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Attn VCR Tech's. I need S-VHS rebuilds!

 
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AnalogRocks
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PostLink    Posted: Sun Nov 11, 2012 10:34 pm    Post subject: Attn VCR Tech's. I need S-VHS rebuilds! Reply with quote


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Hi guys,

I have 3 S-VHS decks here that need TLC/caps/new heads etc....

I'd like to get them back going so I can copy my S-VHS tapes ( 200+ ) to DVD.
Yes I know one deck would do it but 3 is better than 1. Mr. Green

The decks are:
Panasonic PVS4690
JVC HRS5800U
Mitsubishi U70

Any takers?

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WanMan




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PostLink    Posted: Mon Nov 12, 2012 3:40 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

DVD? That's blasphemy, isn't it? Its a form of digital, no? And you are going to take sub-DVD resolution and put it on DVDs so you can do away with analog? Tsk, tsk. Who are you and what have you done with the real AR?
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AnalogRocks
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PostLink    Posted: Mon Nov 12, 2012 8:58 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

You think I would actually get rid of my analog? Hell NO! I just want a back up of it. Unfortunately S-VHS tapes fade over time and it's a hit and miss proposition. Some brands were great ( Fuji, TDK ) and others had drop out on the first playback ( Sony ).

And IS S-VHS really sub DVD resolution? It's 400-420 lines depending on the deck/tape/speed. Does DVD actually show the full 480 lines?

Furthermore I'd make a S-VHS backup of my S-VHS tapes but I'd need 2 working VCR's and 200+ tapes ( I have 20 blanks left when I looked last night ) and twice the space to put them in. I'll have to settle for an MPEG2 (low) compression copy.

I backed up one of my VHS tapes last night with the DVD recorder set to 7.3mbps. It looked great. (as good as a VHS copy can) Only issue was the VHS HiFi audio was compressed to DD 2.0. I could ohear the difference.
That was the funny thing about VHS. The sound was great, the picture not so much.

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ecrabb
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PostLink    Posted: Mon Nov 12, 2012 9:27 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Jeremy, all NTSC devices - VHS, S-VHS, LD, and even DVD all shows 480 horizontal lines. The 400-420 TV lines resolution spec from S-VHS was horizontal resolution (i.e. number of vertical lines).

That horizontal resolution "TV lines" spec is luma resolution. Chroma resolution was horrible - in the 30 lines ballpark. That's why VHS, S-VHS, and even ED Beta weren't "broadcast quality". In that regard, DVD's chroma resolution, while sub-sampled, is still far superior at around 240 lines.

So, yes... S-VHS is definitely sub-DVD resolution. S-VHS is good, but it's not quite DVD.

As for the audio, while VHS HiFi was excellent analog audio for the time, a decent AC-3 encoder should produce audio indistinguishable on anything but an excellent playback system. If it sounds audibly inferior, then it's cabling, level mismatch, and/or a sh*tty A/D encoder in the DVD recorder.

As for copying S-VHS to S-VHS, you wouldn't want to do that, as the generational loss is significant. Generational loss is one of the biggest advantages to a digital editing workflow.

SC
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AnalogRocks
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PostLink    Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2012 7:16 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

ecrabb wrote:
Jeremy, all NTSC devices - VHS, S-VHS, LD, and even DVD all shows 480 horizontal lines. The 400-420 TV lines resolution spec from S-VHS was horizontal resolution (i.e. number of vertical lines).


How does horizontal resolution translate to vertical lines? I was always taught by Video magazine that it was measured from the bottom of the picture tube to the top of the picture tube. Doesn't SVHS/Hi8 etc also measure the same way?

ecrabb wrote:

That horizontal resolution "TV lines" spec is luma resolution. Chroma resolution was horrible - in the 30 lines ballpark. That's why VHS, S-VHS, and even ED Beta weren't "broadcast quality". In that regard, DVD's chroma resolution, while sub-sampled, is still far superior at around 240 lines.


The Chroma resolution looks fine to me. Yes I know DVD's is better. I did the A/B comparison back when DVD came out vs Laser Disk. I could see the difference. The Chroma resolution doesn't matter to me though. I'm just looking for an accurate recreation of the SVHS tape.
Just as an aside, I copied one of my SVHS tapes to my Pioneer DVD recorder. There's a scene where the lighting is all red. The internal A/D converter freaked out. The Mbps was going from 3 - 10! Everything was macroblocked all to hell. I ended up turning the compression to the lowest setting and darkening the scene with an external processor and it turned out much better. Analog wins again. Mr. Green


ecrabb wrote:

So, yes... S-VHS is definitely sub-DVD resolution. S-VHS is good, but it's not quite DVD.


DVD is spec'd at what? 480 lines? Yes SVHS is under that but again. Just looking for an accurate reproduction of the original.

ecrabb wrote:

As for the audio, while VHS HiFi was excellent analog audio for the time, a decent AC-3 encoder should produce audio indistinguishable on anything but an excellent playback system. If it sounds audibly inferior, then it's cabling, level mismatch, and/or a sh*tty A/D encoder in the DVD recorder.


Don't be too quick to dismiss this. VHS HiFi audio isn't compressed like AC3 is. It definitely sounds better. I've done the A/B in the past with LDs stereo track vs AC3 on the same disk and there is definitely a difference. Likewise here. I had forgotten just how good VHS HiFi sounds after years of listening to AC3 compressed audio. It's not bad cables, nor I think a bad AC3 encoder or level mismatch. It's compression. AC3 is NOT uncompressed HiFi audio. You still have an S-VHS VCR over there. Try it out. Have a listen to a VHS tapes audio and see just how good it sounds. I had honestly forgotten because I killed my last VHS VCR back in 2007 and the one I bought of Curt ( like yours ) got killed by the post office. So after 5 years of listening to AC3 going back to HiFi was a pleasure.


ecrabb wrote:

As for copying S-VHS to S-VHS, you wouldn't want to do that, as the generational loss is significant. Generational loss is one of the biggest advantages to a digital editing workflow.

SC


Yes I know. My editing suite here from the 90's consisted of a SONY SLHF700 SuperBeta HiFi and a Panasonic S-VHS. Sending out VHS tapes meant they were a 2nd generation copy of the Betamax tape via the S-VHS. Nobody complained though as I was the only video fool in the bunch. Of course there was also the Hi8 to S-VHS conversion. Yielding a similar result to the Betamax but with lower color throughput. I love Hi8 but using the Hi8 cam plugged into the Betamax yielded a better over all picture even though the resolution rating of Betamax was in around 330 lines as compared to my Canon L2A's 410-420 lines of resolution.

SOooo been there, done that-ish. Just not with 2 S-VHS machines. For that I'd need two of these puppys working at the same time. Hence the tittle of this post before we jumped on the roller coaster tangent. Plus I'd then have 400+ SVHS tapes and honestly, I'm trying to cut down so I can collect more uhhhh..... everything else Thumbs Up

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ecrabb
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PostLink    Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2012 11:54 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

AnalogRocks wrote:
How does horizontal resolution translate to vertical lines? I was always taught by Video magazine that it was measured from the bottom of the picture tube to the top of the picture tube. Doesn't SVHS/Hi8 etc also measure the same way?

You use vertical lines to measure horizontal resolution, and horizontal lines to measure vertical resolution. Think about it... The lines on a ruler are perpendicular to the measured dimension, are they not?

So, vertical resolution is measured in terms of horizontal lines - scan lines - 525 total or 480 active for NTSC. It's the same for every standard NTSC device.

Horizontal resolution - measured with vertical lines - is variable, and depends on the capabilities of the format and equiment in question, i.e. VHS, LD, broadcast, etc.

Not sure what to tell you about Video magazine. Either they were wrong, or you misunderstood their description.

AnalogRocks wrote:
The Chroma resolution looks fine to me. Yes I know DVD's is better. I did the A/B comparison back when DVD came out vs Laser Disk. I could see the difference. The Chroma resolution doesn't matter to me though. I'm just looking for an accurate recreation of the SVHS tape.

Sure, that's what you should be looking for.

AnalogRocks wrote:
Just as an aside, I copied one of my SVHS tapes to my Pioneer DVD recorder. There's a scene where the lighting is all red. The internal A/D converter freaked out. The Mbps was going from 3 - 10! Everything was macroblocked all to hell. I ended up turning the compression to the lowest setting and darkening the scene with an external processor and it turned out much better. Analog wins again. Mr. Green

Yes, an all-red image is an absolute worst-case scenario for MPEG-2 - that's the 4:2:0 chroma subsampling rearing its ugly head. A similar thing existed in the analog tape systems, but it resulted in a mushy, soft, low-resolution red channel instead of the hard-edged pixelated red channel. Pluses and minuses to each.

AnalogRocks wrote:
DVD is spec'd at what? 480 lines? Yes SVHS is under that but again. Just looking for an accurate reproduction of the original.

That's analog frequency response. The MPEG-2 NTSC digital resolution is 720, so well above that of the source S-VHS tape - which is good. That's what you want for an archival format - better quality than the original. And of course, no physical degradation or generational loss.

AnalogRocks wrote:
VHS HiFi audio isn't compressed like AC3 is. It definitely sounds better. I've done the A/B in the past with LDs stereo track vs AC3 on the same disk and there is definitely a difference. Likewise here.

No question that HiFi did (does) offer excellent analog audio reproduction, but your A-B comparison isn't really that relevant. All you can say, with any confidence, is that on a particular LD player, with a particular AC-3 encode on the LD (or LD's) in question, and through a particular AV receiver/AC-3 decoder, you preferred the sound of the PCM track. Honestly, I'm not really surprised. The PCM tracks on LD's were excellent - CD quality - but, they were non-discrete surround, of course.

Of course, we're also ignoring the fact that much of what most people have recorded on S-VHS tapes - home movies - has sound far inferior to what HiFi or even AC-3 is capable of, anyway. Unless your S-VHS tapes are dubs from LD's with the PCM audio tracks, I don't see how you're going to be losing much, if anything. Certainly not if it's recordings off air or cable that you're archiving. Even if it's stuff you produced... Unless you were mixing CD audio, the audio probably isn't anything to write home about anyway. Again, I'd be very surprised if there was any notable difference between the S-VHS/HiFi original and the AC-3 encoded DVD, unless you were starting with something very high quality, and unless you were playing it back on a very good system and/or the AC-3 encoder in the DVD recorder sucked.

I think most of the consumer-grade set-top DVD recorders are also probably pretty sub-par. What is the DVD recorder you're using?

If you're after max quality, I'd probably use a good pro video hardware encoder like from Canopus or Matrox. But, that's a solution for a few dozen hours worth of video - not realistic for 400 tapes.

SC
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Tinman




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PostLink    Posted: Thu Nov 15, 2012 4:20 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Those have to be the worst possible decks to rebuild, or to repair for that matter.

Honestly, if you want to transfer that many tapes, get a late model JVC with a Dynamic Drum system and built in TBC.

I have one, it will track ANYTHING and lay down super clean video that DVD recorders need.

Marc

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AnalogRocks
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PostLink    Posted: Thu Nov 15, 2012 4:50 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Tinman wrote:
Those have to be the worst possible decks to rebuild, or to repair for that matter.

Honestly, if you want to transfer that many tapes, get a late model JVC with a Dynamic Drum system and built in TBC.

I have one, it will track ANYTHING and lay down super clean video that DVD recorders need.

Marc


So you're saying you wouldn't want to service these for me then?

What model number JVC do you have BTW?

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garyfritz




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PostLink    Posted: Thu Nov 15, 2012 4:54 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

ecrabb wrote:
That horizontal resolution "TV lines" spec is luma resolution. Chroma resolution was horrible - in the 30 lines ballpark. That's why VHS, S-VHS, and even ED Beta weren't "broadcast quality". In that regard, DVD's chroma resolution, while sub-sampled, is still far superior at around 240 lines.

VHS only had 30 "columns" of chroma? And DVD has only 240 !?

I be confoosed. How can you have a high-resolution color image with only 240 columns of chroma info? I know most of the "sharpness" comes from the luma. But with only 240 columns of chroma on a 16:9 480-line image, which is in theory the equivalent of a 16/9*480 = 853 "pixels" wide, each unit of chroma is covering 3.5 horizontal "pixels" of luma. How can it do that without bleeding colors all over?

Obviously I don't understand the details of this -- like I have no idea what the 4:2:0 chroma subsampling means...
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PostLink    Posted: Tue Nov 20, 2012 8:33 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

AnalogRocks wrote:
Tinman wrote:
Those have to be the worst possible decks to rebuild, or to repair for that matter.

Honestly, if you want to transfer that many tapes, get a late model JVC with a Dynamic Drum system and built in TBC.

I have one, it will track ANYTHING and lay down super clean video that DVD recorders need.

Marc


So you're saying you wouldn't want to service these for me then?

What model number JVC do you have BTW?


A JVC HR-S9600U and a HR-S9500U I know for sure have all the features that you could want and are what is described above.

I happen to have a JVC HR-S9500U available Razz

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PostLink    Posted: Tue Nov 20, 2012 4:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Jeremy112 wrote:
AnalogRocks wrote:
Tinman wrote:
Those have to be the worst possible decks to rebuild, or to repair for that matter.

Honestly, if you want to transfer that many tapes, get a late model JVC with a Dynamic Drum system and built in TBC.

I have one, it will track ANYTHING and lay down super clean video that DVD recorders need.

Marc


So you're saying you wouldn't want to service these for me then?

What model number JVC do you have BTW?


A JVC HR-S9600U and a HR-S9500U I know for sure have all the features that you could want and are what is described above.

I happen to have a JVC HR-S9500U available Razz


I hear it doesn't work in Canada Wink HAHAHA

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AnalogRocks
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PostLink    Posted: Mon Nov 26, 2012 9:53 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

ecrabb wrote:
AnalogRocks wrote:
How does horizontal resolution translate to vertical lines? I was always taught by Video magazine that it was measured from the bottom of the picture tube to the top of the picture tube. Doesn't SVHS/Hi8 etc also measure the same way?

You use vertical lines to measure horizontal resolution, and horizontal lines to measure vertical resolution. Think about it... The lines on a ruler are perpendicular to the measured dimension, are they not?

We were both saying the same thing but missunderstanding each other.

ecrabb wrote:

So, vertical resolution is measured in terms of horizontal lines - scan lines - 525 total or 480 active for NTSC. It's the same for every standard NTSC device.

Horizontal resolution - measured with vertical lines - is variable, and depends on the capabilities of the format and equiment in question, i.e. VHS, LD, broadcast, etc.

Not sure what to tell you about Video magazine. Either they were wrong, or you misunderstood their description.



Nope I get it. So do you. I just couldn't 'see' in my head the way you were describing it.
ecrabb wrote:

AnalogRocks wrote:
The Chroma resolution looks fine to me. Yes I know DVD's is better. I did the A/B comparison back when DVD came out vs Laser Disk. I could see the difference. The Chroma resolution doesn't matter to me though. I'm just looking for an accurate recreation of the SVHS tape.

Sure, that's what you should be looking for.

AnalogRocks wrote:
Just as an aside, I copied one of my SVHS tapes to my Pioneer DVD recorder. There's a scene where the lighting is all red. The internal A/D converter freaked out. The Mbps was going from 3 - 10! Everything was macroblocked all to hell. I ended up turning the compression to the lowest setting and darkening the scene with an external processor and it turned out much better. Analog wins again. Mr. Green

Yes, an all-red image is an absolute worst-case scenario for MPEG-2 - that's the 4:2:0 chroma subsampling rearing its ugly head. A similar thing existed in the analog tape systems, but it resulted in a mushy, soft, low-resolution red channel instead of the hard-edged pixelated red channel. Pluses and minuses to each.


VHS is famous for the mushy red channel as is the old U-matic tape system. I remember that well from the local cable access channel that use to be here.
ecrabb wrote:

AnalogRocks wrote:
DVD is spec'd at what? 480 lines? Yes SVHS is under that but again. Just looking for an accurate reproduction of the original.

That's analog frequency response. The MPEG-2 NTSC digital resolution is 720, so well above that of the source S-VHS tape - which is good. That's what you want for an archival format - better quality than the original. And of course, no physical degradation or generational loss.

AnalogRocks wrote:
VHS HiFi audio isn't compressed like AC3 is. It definitely sounds better. I've done the A/B in the past with LDs stereo track vs AC3 on the same disk and there is definitely a difference. Likewise here.

No question that HiFi did (does) offer excellent analog audio reproduction, but your A-B comparison isn't really that relevant. All you can say, with any confidence, is that on a particular LD player, with a particular AC-3 encode on the LD (or LD's) in question, and through a particular AV receiver/AC-3 decoder, you preferred the sound of the PCM track. Honestly, I'm not really surprised. The PCM tracks on LD's were excellent - CD quality - but, they were non-discrete surround, of course.


Steve, you are too cynical. Just accept that uncompressed audio sounds better than AC3. Not just on that one LD or just the system I had back then. It's a fact. Stop over analyzing things, or is that like asking a dog not to bark? Wink
ecrabb wrote:

Of course, we're also ignoring the fact that much of what most people have recorded on S-VHS tapes - home movies - has sound far inferior to what HiFi or even AC-3 is capable of, anyway. Unless your S-VHS tapes are dubs from LD's with the PCM audio tracks, I don't see how you're going to be losing much, if anything.

Uhhhh...no comment Wink
ecrabb wrote:

Certainly not if it's recordings off air or cable that you're archiving. Even if it's stuff you produced... Unless you were mixing CD audio, the audio probably isn't anything to write home about anyway. Again, I'd be very surprised if there was any notable difference between the S-VHS/HiFi original and the AC-3 encoded DVD, unless you were starting with something very high quality, and unless you were playing it back on a very good system and/or the AC-3 encoder in the DVD recorder sucked.


Then you would color yourself surprised.
The AC3 encoder doesn't suck in these Pioneers. It does do an OK job it's just not as good as the original HiFi VHS track.
When I want to make a really nice dub I use the 1hr.1min LPCM setting on the Pioneer. However not all DVD players play
nice with those disks. So for the sake of compatibility I use AC3 and suffer the consequences of compressed audio.
-On that front I wish DTS had won the format war. With 5 times the bandwidth of AC3 it sounds so much better-

ecrabb wrote:

I think most of the consumer-grade set-top DVD recorders are also probably pretty sub-par. What is the DVD recorder you're using?

Currently a Pioneer DVR-550H
.......and I'll agree with you. Most of the consumer grade DVD recorders were a pile of shite. I kept waiting for the DVD recorder that could replace the HiFi, high quality VCR's that I have owned since the '80's. These Pioneers fit the bill. I just wish I could still buy them new and that Pioneer didn't make you need the service remote to just change to a larger hard drive. The built in 160gb is too small. 2TB would be preferred.

ecrabb wrote:

If you're after max quality, I'd probably use a good pro video hardware encoder like from Canopus or Matrox. But, that's a solution for a few dozen hours worth of video - not realistic for 400 tapes.

You're talking a PC capture card solution? I played with MANY over the years. Yes a Matrox would rock but I don't need the NLE features they offer nor the price tag. Except for the all red scene performance I'm quite happy with these Pioneer DVD recorders. Plus they also do DVD+R DL making things more flexible. I can use less compression and get a better copy still on one DVD.
ecrabb wrote:

SC


PS still need some S-VHS machines rebuilt!!

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AnalogRocks
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PostLink    Posted: Fri Nov 30, 2012 5:05 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

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