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“Blackouts” in VHS > FCPX transfer… advice needed!
I’m in the process of doing my own transfers of some old VHS tapes, using a little Canopus ADVC 100 and a Sony SLV E1000. I’m getting pretty good results. I am using FCPX on a mac for the process. Here’s what I am seeking advice about:
With almost all of the VHS tapes I am transferring, there is a low-high frequency of brief black screen dropouts with silence. They are around a fraction of a second to a second in duration. When I have examined these portions of video more closely and slowly jogged through them, I can see there is a lot of image distortion in those sections (ie tape damage) which the machine and / or my convertor automatically black out. Sometimes it is less clear what is going on there. I have tried running these sections of video through all three of my machines and the same thing happens every time. Naturally it’s the tape that is damaged, and the VHS player / Canopus decides “NO” and blacks the little section out. When I play back what I’ve captured in FCPX, what I have is everything except the blackout, so there is effectively a momentary cut where the blackout was. ie if the blackout happened at the word “dog” when the subject is stating “there was a dog there”, during transfer I see “there was a [BLACK] there”, and post transfer, in playback via FCPX, I see “there was a there”.
I’d prefer it if the black was captured so there is at least a pause over the cut moment of the same length. It indicates that my canopus or FCPX kills the signal at those points, because everytime it happens, a new clip (ie captured video file) is created. So either side of these blackouts I have the beginnings and ends of separate clips in FCPX.
What I’d like most, though, is to know if there is anyway to have the video capturing all the way through so *I* can choose what to black out / edit out, not my equipment / software.
Any help would be much appreciated!
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11 Replies
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Hmm- I’d suggest getting a new VHS deck with better error correction (i.e. tracking). Or having someone at a dub house dub VHS to DV and then capture from DV. Analog dropouts are hard to get around.
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ALso whenever you’re dubbing from older analog tapes, it’s smart to see if you can dig up a time base corrector and put it in the signal path so that the recording has fresh and dependable signal timing on every frame.
FWIW.
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Yep, so what I’ve established from some other forums is that it appears the Canopus “macrovision” detection is being activated somehow by the glitches in the tape, so there are a couple of techniques I have read about to disable this and hopefully the canopus will let everything convert including the bad tape sections.
I have tried three different VCR’s as I explained and all have the same issue, so the problem is not the VCR.
Having someone externally do the conversion for me defeats the entire purpose of my query. *I* want to do these conversions and that’s why I bought all of this equipment.
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Ok, hooking up directly to TV, i see that the VCR happily plays through everything, no problem. Where the black spots would be are momentary tape issues, a few frames worth of lines across the screen, typical old VHS tape stuff. However, the sound continues, so the overall effect is much more pleasing than a bloody cut.
It appears the canopus is dictating what gets converted, and is extremely sensitive to these tape abberations. The problem is not the VCR as I have tried 3 different ones, two different models, and the canopus does the same thing in the same spots every time.
Is there any way to get around this, or do I need a new converter?
I found this, re: macrovision detection disabling:
“From another forum I obtained the following tip on how
to disable Macrovision using the Canopus ADVC-100
hardware video converter device that works for me.
Press and HOLD the Input Select switch. When
colour-bars appear at analogue output, KEEP THE BUTTON
PRESSED. Wait until the colour-bars DISAPPEAR before
releasing the button. Macrovision is now disabled
until the unit is switched off. You do not have to be
playing a Macrovision-protected signal into the box
while doing this.”However, absolutely nothing happens when I follow these instructions. No colour bars, nothing.
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Bill’s advice on getting a TBC/proc amp is well-informed. The ADVC-100 is a very nice unit, for the money, but part of the reasonable price is that it comes with certain limitations on what it finds to be an “acceptable” signal input. If you feed the VHS to a TVB with proc amp first, then feed that to the ADVC-100, you will have a more stable input that also is more precisely in spec, and the ADVC-100 should be able to handle it better.
Where to get a used TBC/proc amp? You can get a TBC by itself, but I would look for a combination that also has the proc amp in it, Ebay would be the first place I’d check. A pro editing or dub facility might let you use theirs but of course there would be a charge.
I get it that you think the Macrovision is the main issue. I just disagree that it is. The ADVC/ computer combination will choke on any signal that is too far out of spec.
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Thanks Mark and Bill.
My research into standalone AND VCR/TBC combos / is that they are hard to find, expensive and very unreliable (that’s at videohelp forums where I also started a thread)…
However, a user at videohelp has suggested:
“I also would not go hunting for any Line TBC equipped VCRs. They’re too much of a gamble, too prone to failure that too few techs know how to fix. Especially when you consider that coveted line correction can be done by other devices with either the same results or better. The consensus here is that special DVD recorders (in passthrough), particularly the Panasonic models ES10 / ES15 etc. are the best option for that. I can personally back it up.”
Would you recommend the same? These ES10/15’s are reasonably affordable.
I have no idea what a TVB or proc-amp is. I can find various Proc-amps on ebay, the prices vary wildly, and none indicate if they have TBC capability or not…. this is all new to me. I foolishly presumed that my canopus would just do its job and not censor my footage.
I’m prepared to buy a new converter box but are there any withinh the $400 range that will do what they are told and not censor “errors” for me?
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Proc amp is short for processing amplifier. TBC is a time base corrector.
Proc amp adjusts your video levels and colors, getting the best out of the signal *before* you digitize it. The Time Base Corrector is hopefully what will restore the damaged sections, re-constituting the timing pulses and “locking up” the timing, so the ADVC-100 sees the incoming signal as an undisturbed flow.
If I was doing a LOT of tape transfer, I’d insist on getting both, and many units out there combine the two in one box, with easy to understand knobs. I can’t say from experience if the more expensive converters would do as good or better a job, considering the rough signal going into them. Someone with more experience than myself might have that answer.
I will say that a combination TBC with proc-amp should be available used for less than 400 bucks, maybe way less.
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Thanks Mark. That’s helpful, I will keep the proc amp idea in mind as some of my video to convert is a little dark and dull.
A few experts at videohelp have recommended an ES10 or ES15 as an affordable and effective unit for pass-through timecode correction. Everything else looks too expensive – so that’s where I’m presently headed…
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Time BASE correction. Time code is something else.
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Yes, sorry, my bad – I understand that part!
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