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synching a composite deck
This is more of a technical question rather than a Media 100 question but I always get great feedback here so…
I have a bunch of old archival tapes on 3/4″ and VHS that go back ten to fifteen years. The tapes are gradually going bad and I would like to back them up on to another format. Unfortunately, when I try to load them – it is impossible as the tapes aren’t in good shape and the Media 100 loses its connection with them and stops digitizing.
I tried to route the machines through a Beta SP deck which works but I can’t keep the decks in synch. You end up with a roll bar in the middle of the screen. Is there any way to synch a composite deck with a UVW-1800?
Thanks.
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4 Replies
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—Forget syncing the decks in an attempt to “loop through” to the Media 100. Looping through the 1800 is not a good answer.
—You have to use a TBC to stabilize the signal.———
—The trick to “saving” this footage–is to generate a stable signal from an unstable source (your degraded tapes). Only a TBC can stabilize the unstable output of the VHS & 3/4″ footage and create a stable signal that can be recorded.
Again, forget the 1800, it sucks at this.
Running through an external TBC stabilize the video signal, but it will not make the dropouts and glitches on the source material disappear…it will simply stabilize the video signal to a solid reference.
(The glitches will appear in your subsequent dubs, but they will not interfere with the recording/dubbing/digitizing process.)MOST SOLID SOLUTION:
Buy/borrow/rent an external TBC (Time Base Corrector) with external sync capability. (These can be found on Ebay for about$300.) Get a TBC not a Frame Sync.
1) Run the composite out of the VHS & 3/4 material into the TBC.
2) Run BLACK (genlock) to your TBC and your Beta deck.
(Same sync source.)3) Run the output of the TBC to the composite input of the deck. DUB all of your material to Beta. Its much more archival than VHS & 3/4″ anyways–and it costs less than archival data formats (DLT, etc.)
4) Digitize from Beta later if you need the footage.
SECOND OPTION=============================
LESS SOLID SOLUTION:Buy/borrow/rent an external TBC.
1) Run the composite out of the VHS & 3/4 material into the TBC.
2) Run BLACK (genlock) to your TBC and your Media100.
(Same sync source.) Connect composite out of TBC to composite in of Media100.3) Digitize away. The TBC should help “iron out the glitches”…HOWEVER…from our experience…with long dropouts..the Media100 may still occasionally get “confused”. The TBC should solve 99% of the problems in this scenario, but remember that computer hardware is usually more “picky” than a tape deck regarding input signal.
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Cheers Seattle for the in depth answer. It totally answered my question.
I am going to jump on ebay right now. -
I have a ton of vhs rugby tapes of games from the eighties that I am currently transferring to DVD with a dvd recorder vhs combo machine.
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Again, Holy Cow’s suggestion probably is the most professional.
But, I had the same problem last month, when trying to digitise VHS into M100.
Instead of running it through my Beta SP first, I ran it into my PD150 DVCAM via composite input in VCR mode, which simulataneously relayed the signal back to Media100 via DV.
The audio went straight from VHS to M100 via analogue composite.
It synced fine.
Each VHS tape was an hour long.
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