Advc-300 tbc

[alexh110]

I'm thinking about buying a Canopus/Grass Valley ADVC-300 Bi-Directional Media Converter, and wondered if anyone has experience using one?

I want it for it's TBC and video noise reduction functions, and plan to insert it between a Betamax machine (SL-HF950) and a DVD Recorder to digitise some of my large Betamax collection.
I plan to use the SCART output from the HF950 through an S-Video conversion widget. Feed the S-Video signal into the ADVC-300, and use the S-Video output to connect to my DVD Recorder.

My recordings suffer from quite severe mosquito noise and horizontal line-timing instability, as well as horizontal ringing at luminance edges.
I wondered how effective the ADVC-300 is at correcting such faults?

It's quite an expensive unit, and I'm wondering whether there's a better TBC out there, with more versatile controls?

[Asmodian]

It looks like it doesn't do what you want to me:

[Analog Composite, Y/C video, unbalanced stereo audio] to [IEEE-1394 Digital A/V]

or

[IEEE-1394 Digital A/V] to [Composite, Component, Y/C Video and unbalanced stereo audio]

I have an AV Toolbox AVT-8710 that works well for me in this kind of workflow. I don't use its picture features, just as a TBC.

I am sad to say the ADVC-300 seems quite cheap for this kind of equipment.

[alexh110]

Yes you're absolutely right, it won't work as an analogue-to-analogue device; unless I buy a FireWire to S-Video DAC to use in conjunction with it (which may actually be a cheaper option than buying an analogue-to-analogue TBC with noise reduction!)

Looks like the AVT-8710 doesn't have any noise reduction capability: so it's not really suitable for my purpose. Also the ADVC-300 appears to produce much better picture quality judging by the forums I've looked at.

So unless anyone can suggest a better analogue-to-analogue TBC unit, I'll probably have to go with the ADVC-300.

[Asmodian]

Yes you're absolutely right, it won't work as an analogue-to-analogue device; unless I buy a FireWire to S-Video DAC to use in conjunction with it (which may actually be a cheaper option than buying an analogue-to-analogue TBC with noise reduction!)

I don't think you want to go analog->DV->analog->DVD if you don't have to, certainly not for a simple noise filter. How is the quality of the DV to s-video converter?

Looks like the AVT-8710 doesn't have any noise reduction capability: so it's not really suitable for my purpose. Also the ADVC-300 appears to produce much better picture quality judging by the forums I've looked at.

Well you cannot really compare the two like that. The AVT-8710 is only a Time Base Corrector not a capture device. I am not sure how one would compare the image quality as one is an analog to digital DV converter with built in filters and line TBC and the other outputs an analog signal and is a full frame TBC. A lot of the quality issues depend on the device(s) after the AVT-8710. Which forum did you find that discusses these? I am always trying to figure out a better workflow for (S)VHS to H.264.

So unless anyone can suggest a better analogue-to-analogue TBC unit, I'll probably have to go with the ADVC-300.

Reading the reviews on videohelp.com (http://www.videohelp.com/capturecards/canopus-advc-300/350) makes me think there must be better options but I am not sure about that for your workflow. A lot depends on the quality and features of the DVD recorder. I think it would be better to capture the DV from the ADVC-300 on a computer and compress that to MPEG2 for DVD rather than doing extra A to D and D to A conversions.

I found digitalfaq.com (http://www.digitalfaq.com/guides/video.htm) very helpful in understanding the differences between devices and what they are meant to do.

[alexh110]

Here is a thread about the AVT-8710. An image comparison shows it can produce tearing at the top of frame:
http://forum.videohelp.com/threads/324462-AVT-8710-TBC-Lack-of-RCA-Audio-Input-Output-Will-It-Matter

My DVD Recorder is a DMR-EZ49VEBK. For optimal quality, I use it in XP mode, which records only 1 hour of material on each disc.
I can't see any difference between it's recordings and the original footage (except in very rare cases where the recording was severely faulty).
I prefer not to use my PC to capture and burn to DVD, as the MPEG2 encoding is very slow (when done with good quality settings). Certainly massively slower than the real-time encoding I can do on my DMR-EZ49VEBK.
Also I don't have a FireWire input on my PC: so would have to buy a Firewire card.

Agree the double A-D conversion path is not desirable; but I can't think of any other solution if I want to make use of the more advanced clean-up features of the ADVC-300.

For the DV to S-Video conversion stage I think I would buy an ADVC110, unless there's a cheaper option?

When you say the AVT-8710 is a "full frame TBC", does this mean it can only correct vertical timing errors, and has no effect on line-timing errors?
Since line-timing instability is the main problem with my Betamax recordings, I certainly would need a TBC that does both!

[Asmodian]

Finish reading that thread you linked.

The error in the screen shot is a rare error due to a bad tape, I have never seen it with either of my VCRs running through the AVT-8710. It wasn't caused by the AVT-8710 just not "repaired" as well as it should have been. There were a lot of other problems with that tape when not using the AVT-8710.

Check out this thread (http://forum.videohelp.com/threads/313473-NOTE-A-Canopus-DV-box-does-not-replace-a-TBC%21).

It sounds like the ADVC-300 might work fine for what you want it to do but it isn't really a TBC.

I am not sure you need a real TBC either, if you do not have trouble with dropped frames, loss of video sync, etc.

[alexh110]

Hmm, having worked in the TV Industry for over 20 years this is a subject I ought to know all about; but even I am confused by these domestic TBCs!

In the early 1990s I worked as a VT Operator, and the 1" VTRs had built-in TBCs that worked as follows:

1) re-timed the off-tape H-sync to match the precisely timed station SPG Gen Lock signal to eliminate line-timing errors caused by mechanical wow and flutter of the tape transport

2) re-timed the off-tape V-sync in the same manner

3) using the off-tape colour burst to detect errors, it introduced small horizontal and/or vertical picture shifts to maintain compliance with the PAL 8-field sequence, which is sometimes discontinuous at edit-points

4) replaced the off-tape syncs and burst with the more precise SPG signal.

I assumed the various domestic TBCs would work in the same way (using an internal SPG), and I'm not sure I grasp the difference between single-line, multi-line and frame-TBCs?

The problem I'm desperate to eliminate from my Betamax recordings is referred to on digitalfaq.com as: "geometric distortion such as the wiggling appearance of older video, as if viewed through a rippling pond or bathtub".
This issue seems to be particularly bad on Betamax recordings: it's definitely worse than VHS tapes, and dramatically worse than Video 8!

digitalfaq.com suggests the built-in TBC of an SVHS machine is the best option to deal with this problem; but there's not much point trying to stick a Betamax tape into an SVHS machine!
It also suggests analogue-to-DV capture devices are useless as TBCs! Not sure if this includes the ADVC-300?

They also criticise the ES15, which is the DVD Recorder I was using until very recently. I didn't notice any problem with it's recordings in XP mode; though I did think the picture quality in SP mode (2 hours per DVD) was quite poor.

Dropped frames and vertical jitter are not problems I have encountered with my Betamax tapes: so it's really just the line-timing correction and general video noise reduction I'm after.
Starting to doubt now whether the ADVC-300 does offer the solution I'm looking for?

[Ghitulescu]

Reports are that the TBC and the "filter" of ADVC-300 worsen the video quality.

If you look for all 4 points, the only consumer device I know of is the Electronic Design TBC Enhancer. ED is defunct for about 10 years but its products can still be found as 2nd hand, though very rare.

[alexh110]

Don't need all four points really, just the H-sync re-timing function to correct the "rippling pond" effect.
Some video noise reduction would be nice too; though not essential.

Perhaps I should try and get hold of an ED-Betamax machine; though not sure if these included TBC and noise reduction circuits?

[alexh110]

Did a little more research, and it seems ED-Betamax machines did not have any TBC or DNR.

It sounds like the Electronic-Design TBC-Enhancer, or perhaps the VideoTech Designs VMX410 would be my best options.

Also seems my DVD Recorder may have a built-in TBC? Apparently the ES20 has one, and presumably so did the ES15?
If so, it didn't do a very good job of correcting the vertical ripple when making Betamax dubs via the rear SCART input. Perhaps it's a simple TBC with no H-sync correction?

[jmac698]

Ugh. 1 and 3 can be done by a capture card, 4 makes no sense in a capture card.
1-3 can be done by a dvd recorder. The dvd recorder may be used as a passthrough.

Why not try a tape with the equipment you have already? See if it fixes 1-3. As for the noise, of course that can be done in software, but I understand you wouldn't have time to render a pass for each tape. You can run Avisynth scripts in real-time while capturing, by pasting them into the edit box of ffdshow.
If you want to burn to DVD at the same time, you can burn the *file* to dvd, but not sure how you would burn a DVD video in real-time.

I've definitely proved that a capture card fixes #1, however it may fail in some cases where there's flagging (meaning a bent section at the top). Consider a dvd recorder (in passthru or recording) the next step above that.

[alexh110]

Thanks very much for all the ideas guys.

I've found that both the Panasonic ES15 and EZ49 DVD-Recorders fail to correct line-timing errors. Maybe a better DVD-Recorder would make a difference?
I have a Pinnacle DC10+ Motion-JPEG capture card, which is 10 years old so not sure if it corrects line-timing? Haven't ever used it for Betamax capture; but it did occur to me that it might resolve the problem. Will give it a go and report back!

There is no flagging on these tapes; the line-timing errors are relatively small, but rapidly fluctuating down the picture.

I did try some AviSynth filters to clean up DVD dubs of these Betamax tapes. The only one that produced any improvement was fft3dfilter; but I had to use such a strong setting that it also removed an unacceptable amount of fine picture detail.
I'm thinking of buying an Oppo BDP-93 to test out it's noise reduction options (which are more advanced than most blu-ray players).

[jmac698]

Ok, well I must reveal that I don't have a lot of experience with some of the equipment, and in fact I don't see a lot of line jitter on my own tapes. I would have to conclude for your sake to go with a high quality TBC, barring the capture card *just working*. I'd like to see a sample though, however post it in the Usage sub-forum. I'm keeping an eye out for TBC problems; it's something I'm trying to understand better.

I have another practical idea, see if there's a video conversion service in your area, and ask them to try your tape with a TBC. You can see for yourself if their equipment makes any difference. I've taken tapes into professional services before, and they told me they couldn't fix the noise, and then I (re) invented the median capture technique :)

[alexh110]

No joy with the capture card I'm afraid: had no effect at all on the line-jitter.
For convenience I used the SCART output of the Betamax, with a SCART to S-Video conversion widget, and fed the S-Video signal into the capture card.
I haven't tried connecting the composite output of the Beta to the composite input of the card: not sure if that would make a difference? I suppose it might if the Beta is converting the off-tape composite signal to RGB for the SCART output, and regenerating the syncs during this process. Not sure whether it does that?

I've just ordered my Oppo BDP-93 from Amazon, and am hoping it can get rid of the mosquito noise on the Betamax dubs.

[Ghitulescu]

I cannot reproduce the "waving", "flagging" etc. so I cannot say whether it works or not.

The "so-called" TBC in DVD-recorders (there are some that DO have one though) is nothing else than an aid to digitize the incoming video - it aims not at correcting it (should they be able to correct it then they could also record macrovisioned tapes, too, right? :) ) but at delivering a clean signal to the digitizer.

http://www.karlklomp.nl/inf/faq.html

[Ghitulescu]

I've found that both the Panasonic ES15 and EZ49 DVD-Recorders fail to correct line-timing errors. Maybe a better DVD-Recorder would make a difference?

Maybe a change (http://forum.videohelp.com/threads/230650-Confused-Why-a-VCR-with-TBC-if-separate-TBC-needed-anyway?p=1361867&viewfull=1#post1361867) would help?

[jmac698]

I'm almost wondering if this tape is correctable at all... Let us know if the TBC you ordered works.

[alexh110]

Actually the Oppo is not a TBC, it's a high-end blu-ray player. It has the 2nd Gen QDEO chip, which I'm hoping may clean up the Betamax mosquito noise.

And it's not just one tape, I have around 400! The line-jitter problem seems to be present on all of them.
They were mostly recorded in the 1990s with a pair of industrial standard Betamax duplicators.
Nearly all of them are on secondhand Betacam tape stock; though one or two are on standard Betamax or Pro-X tape.
There are also a couple accidentally recorded onto Betacam SP stock; though this metal tape formulation should not really be used in Betamax machines.

Could be the Betacam tape formulation was the source of the problem; although I was told at the time it was fully compatible with domestic Betamax recorders. It was all bulk-erased prior to use ofcourse, and Betacam tape really ought to be more durable than the standard domestic tapes.

[jmac698]

Duplicators? Hmm.. they're 2nd gen tapes. In that case, the jitter could be 'baked in', meaning it's a copy of the jitter of the first tape. The only way to copy without this problem is by using a TBC during the copy.
If it is baked in, a TBC won't help anymore. You're only chance is if I get my software TBC to work.

[alexh110]

Actually they're mostly first generation: the duplicator inputs were connected to a good quality demodulator.
In some cases they're dubs of Video 8 tapes; but I've checked several of the original Video 8 recordings, and they produce very stable playback, low in noise. So it seems the problems were introduced by the Betamax recorders.

[jmac698]

Here's a good thread on the wavy lines issue
http://forum.videohelp.com/threads/230650-Confused-Why-a-VCR-with-TBC-if-separate-TBC-needed-anyway

seems the jvc vcr's with built-in line TBC work quite well, which doesn't help you, but also camcorders.

[Emulgator]

I have a ADVC-300, it does not offer any TBC tweaking.
Moreover, picture stability could indeed be worsened if any TBC from some feeding deck
(in my case for instance Panasonic NV-HS950) is on as well.
Different later decks (for instance the Panasonic DMR-EX95V) can have much better internal TBC than the former.
It seems as if the playback deck has indeed the most influence, I could not mend anything seriously with the ADVC-300.
In the beginning I even used the built-in Hardware filtering.
Then I began to learn AviSynth, and from then on I found it better to leave the built-in filters bypassed,
especially when attempting IVTC after capturing.
The only thing when capturing with ADVC-300 is that I might lift blacklevels and soften white peaks for clamped recordings.
In the end I will look for capturing uncompressed, because DCT blocks can be visible in noisy blacks...

[ReinerSchweinlin]

I found my way here, hopefully you guys can help me decide something :)

I did tons of capturing in the old days with my BT848 Card which worked quite well then. I have a bunch of capture cards at my hand and want to capture VHS Footage (JVC S-VHS TBC Deck) and Hi8 (Sony regular VCR Deck...). Which one would be capable of the best picture quality (in means of quality of the ADC, FIltering inside the Card, TBC Features in the card, etc..):

- Vidac Vmagic (only does MPEG2 in hardware, but the ADC was very nice back then).
- Recent Philips analog TV Card with some philips chip (people told me I could get RGB/YU/etc out of this, it has some TBC features built in and the ADC was better than BT848..)
- old BT848 from Pinnacel (PCTV Pro)
- Miro DC30 (former semi-Pro Card, I guess MJPEG 3:1 was the best-..).
- Canopus Advc-300 (DV only I guess?)

Assuming I want to filter in Software afterward, Is capturing in YU with the old BT848 still the best way? MOst of the footage came from Cams back then.

[juhok]

The only thing when capturing with ADVC-300 is that I might lift blacklevels and soften white peaks for clamped recordings.
In the end I will look for capturing uncompressed, because DCT blocks can be visible in noisy blacks...ADVC-300 does the adjustments after AD so you might as well do those in avisynth also.

edit:
Moreover, picture stability could indeed be worsened if any TBC from some feeding deck
(in my case for instance Panasonic NV-HS950) is on as well.What the..? The TBC in NV-HS950 is the only thing really doing any correction to the visible video in your setup. ADVC-300 does zip to the time base errors in the analog recording. Internal TBC in Panasonic VCR's have been excellent since atleast FS-200(oldest I got). Maybe your HS950 or ADVC is broken or something else weird is happening.

[juhok]

Which one would be capable of the best picture quality (in means of quality of the ADC, FIltering inside the Card, TBC Features in the card, etc..):

- Vidac Vmagic (only does MPEG2 in hardware, but the ADC was very nice back then).
- Recent Philips analog TV Card with some philips chip (people told me I could get RGB/YU/etc out of this, it has some TBC features built in and the ADC was better than BT848..)
- old BT848 from Pinnacel (PCTV Pro)
- Miro DC30 (former semi-Pro Card, I guess MJPEG 3:1 was the best-..).
- Canopus Advc-300 (DV only I guess?)Of these I've used ADVC-300(not much because it sucked) and BT848(a lot). I'd sell the overprized ADVC-300 and use the money to buy modern lossless card + frame sync. For example Blackmagic with analog inputs + TBC-1000. If you want filtering and TBC(framesync) in your CAPTURE DEVICE, there doesn't exist overall good solution that I've heard of.

edit: Maybe I dismissed BT848 too fast, it's still lossless and pretty good ADC. Needs framesync for VHS. Or the Philips if it's better(?).

[ReinerSchweinlin]

Thanx for your feedback
Of these I've used ADVC-300(not much because it sucked) and BT848(a lot).
Damn... The more I read here, the more I find pople saying that the ADVC-300 isn´t good at all... Too bad, I trusted a bunch of people giving the Canopus Thingy a high reputation on its ADC and TBC Features...
I'd sell the overprized ADVC-300 and use the money to buy modern lossless card + frame sync. For example Blackmagic with analog inputs + TBC-1000. If you want filtering and TBC(framesync) in your CAPTURE DEVICE, there doesn't exist overall good solution that I've heard of.
I´ll check on these, maybe I can find some gear.. I read blackmagic PCI Cards have 10Bit Capturing Capability on SDI - this gets me thinking - Do all the card have the same bit-depth whilke capturing? Maybe there is a nice overview somewhere? I am thinking in terms of Audio-Producing where headroom and the higer S/N ratio of 24 Bit over 16 Bit are a nice "feature" for recording - maybe there are some video-cards with better ADC??

Comparing the Blackmagic to the old DC-30: Does anyone know how they compare?

edit: Maybe I dismissed BT848 too fast, it's still lossless and pretty good ADC. Needs framesync for VHS. Or the Philips if it's better(?).
Scharfis Brain postet out that the Philips is better - althpough he referred to capturng VHS (He needs the Comp filter). I have a S-VHS System which already seperates Y/C, so maybe this is not relevant for me? Is the philips better after all?
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=876598#post876598

[juhok]

You can check BM specs from their website http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/

I have experience with Studio version, but Intensity and it's different revisions should be comparable.

BM Analog SD capture can be chosen between 8bit or 10bit 4:2:2. The comb filter on composite is bad/non-existent. Frame Sync is required for bad analog sources like VHS or Video8 (there are rare cases where semipro deck has builtin FS but I've only ever seen one Hi8 deck like this). I never found reason to use 10bit for VHS/other crappy inputs (and the Frame Sync inbetween VHS and capture card is bottleneck with 8bit, also propably the TBC inside decks is 8bit also).

I never did really in-depth testing with BM ADC quality. It looks good to me (done Betamax, VHS, SVHS, Video8, Hi8, DVD-player, BetacamSP, etc), it's ADC is pretty much 1:1 compared to digital source of the same file (and here the playback device plays a role too so slight variations come from that direction also). With BT848 I had noticeable (over/under)sharpness / color issues when doing same comparison. Philips stuff - cannot say. If you already got the Philips, and it's good and it works and it seems OK to your subjective eyes, why not. :) "It's just VHS".

[2Bdecided]

Thanks very much for all the ideas guys.

I've found that both the Panasonic ES15 and EZ49 DVD-Recorders fail to correct line-timing errors.The ES15 is supposed to work very well. Ashamed to admit I still haven't got around to using mine. But from what I've read: Have you tried all the different inputs? I'm not sure that the TBC gets applied to all of them. Have you got it disabled in the menus? There are various amounts of filtering available.

Some DV camcorders have very forgiving analogue inputs which include decent TBCs (though most in Europe don't have any analogue inputs at all).

The Canopus ADVC110 is a great analogue > DV capturing device - it does it very cleanly, but with no enhancement. It won't make bad signals better. The ADVC300 includes some not particularly useful enhancement that some people claim isn't entirely defeatable. Neither is designed for loop-through enhancement AFAICT.

First thing first: try again with the ES15. Check the menus, and try each input. Use it as a loop-through device to something else - it's not (generally) a very reliable DVD recorder as it gets older, because the DVD-R mechanism files.

Cheers,
David.

[alexh110]

Thanks David.
Alas my ES15 has died: so I can't perform those tests. I bought the EZ49 to replace it.
I would've captured the Betamax via the AV2 SCART input, and Video 8 via the AV3 phono input. Do you happen to know which input(s) the TBC worked with?

What I can say is that the EZ49 is very similar to the ES15, and the EZ49 doesn't seem to correct line-jitter or reduce mosquito noise, no matter which input I use.

There doesn't seem to be any menu option to turn the TBC on and off on the EZ49, and the ES15 had virtually identical menu options. The only filtering option seems to be a comb filter, which I have switched on.

Possibly the Sony TRV-120 Digital 8 camcorder, or one of the Sony Mini-DV camcorders might be my best option to correct the line-jitter and video noise. The TRV-120 seems to have DNR and TBC pass-through for analogue video sources; but I'm not sure which camcorder model would be best for this purpose?
I think the noise reduction is probably even more important than the jitter-correction, as it's more disturbing to the eye.

[Ghitulescu]

Recap the PSU of your ES15. :)

[2Bdecided]

alex, I've tried but failed to find the thread on videohelp.com where this was discussed. sorry.

[juhok]

I drank some coffee and re-read this thread from the top.

alexh110- What you want cannot be done with anything suggested here. There's a great deal of confusion going on about what device corrects which error. ADVC-300 will not correct the wavy lines, ES-15 will not correct the wavy lines (it might correct the flagging issue which is a special case), AVT-8710 or TBC-100/1000 will not correct the wavy lines, TRV camcorders will not correct the wavy lines on pass-thru. Mostly these devices just stabilize the underlaying signal so it can be captured without framedrops -> Frame Synchronizers. They do pretty much nothing for the visual errors (some just make them worse while others are more "transparent"). I've used the ADVC-300 and it's DNR is bollocks. Out of interest, could you give a video sample to look at and to play with?

The wavy lines can be corrected using integrated TBCs built for this purpose while eating the "raw" input from the drum. As you discovered, there are no Betamax players with this option. Professional units might have option for raw output from the VTR to external TBC which has raw input (I don't have experience of this but I've studied it a bit, you may have experience with this stuff from your industry years). If there exist some kind of industrial Betamax unit which has this option, paired with external professional TBC, it might produce results. Also you should calibrate your playback Betamax unit according to the tapes you're trying to capture. This might ease up the errors (flagging atleast). Your 950 propably is off spec compared to the machines the tapes were made with. Last hope is to wait if jmac698 gets his software TBC working decently. But it might take a long time, and it's a slow and complicated PC based solution you frowned upon earlier.

If you're dead set on ADVC-300, I might suggest at looking for something like Leitch DPS 475 (http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=Leitch+DPS+475&_sacat=0&_odkw=Leitch+DPS+475&_osacat=0) instead, used cost the same as ADVC-300 but a bit in different league and maybe more familiar to you than these consumer devices. :) (still, no wavy lines fix)