Capturing from Japanese VHS (Need player recommendations)

[Dot50Cal]

Like my title says Im planning on capturing some VHS to my computer soon and I need a bit of help. Im completly new to VHS capturing so im sorry if I sound a little ignorant in some of my questions.

I already have a great capture card that can capture component, S-video and composite. Im wondering if somewhere in the USA theres a VHS player that can output component video? If there isnt, are there players that output to S-Video?

Also Ive heard that the Japanese VHS format is different from the USA one, and some players might have issues with it. Is this true?

I also do not need to worry about if the source is interlaced, I have a plugin for when I encode the video I capture to a downloadable format which deinterlaces rather nicely.

Thanks in advance guys!

[jggimi]

The only component video out VHS decks I've ever heard of are for D-VHS, which are for recording HDTV, and not at all for what you have in mind. But, there are plenty of S-VHS decks available that will play standard VHS tapes over S-video out.

As far as I know, Japanese TV and VHS tapes are NTSC, but it is a variant called NTSC-J. I found this comment at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTSC:...in Japan, black level and blanking level of the signal are identical, as they are in PAL, while in American NTSC, black level is slightly higher than blanking level. Since the difference is quite small, a slight turn of the brightness knob is all that is required to enjoy the "other" variant of NTSC on any set as it is supposed to be; most watchers might not even notice the difference in the first place.If I understand this correctly, you will want to experiment with color and brightness, and perhaps test samples with histograms. See the Capture Guide (http://www.doom9.org/capture/start.html) for those procedures, as well as other recommendations for VHS capture.

[Dot50Cal]

Thanks, that post was VERY helpful. I hate to ask but is there a particular VCR that you could recommend (that has s-video out)? I'm not really up on VCR tech and I cant seem to find any sites which compare them.

[jggimi]

No, not really. I bought a Philips VR960 about 3 years ago at a Best Buy or a Circuit City, or a similar chain, for under $100. But I have no other S-VHS decks to compare it to. Like every other consumer VCR, I still get head switching interference on the bottom 6-8 lines of each frame, easily removed in post processing.

[hendrix]

using japanese NTSC tapes in american NTSC decks won't be a problem...im a broadcast engineer in japan and we get tapes from our burbank office all the time...the ONLY difference is the NTSC black level is 7.5 for backward compatibility with legacy TVs, NTSC-J is 0 (pure black to pure white) - it'll work

if youre using an American TV in Japan you won't be able to get Stereo sound from broadcasts - the sound will be mono, but with tapes it wont be a problem

as for a deck with S-Video out...i would get a SVHS deck from e-bay...you won't believe how many pro decks are on there for a steel, built-in TBC for a perfect capture..you can't beat it, im planning on getting one myself

[jggimi]

Thanks, Hendrix!

In addition, dot50, there's a thread on VHS capture you may find helpful: http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=77486

It's an older thread but its had some recent posts in the last couple of days covering differences between consumer and broadcast VCRs.

[Dot50Cal]

Thanks for the help all! I was looking into it a bit more and I think I'd like a VCR with TBC, but the only one I can find that people recommend is the JVC HR-S9911 but thats quite expensive. If anyone knows of an alternative?

[Dot50Cal]

Well I ended up capturing with my old VCR with composite video out. Quality is pretty good though, theres a bit of jumping but its only when all white is displayed. Thanks again to all who helped! For those who are interested heres a capture from the video (Using Huffy)
http://img135.exs.cx/img135/8513/rawbarry5hg.jpg