DV deck reference issue?

[Thaxter Clavemarlton]

Try this:

Pull out the House reference from both decks.
Do not use any ext. ref. into the VHS deck.

Send the VHS composite OUT, first, into the DV deck’s REF. IN, and then loop it out of there and back into the DV decks’ Video IN.

The DV deck should then “lock” to the VHS output.
Of course, it will be VERY unstable.

A BETTER way is to send the VHS through a digital “Frame Sync” and send the frame sync’s output into the DV deck.

[Fxholt]

Thanks for the response! Unfortunately, this DV deck only has sync IN, so I can’t loop the reference back out. The two dekcs do have S-VHS in/out but same prob. Is a digital frame sync expensive?
This seems like the simplest task for an HD edit suite, but this is the one thing I can’t get to work!
Before when I have had to dub VHS to DV or digitize it, I’ve gone composite into a DVD recorder which has SDI out, and then in preview mode, I can do anything with it since it’s going out SDI, but theres a ten second delay and it seems ridiculous to do it that way, since gaps in the VHS knock it out of preview mode and make TC breaks.
Anything else I could try?
thanks
A

[Thaxter Clavemarlton]

[fXholt] “Thanks for the response! Unfortunately, this DV deck only has sync IN, so I can’t loop the reference back out. The two dekcs do have S-VHS in/out but same prob.”

Well, send the compoisite out from the VHS to sync in on the DV and then send the S-Video from the VHS to the S-Video on the DV. The sync will come from the VHS.

[Fxholt]

Still didnt work. Does this mean that the ref-in port on the DV deck could be damaged?

[Thaxter Clavemarlton]

It prbably means what we already knew…

VHS is NOT a clean medium.
It is one of the least stable video formats ever.

You’ll get much better results if you send the VHS through a digital “Frame Sync/TBC”.

The image will still likely “jiggle”, but it won’t “tear-up” the sync like what’s happening to you now.

VHS can be subject to severe TIMEBASE errors (video NOT playing at the standard and constant frame-rate).
A monitor can usually compensate for these, but they can wreak havoc when trying to dub to another video device (which is attempting to record the video frames at a more precise and constant speed.)

The best way to dub a tape with poor stability is to connect its deck through a true timebase corrector (TBC) and/or frame sync device (with a large enough “window” to compensate for the non-standard source.

Or, if you have access to a small digital “Video Mixer” (more precisely called a digital Video SWITCHER),
Panasonic, Videonics (now called Focus) and DataVideo all offer these units.
The switchers can act as effective TBCs because they use internal digital clocks to “create” a stable video signal even from from various “un-sync’ed sources.
So you can feed your unstable VHS (or other source) into the switcher and send the switcher’s “stable” output to your DV deck.

Panasonic:
https://www.studio1productions.com/vid102.htm
https://www.studio1productions.com/vid100.htm
and others

Focus:
https://www.focusinfo.com/products/mx-4/mx4.htm
https://www.focusinfo.com/products/mx4dv/mx4dv.htm

And the best of the bunch, DataVideo:
https://www.datavideo-tek.com/products/se_800_main_page.htm

Certain of these video switchers can usually be rented from companies that set-up “Hotel Ballroom Events” in most cities.

[Geraint Pari huws]

try dropping all the syncs, the dv will try to ref to whatever input you’ve selected, though you may have to check this in the menu. Time base corrector or synchroniser is a better bet thouh!

[Fxholt]

Thanks for all your responses. I have tried everything with the machinery available to me here and right now the only thing that works is still for me to go composite into a third machine which has an SDI out, and from there to the DV deck. So it seems to me that either the DV deck ref in or composite in ports must have damage or VHS is just unstable?
Oh well.