• Apple Final Cut Pro Legacy

  Basic system layout questions: TBC + AVDC110 + monitor…

  Posted by Dave Nelson on January 8, 2013 at 2:56 am

  Hello.

  I’m using a Canopus AVDC 110 to capture Hi-8 tapes. I also have a small, blue gun equipped video monitor (Panasonic BTS901Y 9″) and a Hotronic AP-31 TBC that I’d like to use to -hopefully- adjust the quality of the analog SD video before it gets to the AVDC110.

  Here’s what I think is true: from the source VCR (camcorder actually) the signal should go through the TBC and then to monitor, and then the AVDC 110.

  Questions –

  If I split the signal after the TBC and run one to the video monitor and one to the AVDC 110 will there be a problem with signal strength?
  Am I right that I should run a test signal through the TBC to adjust it before capturing?
  If so, is the monitor sufficient for judging any adjustments to be made to the signal by the TBC – for example, by running color bars through the TBC and viewing them with the blue gun on the monitor?
  Or do I also an external waveform monitor/vectorscope?
  I use Mac + Final Cut Express. I could upgrade to FCP but my impression is that FC’s monitors can’t be used on incoming video, only on video that’s already imported.

  That’s a lot of big questions. Thanks for your help!

  Dave

  Dave Nelson replied 13 years, 4 months ago 2 Members · 2 Replies
• 2 Replies

• 

  Mark Suszko

  January 8, 2013 at 10:21 pm

  You could probably get away with splitting the signal, for short runs, but if this were in our shop, we’d first feed the output of the TBC to a video distribution amplifier (VDA) and then feed monitors and other devices from that.

  Use the blue gun to adjust the monitor to your eye, based on actual bars being played out of the source machine. Use the scopes that come with your editing software and you should be close enough for jazz, considering the format you’re working with. You’re trying to improve the signal, not become a Hollywood transfer house, after all.

  Where setups like this most often fall down, IMO, is when they try to play a JPEG file generated out of a camera memory and not actual bars that went thru the camera lens. That file has little correlation to what the camera or tape machine puts out.
• 

  Dave Nelson

  January 12, 2013 at 8:37 pm

  Thank you Mark – helpful & clear. I want to send a message of thanks directly to you, but don’t see a way to do that.

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