped the 40 conductor with the 80 and changed all the jumpers to cable select instead of master/slave, it worked as expected. Hope this helps anyone looking to purchase a computer hooked up with IDE HDDs.

Thanks for your work on the AVT, should prove useful. The worksheet .xlsx is incompatible with earlier versions of Office, so took a few days for me convert it on another PC to a version of Office designed for Earthlings.
:wink2:

My AVT-8710 is from 2004. It resets only when I tell it to.

Someone familiar with your camera will have to answer that, But I thought the output from a DV camera was digital and should be capped via Firewire to DV. I don't want to guess about that, but anyone can tell you this about setup for VHS vs DV: every source is different, regardless of format. Treat each source individually.

Makes sense to me. I didn't know IDE drives would even work with the wrong cable.

Thanks Sanlyn,

Sorry about the conversion issue. I know the feeling as I'm using XP at work.

All of my AVTs reset when I tell it to but the latest one I have seems to reset at slightly different levels than the others. I was wondering if each AVT had a slightly different baseline reset level.

My DCR has a SVideo out so I've been using that, not FireWire. I was wondering if I'm safe using that camcorder or if I should be looking for a CCD model instead. Also, if different workflows for different sources, do I need to use a different set up for Hi8? The AVT/ATI/XP//Virtualdub/Huffyuv set up doesn't work best with that source?

IDE 40 and 80 conductors both fit in IDE motherboards as they're 40 pin. It seems the 80 conductor increases the speed performance and 80 conductor universally accepts cable select. I believe all IDE drives work with both but upgrading all cables to the 80 conductor would be ideal. Good thing they're not expensive

Yes, thank you, vhsdigital34! I can't believe you really bought and returned that many, but I appreciate your research on this. I've found my own green AVT is useless for dealing with Macrovision tapes because it turns the picture into a bright, blooming mess but I appear to be alone with that issue. And MV is the only reason I bought it...

Is the spreadsheet supposed to have columns? Google Sheets doesn't seem to open it properly.

Questions like these always amuse me, because if you personally can't tell the difference when watching, does it matter? :)

If you want to attach a 5-sec sample, I can tell you whether it has any evidence of any DV compression artifacts.

I would have thought the TBC in the camcorder eliminates the need for the AVT-8710, but lordsmurf said otherwise in a recent post:
I would still take it out of the chain and see whether you get drops with your own cam and tapes. There is no reason to change the rest of the setup though.

Hi msgohan,

Sorry about the .XLSX. It's all in column A. I've listed them in chronological order.

I'm still a noob so just because I don't notice it doesn't mean it's good. I'm ultimately trying to future proof my old tapes so I'd like to get it right before the days of TVs being 110 inches on average (or the wall) doesn't mess with things.

I'm not sure if this model even has TBC. I wasn't sure if using S-Video and Analog audio outputs whether the DV or TBC would kick in or if it outputs an untouched analog signal. I appreciate the offer for checking my samples but I'm having a hard time logging in through FTP. Once that's taken care of, I'll upload them. I say them because I captured two sets of the same footage. One with AVT and one without of the same scene.

Thanks again!!

If it has TBC, there will be an option in the menu to switch it on/off. See page 80 of the DCR-TRV480 manual, for example. Just google the PDF manual for your cam and CTRL+F for "TBC".

I suggested a 5-sec sample because it would be well under the 32MB forum attachment limit, and more time from the same scene probably wouldn't add any additional info.

Thank you very much msgohan! Had no idea that can be toggled on/off like that. So I should make sure TBC is on and DNR is off, correct? I'll check it once I get home.

The reason why I captured more was because I wanted to get past the initial jitters which lasts around 5 seconds of capture.

Sorry about the late reply but I'm still waiting for the FTP access. Hoping now that we've passed the holiday season we can move forward with this project.

The camcorder did have an off/on switch!

Just tried installing GOM player on a new computer to view the footage but noticed with the new versions it was having difficulty. There is a simple way to resolve this with perfect (better than VLC) results (maybe this was why people thought Gom wasn't good for this).
Here are the steps:
1) if already have GOM player, uninstall and reboot to get rid of all of the files
2) install the current version of GOM player
3) install FFDSHOW Codec from the link below:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/ffdshow-tryout/files/

You'll notice it does a fantastic job playing interlaced huffyuv. Love it.

Hope this helps!!

I've PMd the FTP details.

Hm. Interesting. Last I saw, GOM had been going down in quality these past few years. It was always a 3rd-best player. VLC used to be best, but has gotten more quirks as time goes by. MPC is proving to be the best media player these days.

Nice to see others' research on players. :)

Thank you admin!
I'll check out MPC but so far compared to VLC at least, I don't see nearly as much scanlines. Playback is also smoother.

Hi msgohan/Lordsmurf,

I've uploaded 4 different capture files of the same footage to show the difference between having AVT8710 and having DNR on and off. TBC on the Sony DCRTRV520 camcorder was kept on for all four. Please let me know which produces the most faithful to the tape. I've immediately noticed taking the AVT out on these captures creates continuous jitter on Virtualdub. Thank you very much!!

-DNR on, with AVT:
http://cdn4.digitalfaq.com/vhsdigita...NR_AVT_VTR.avi
-DNR off, with AVT:
http://cdn4.digitalfaq.com/vhsdigita...NR_AVT_VTR.avi
-DNR on, without AVT:
http://cdn4.digitalfaq.com/vhsdigita..._NoAVT_VTR.avi
-DNR off, without AVT:
http://cdn4.digitalfaq.com/vhsdigita..._NoAVT_VTR.avi

Apparently the AVT and your DNR don't make nice together. This happens sometimes. I'd say the line tbc and the mild DNR in your player are more important, if you had to eliminate the AVT to get a stable image. The images with DNR on and NoAVT have less mosquito noise on contrasty edges and less noise in dark areas. Images with the AVT have a slightly higher gamma than with no AVT.

Otherwise there is so much disturbed camera movement it's difficult to say much more.
:hmm:

Thank you sanlyn,

The problem with that is, without the AVT, virtualdub shows dropped frame as well as constant jitter so taking out the AVT wouldn't be too good (unless there's a workaround or those values don't matter). These are old home videos with heavy camcorders so it's pretty tough finding any footage that's stable. I've found a portion that's relatively stable and have captured just as the above but am having issues getting into FTP again. Once I get FTP access I'll post them here. Thanks again!!

For this specific case, then, I'd have to say that since your DNR is apparently mild and not doing that much, turn it off and insert the AVT. Your DNR might be having trouble with that tape or is outputting something that gets the AVT very upset. Hardware noise reduction is a good thing (it's OK on my AG1980) but those circuits can't be expected to solve noise problems as thoroughly as many Avisynth or VirtualDub filters -- which for many tapes will often be needed anyway. Really tough noise problems require strong multistage filters that are very slow, much too slow to run during capture.