Line TBCs are a must, but frame TBCs still pass dropped or inserted frames, but won't cause dropped or inserted frames by the capture card itself. So if your vcr's internal line tbc has a hiccup on a difficult tape, the frame tbc passes it to the capture card, but without losing sync. It's the same with the DMR-ESxx devices... they can drop and insert internally, but the capture card doesn't drop or insert on it's end. I'm currently digitizing Woodstock 99 weekend... all 65 hours. The broadcast itself had signal glitches... the capture card will freak out and insert tons of frames over a split second glitch, but the DMRs pass it as it looks on the tape, but the capture card doesn't even notice. Personally I picked up a Panasonic WJ-AVE5 video mixer... it has it's own frame tbc, and replaces the line tbc... and has an audio VU meter and sliders to boot. It even fixes top edge tearing. All for a fraction of what an actual frame tbc will cost you. And it doesn't mess with the colors like the DMRs.
Another great comparison! My understanding is that a frame TBC can drop and insert frames as needed without being able to view the statistics that it has happened. If frames arrive too quickly, then it has to drop frames if its buffer is already full. If frames arrive too slowly, it will eventually run out of buffered frames and have to repeat at least remaining frame in its memory buffer until the buffer is refilled. The main downside of a TBC is that it's essentially a mild generation loss since analog is converted to digital and then back to analog. An ideal TBC would convert to digital and then output that digital signal to then capture. Some TBCs do have SDI out which is digital and they would have at least a theoretical advantage over an analog in to analog out TBC like the ones you mention. Whether that "generation loss" is perceptible to the average person is another question. An ideal chain would have only a single analog to digital conversion that is then captured. If you wanted to do a comparison video to show image quality degradation caused by passthrough devices, you might try outputting DVD playback passed through both the ES10 and the DVK then the capture card versus capturing that same DVD directly into your capture card. DVDs will not have time base errors, so this test only shows how multiple passthrough devices will degrade the original image quality. The ES10 in particular is said to cause "posterization" which is a type of detail loss . You'll also be able to rip that DVD and show what the original truly should have looked like if the capture was "perfect".
- This is not correct. Quality frame TBCs have large buffers to store and release frames, so dropping/inserting is not very common. The tape would have to be truly horrible, more noise than signal, for a buffer overrun to happen. - Any loss by TBCs is more theoretical than actual, because quality TBCs can easily capture full quality of the signal (A>D), and re-output it (D>A), especially with consumer sources like VHS. So the problem is the quality of the TBC, not an intrinsic truth of all TBCs. - The DVK is not a true frame TBC, but more of a TBC(ish), as it is weaker. - DVDs are 4:2:0, MPEG, and are too lossy for such a comparison.
Love these videos which you are doing. The VirtualDub settings I have been using based on a different video, which seem to work fine as well, is to uncheck the first two boxes (drop frames when captured frames are too close together and insert null frames when captured frames are too far apart,) then to Sync audio to video by resampling... and finally enabled correct video timing for few frame drops/inserts. So far this works on all the tapes I have captured. Once it doesn't I plan on purchasing a RetroTINK 5x to use a frame TBC so if you jump down that rabbit hole in the future please post a video about how well it works for you.
Unchecking the first two boxes is essentially just disabling dropped frame reporting. So you've not stopped dropping frames, you've only stopped the reporting. "If I close my eyes, you can't see me!" or "We'd have less cases if we stopped testing!"
Hello! Just want to point out that your work is amazing and very useful! Thank you again for that. I watched your video very carefully and the only question I have to ask you is about the second method, the digitization with minidv device, are you aware that many old miniDV cameras have line TBC that is active and working in digitization mode? It would be really interesting to check, test and compare the line TBC that probably is already there in your mini DV camera with other line TBC that are inherent in SVHS players or Panasonic DVD recorders.
MiniDV camcorders have a Line TBC feature, which is used when recording video with the camera itself, or when video is passed through it via the S-Video or Composite connection. I don't know much more about it. All I know is that it was able to remove all tearing and flagging from an old VHS tape. See my comparison video: th-cam.com/video/3SRoGgJZbwc/w-d-xo.html. How does it compare to the Line TBC in the JVC SVHS players? Or the Panasonic ES-10/15? I guess if I were to test it, I would want to see: 1. How does each handle bad tapes? My sense is that they are all adept at fixing flagging. 2. What is the effect on the look of the video? JVC linked the Line TBC feature with the Noise Reduction (NR) feature. So, you get some processing of the video (that you may not want) if you use the Line TBC option. Same goes for the Panasonic ES10/15, except that it appears to have an even greater (bad) impact on the video colors. And the MiniDV camcorder compresses the video to the lossy DV format with a reduced color space, which also affects the color. So, in all three cases, there is an effect, but one can probably adjust the colors in Davinci Resolve to get it back to the way you want it.
@@videocaptureguide You stated the following below. "MiniDV camcorder compresses the video to the lossy DV format with a reduced color space, which also affects the color". VirtualDub may let you capture uncompressed 10 bit 4:4:4 using a cheap USB video capture device but I imagine a lot of the cheap USB capture devices are limited by hardware to 8 bit 4:1:1. You could let people know in your next video that I (TECHTVUSA) created a video comparing 10 bit uncompressed 4:4:4 to the DV -25 8 bit 4:1:1 and no one can tell the difference. I think that video might be helpful to a lot of people.
My AG-1980 succumbed to bad capacitors a while back, leaving me with no TBC-enabled VCR. I picked up a DMR-ES15 off of ebay for under $50 and it's been pretty decent after I sorted out its IRE menu settings.
I think that the Panasonic DMR-ES10EG (PAL) still has the Panasonic MN673744 Frame TBC/Synchronizer IC, and the much worse DMR-ES15EG (PAL) has the input selection IC with integrated Line TBC. But you can quickly find out whether after the ES10 the picture comes about 3 frames too late compared to the sound. The Panasonic DMR-E55EG (PAL) sold in Germany has the internals of the Panasonic DMR-E50 sold in the USA with a more modern housing. The PAL and NTSC versions are therefore not directly comparable. I was not able to test the Panasonic DMR-ES10EG myself, as only the "Made in Slovakia" version was sold in Europe.
There are other ways of better quality but are niche and the hardware is a little bit expensive, Not as expensive as a TBC-1000 though. One of them is lossless over firewire, this requires an IOS and a firewire capture box that captures lossless AVI (not DV), The second is analog to SDI, some of these SDI devices have both line and frame TBC and output digital SDI, you would need a SDI-USB3, SDI-TB or SDI-PCIe adapter to get the lossless AVI into the hard drive.
I was curious about the lossless AVI over firewire. Googled it and found your post at Videohelp. Did you ever get it working or do comparison tests to see if that AJA method produced better results?
@@videocaptureguide I don't have a MAC so I've never tried it, Jwillis another member had it working. All lossless methods produce the exact same results, there is nothing to compare really. But adding devices in the mix like a DVD recorder or an external TBC can affect the visual quality vs just one device like the ones I mentioned.
@@Capturing-Memories Different ADCs inside each device may well produce somewhat different results. For example lower end ADCs are 8-bit while others are 10 or 12 bit, there's also oversampling, proc amps for colour etc adjustment, and different comb filters(for composite). Only the (lossless) encoding itself will be identical.
Unfortunately, buying a used Frame TBC is a big gamble because there is no way of knowing whether it is in perfect working condition. You could be flushing $2000.00 down the toilet.
That’s a very good point. I think for any decades old electronics that is in that price range one should only buy it if the capacitors have been replaced and or if other work has been done to ensure that it runs for the next 20 or 30 years. I have not used that Grant VCR restoration service but they do the type of work (for a price) that is necessary to justify such high prices.
It is good that you are testing things out for yourself. I think once you capture the video with Premiere Pro and a Firewire DV converter you will realize what a waste of time it was to use the cheap USB capture device with cheap software like OBS, VirtualDub, handbrake etc.
@@videocaptureguide From some brief googling, it seems that version 23.6 should be able to. You can have 2 (or more) versions of Adobe products installed concurrently with ease thankfully
@@videocaptureguide With the CC you can download older version of Premiere Pro form last year. Anything from a year ago should work just fine. That being said it might conflict with the latest version of Premiere Pro. Do you have a second PC for testing? It does not have to be super powerful.
Have you tried capturing with Premiere? I have been using a firewire pass-thru method and using CS4 to do the capture. It captures the clips as AVI files at pretty decent quality. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on this.
I plan on doing a comparison video between the Premiere method and the WinDV method to see if there is any difference. The DV file on the camcorder is just data so it shouldn't make a difference which software you use to transfer it to a computer. The OS shouldn't matter either. But maybe I am wrong so I will test it.
@@videocaptureguide I look forward to it as I have a lot of questions. I'm wondering how I can improve my setup. I was told firewire is only capable of 4:1:1 color but does that include a Premiere capture to AVI? I'm told 4:2:2 color is preferred but is that only possible via capture card? Thanks for responding. I look forward to all of your videos. I am learning a lot.
My understanding is that DV capture is all the same. But will try with Premiere to see if there is any difference. I have Creative license but it doesn't include older versions of Premiere. Hope to solve that and install on Windows 7 machine with FireWire card to test the theory.
@@rickconsort2671 The Firewire DV Camcorder is stuck at 8 bit 4:1:1 color space but Premiere Pro is not. The video link below might be helpful although using CS 4 may not be wise. th-cam.com/video/zBO0AGx8324/w-d-xo.html
@@videocaptureguide When are we going to see the Premiere Pro video? Having said that DV capture is not all the same. The cheap software is allowing you to set parameters that you could potentially mess up. Premiere Pro will capture the 0s and 1s as intended. As I stated any type of color correction or audio enhancements should be done with the NLE as opposed to using additional hardware during capture but I think you are stating to come to the conclusion.
Line TBCs are a must, but frame TBCs still pass dropped or inserted frames, but won't cause dropped or inserted frames by the capture card itself. So if your vcr's internal line tbc has a hiccup on a difficult tape, the frame tbc passes it to the capture card, but without losing sync. It's the same with the DMR-ESxx devices... they can drop and insert internally, but the capture card doesn't drop or insert on it's end. I'm currently digitizing Woodstock 99 weekend... all 65 hours. The broadcast itself had signal glitches... the capture card will freak out and insert tons of frames over a split second glitch, but the DMRs pass it as it looks on the tape, but the capture card doesn't even notice. Personally I picked up a Panasonic WJ-AVE5 video mixer... it has it's own frame tbc, and replaces the line tbc... and has an audio VU meter and sliders to boot. It even fixes top edge tearing. All for a fraction of what an actual frame tbc will cost you. And it doesn't mess with the colors like the DMRs.
Thank you for this video. Very well explained.
Another great comparison! My understanding is that a frame TBC can drop and insert frames as needed without being able to view the statistics that it has happened. If frames arrive too quickly, then it has to drop frames if its buffer is already full. If frames arrive too slowly, it will eventually run out of buffered frames and have to repeat at least remaining frame in its memory buffer until the buffer is refilled.
The main downside of a TBC is that it's essentially a mild generation loss since analog is converted to digital and then back to analog. An ideal TBC would convert to digital and then output that digital signal to then capture. Some TBCs do have SDI out which is digital and they would have at least a theoretical advantage over an analog in to analog out TBC like the ones you mention. Whether that "generation loss" is perceptible to the average person is another question. An ideal chain would have only a single analog to digital conversion that is then captured.
If you wanted to do a comparison video to show image quality degradation caused by passthrough devices, you might try outputting DVD playback passed through both the ES10 and the DVK then the capture card versus capturing that same DVD directly into your capture card. DVDs will not have time base errors, so this test only shows how multiple passthrough devices will degrade the original image quality. The ES10 in particular is said to cause "posterization" which is a type of detail loss . You'll also be able to rip that DVD and show what the original truly should have looked like if the capture was "perfect".
- This is not correct. Quality frame TBCs have large buffers to store and release frames, so dropping/inserting is not very common. The tape would have to be truly horrible, more noise than signal, for a buffer overrun to happen.
- Any loss by TBCs is more theoretical than actual, because quality TBCs can easily capture full quality of the signal (A>D), and re-output it (D>A), especially with consumer sources like VHS. So the problem is the quality of the TBC, not an intrinsic truth of all TBCs.
- The DVK is not a true frame TBC, but more of a TBC(ish), as it is weaker.
- DVDs are 4:2:0, MPEG, and are too lossy for such a comparison.
Love these videos which you are doing. The VirtualDub settings I have been using based on a different video, which seem to work fine as well, is to uncheck the first two boxes (drop frames when captured frames are too close together and insert null frames when captured frames are too far apart,) then to Sync audio to video by resampling... and finally enabled correct video timing for few frame drops/inserts. So far this works on all the tapes I have captured. Once it doesn't I plan on purchasing a RetroTINK 5x to use a frame TBC so if you jump down that rabbit hole in the future please post a video about how well it works for you.
May I ask what tape player you use and which capture device you use?
Unchecking the first two boxes is essentially just disabling dropped frame reporting. So you've not stopped dropping frames, you've only stopped the reporting. "If I close my eyes, you can't see me!" or "We'd have less cases if we stopped testing!"
Hello! Just want to point out that your work is amazing and very useful! Thank you again for that. I watched your video very carefully and the only question I have to ask you is about the second method, the digitization with minidv device, are you aware that many old miniDV cameras have line TBC that is active and working in digitization mode? It would be really interesting to check, test and compare the line TBC that probably is already there in your mini DV camera with other line TBC that are inherent in SVHS players or Panasonic DVD recorders.
MiniDV camcorders have a Line TBC feature, which is used when recording video with the camera itself, or when video is passed through it via the S-Video or Composite connection. I don't know much more about it. All I know is that it was able to remove all tearing and flagging from an old VHS tape. See my comparison video: th-cam.com/video/3SRoGgJZbwc/w-d-xo.html.
How does it compare to the Line TBC in the JVC SVHS players? Or the Panasonic ES-10/15? I guess if I were to test it, I would want to see:
1. How does each handle bad tapes? My sense is that they are all adept at fixing flagging.
2. What is the effect on the look of the video? JVC linked the Line TBC feature with the Noise Reduction (NR) feature. So, you get some processing of the video (that you may not want) if you use the Line TBC option. Same goes for the Panasonic ES10/15, except that it appears to have an even greater (bad) impact on the video colors. And the MiniDV camcorder compresses the video to the lossy DV format with a reduced color space, which also affects the color. So, in all three cases, there is an effect, but one can probably adjust the colors in Davinci Resolve to get it back to the way you want it.
@@videocaptureguide
You stated the following below.
"MiniDV camcorder compresses the video to the lossy DV format with a reduced color space, which also affects the color".
VirtualDub may let you capture uncompressed 10 bit 4:4:4 using a cheap USB video capture device but I imagine a lot of the cheap USB capture devices are limited by hardware to 8 bit 4:1:1.
You could let people know in your next video that I (TECHTVUSA) created a video comparing 10 bit uncompressed 4:4:4 to the DV -25 8 bit 4:1:1 and no one can tell the difference. I think that video might be helpful to a lot of people.
My AG-1980 succumbed to bad capacitors a while back, leaving me with no TBC-enabled VCR. I picked up a DMR-ES15 off of ebay for under $50 and it's been pretty decent after I sorted out its IRE menu settings.
I think that the Panasonic DMR-ES10EG (PAL) still has the Panasonic MN673744 Frame TBC/Synchronizer IC, and the much worse DMR-ES15EG (PAL) has the input selection IC with integrated Line TBC. But you can quickly find out whether after the ES10 the picture comes about 3 frames too late compared to the sound. The Panasonic DMR-E55EG (PAL) sold in Germany has the internals of the Panasonic DMR-E50 sold in the USA with a more modern housing. The PAL and NTSC versions are therefore not directly comparable. I was not able to test the Panasonic DMR-ES10EG myself, as only the "Made in Slovakia" version was sold in Europe.
I assume that the frame base correction does not release the frame at 29.97 seconds, but a 29.97 FRAMES per second (NTSC)
That's right. We get very excited when discussing TBCs and sometimes mispeak.
Are there any weird pitch effects from the Audio Resync? Hopefully it's working well for you.
Gostei da explicação!
There are other ways of better quality but are niche and the hardware is a little bit expensive, Not as expensive as a TBC-1000 though. One of them is lossless over firewire, this requires an IOS and a firewire capture box that captures lossless AVI (not DV), The second is analog to SDI, some of these SDI devices have both line and frame TBC and output digital SDI, you would need a SDI-USB3, SDI-TB or SDI-PCIe adapter to get the lossless AVI into the hard drive.
I was curious about the lossless AVI over firewire. Googled it and found your post at Videohelp. Did you ever get it working or do comparison tests to see if that AJA method produced better results?
@@videocaptureguide I don't have a MAC so I've never tried it, Jwillis another member had it working. All lossless methods produce the exact same results, there is nothing to compare really. But adding devices in the mix like a DVD recorder or an external TBC can affect the visual quality vs just one device like the ones I mentioned.
@@videocaptureguide I replied to this before then realized my post was deleted, No I didn't make it work since I don't want to get Apple hardware.
@@Capturing-Memories Different ADCs inside each device may well produce somewhat different results. For example lower end ADCs are 8-bit while others are 10 or 12 bit, there's also oversampling, proc amps for colour etc adjustment, and different comb filters(for composite). Only the (lossless) encoding itself will be identical.
Unfortunately, buying a used Frame TBC is a big gamble because there is no way of knowing whether it is in perfect working condition. You could be flushing $2000.00 down the toilet.
That’s a very good point. I think for any decades old electronics that is in that price range one should only buy it if the capacitors have been replaced and or if other work has been done to ensure that it runs for the next 20 or 30 years. I have not used that Grant VCR restoration service but they do the type of work (for a price) that is necessary to justify such high prices.
It is good that you are testing things out for yourself. I think once you capture the video with Premiere Pro and a Firewire DV converter you will realize what a waste of time it was to use the cheap USB capture device with cheap software like OBS, VirtualDub, handbrake etc.
Premiere Pro no longer supports DV capture. What is the last version that does?
@@videocaptureguide
From some brief googling, it seems that version 23.6 should be able to.
You can have 2 (or more) versions of Adobe products installed concurrently with ease thankfully
@@videocaptureguide The DV capture program shouldn't really matter. You can use WinDV and then drop into whatever editor you want.
@@videocaptureguide With the CC you can download older version of Premiere Pro form last year. Anything from a year ago should work just fine. That being said it might conflict with the latest version of Premiere Pro. Do you have a second PC for testing? It does not have to be super powerful.
@@videocaptureguide Vegas got rid of DV capture a long time ago, too. I just use the free version of Scenalyzer now.
Have you tried capturing with Premiere? I have been using a firewire pass-thru method and using CS4 to do the capture. It captures the clips as AVI files at pretty decent quality. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on this.
I plan on doing a comparison video between the Premiere method and the WinDV method to see if there is any difference. The DV file on the camcorder is just data so it shouldn't make a difference which software you use to transfer it to a computer. The OS shouldn't matter either. But maybe I am wrong so I will test it.
@@videocaptureguide I look forward to it as I have a lot of questions. I'm wondering how I can improve my setup. I was told firewire is only capable of 4:1:1 color but does that include a Premiere capture to AVI? I'm told 4:2:2 color is preferred but is that only possible via capture card? Thanks for responding. I look forward to all of your videos. I am learning a lot.
My understanding is that DV capture is all the same. But will try with Premiere to see if there is any difference. I have Creative license but it doesn't include older versions of Premiere. Hope to solve that and install on Windows 7 machine with FireWire card to test the theory.
@@rickconsort2671 The Firewire DV Camcorder is stuck at 8 bit 4:1:1 color space but Premiere Pro is not. The video link below might be helpful although using CS 4 may not be wise.
th-cam.com/video/zBO0AGx8324/w-d-xo.html
@@videocaptureguide When are we going to see the Premiere Pro video? Having said that DV capture is not all the same. The cheap software is allowing you to set parameters that you could potentially mess up. Premiere Pro will capture the 0s and 1s as intended. As I stated any type of color correction or audio enhancements should be done with the NLE as opposed to using additional hardware during capture but I think you are stating to come to the conclusion.