DSR-11 Recorder to transfer my tapes or huffyuv for the manual mode?

[El Enmascarado]

Some guy on another galaxy said:
My recommendation is to take your VHS and Hi-8 tapes and transfer them through a Time-Base Corrector (such as the DataVideo TBC-1000) onto DV tape, using the DVCAM format on your Sony DSR-11 recorder. The Time-Base Corrector cleans up problems with your VHS video, such as chroma smear, drop-outs, tearing and other bad things.

Now I seem that these devices are very expensive. Which may compensate the effort and time. But I just realized another idea... If I just record these tapes and hi8 cassettes onto my computer using huffyuv and then I convert them to DV-CAM format would it be the same thing but more cheaper? and also get rid of the click and jerky noises my ADVC-110 produce on the DV when the tape has audio track issues? :scared:

[chipzoller]

No, that's not the same thing. Either a VHS (S-VHS) with TBC or a TBC box (the TBC on VHS is preferable) is necessary to fix these things best. But TBC, as you pointed out, is very expensive and usually meant for commercial purposes. Even if you filtered it with avisynth (for 2 years) it still couldn't correct everything.

[El Enmascarado]

No, that's not the same thing. Either a VHS (S-VHS) with TBC or a TBC box (the TBC on VHS is preferable) is necessary to fix these things best. But TBC, as you pointed out, is very expensive and usually meant for commercial purposes. Even if you filtered it with avisynth (for 2 years) it still couldn't correct everything.

But If I use the TBC-1000 before it gets to the computer will I now get clean Huffyuv video I can then convert to DVCAM resulting in the same thing as buying a 1000$ DVCAM converter?

I plan to:
1) STORE my VHS onto DVCAM TAPES so they last for 25 years with highest image quality then DVD due to encoding so I wait until blu-ray comes highly available at a lower cost so I stream copy there unless another encoding is needed then I'll have to keep it onto Huffyuv for much longer :-(

2) use the huffyuv video to encode it onto MPEG2 for present displaying.

About option 2... wouldn't that be better then using a ADVC-110 and then convert the AVI onto MPEG2? in terms of audio and video quality.

does DVCAM really has more quality then DV? :scared:

[chipzoller]

But If I use the TBC-1000 before it gets to the computer will I now get clean Huffyuv video I can then convert to DVCAM resulting in the same thing as buying a 1000$ DVCAM converter?
Not if this is an alternative to a TBC-enabled VHS player. While separate TBC devices CAN remove and limit noise and compensate for some degradation of tape, but VHS players with TBC on-chip are far better.

About option 2... wouldn't that be better then using a ADVC-110 and then convert the AVI onto MPEG2? in terms of audio and video quality.

I think you're confused about this second option. Capturing to a lossless codec such as HuffYUV is just that-a LOSSLESS capture. It does and will not improve quality; it simply captures what exactly is sent to it. This means your quality control should be before the source is digitized, thus with your VHS or any line-interactive devices in between. After that, you'll be left with filtering options before authoring it to DVD or DVCAM.

[El Enmascarado]

Yea I know huffyuv captures as-is so therefore it'll be better then DV right (ADVC-110)? because my goal is put it on DVD at the end. For storage I plan DVCAM tapes unless I can use the dvds as the storage but the quality won't be as good as the DVCAM encodings right? coming from huffyuv files that is.

Is there a TBC enabled VCR I want that!... I dont' think my SLV-R1000 has it on chip... any similar or superior vcr with TBC incorporated? Suggestions? it'll be better to spend 250$ on a VCR tbc enabled then a TBC device right? unless the VCR is 1000$

[chipzoller]

Basically, if your going to capture from VHS to DVD then a lossless codec to a DVD is just fine. Remember, you're not dealing with any insanely high data rate here, just crappy VHS. There MORE than enough space on a DVD to allow for maximum quality of a VHS transfer, even with loads of filters applied.

There are many TBC-enabled VCRs, but they're high-end and commercial models (read=VERY expensive). JVC has a few and Panasonic (AG-1970, AG-1980). While these are over a grand new, you can usually pick them up used on eBay for ~$200-500.