Brooks said:

yeah I'd like to see a pic or video of this setup when you're done with it, it sounds pretty awesome!

Here's my setup without my new DMR-ES10. That'll be arriving in the coming days.

You're discovering, as I discovered, that although there are lots of people here capable of doing this kind of stuff, it is even more fun doing it yourself.

Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda said:

You're discovering, as I discovered, that although there are lots of people here capable of doing this kind of stuff, it is even more fun doing it yourself.

Agreed :-)

Does anyone want anything PS78-related while I'm waiting to receive the Panasonic DMR-ES10 and Hauppauge 610 USB-Live 2?

I have:

• Release 0.0 Hyperlinks
• Release 0.1 Hyperlinks
• A pre-1.0 Capture (Panasonic AG-1980 -> Leitch DPS-290 -> ATI Theater HD 750)

I can take:

• More pictures of my current setup
• More pictures of the PS78 VHS
• Pictures of hardware settings
• Screenshots of software settings

PM me for hyperlinks. Post in this thread for other requests.

AntcuFaalb said:

OK, the Panasonic DMR-ES10 is on its way! This thing is supposedly a monster at correcting jitter.

I have one of these. Take care, the filtering on the composite input tends to destroy high-frequency detail. Not sure if this will even be an issue with VHS, however.

Examples from laserdisc, composite: http://i.imgur.com/kNNbk.png

s-video: http://i.imgur.com/NP36Z.png

Interesting that the composite is that lousy on an industrial unit.

My experience with the AG-1980 is that even VHS benefits a little from using S-video.

The Panasonic DMR-ES10 is a consumer DVD recorder that is reputably very good at dealing with unstable or low-quality VHS sources. I've seen a fair number of people say they use it as a pre-processor for captures (i.e. in "pass-through" mode, not recording to DVD).

Edit: interesting discussion here:
http://www.avsforum.com/t/1252109/panasonic-fans-vhs-conversion-lsi-vs-inhouse-es10-passthru-dmr-eh50-vs-others  

I wish the AG-1980 had a pass through mode.

Moth3r said:

AntcuFaalb said:

OK, the Panasonic DMR-ES10 is on its way! This thing is supposedly a monster at correcting jitter.

I have one of these. Take care, the filtering on the composite input tends to destroy high-frequency detail. Not sure if this will even be an issue with VHS, however.

Examples from laserdisc, composite: http://i.imgur.com/kNNbk.png

s-video: http://i.imgur.com/NP36Z.png

Thanks for the information! Fortunately, I plan to use s-video for the Panasonic DMR-ES10's pass-through mode.

Edit: In fact, everything in my setup uses s-video.

Edit 2: I may be able to use the Panasonic DMR-ES10 to circumvent any AGC pumping issues that arise with the Hauppauge 610 USB-Live 2. In fact, burning directly to DVD may be preferable according to one of the posts in the thread you linked to in your later post:

The primary corrections the ES10 excels with (and other devices seem unable to cope with) generally apply only to multi-generational dub tapes or certain types of weirdly-recorded camcorder tapes. These can have two hard-to-fix issues: frame jitter, and/or severe bending or "flag waving" of vertical objects near the top third of the frame. The ES10 will correct the worst of these tapes to an amazing degree unmatched by even megabuck TBC hardware, but again the correction comes at a cost in overall PQ: your original tape gets converted by the ES10 not-so-great encoder, then goes thru another encoding process by your final recorder system. Multi-generation digital encoding is about as desirable as multi-gen analog dubbing: not at all. If you're fortunate enough to find an ES10 with a still-functioning burner, you could record direct to that and skip the second encoding from a pass-through setup. But you'll still end up with a so-so ES10 result, and the DVDs it produced were known to have some formatting issues with audio and frame sizing (obscure issues, but they do bother some users). Its best used as a pass-through to a more modern recorder.

I don't want to get anyone's hopes up, but my coworker just told me that he might have a TESB bootleg.

I want to believe!

Unfortunately, I haven't yet received confirmation from my coworker as to whether or not he has a TESB bootleg.

I just realized: PS78 will be going through three different kinds of TBC. There's a field-based TBC in the Panasonic AG-1980; a frame-based TBC in the Leitch DPS-290; and a line-based TBC in the Panasonic DMR-ES10. Crazy!

TBC: very funny!

Someone needs to ban me from making "jokes" when I need sleep this badly.

I can't wait to see this.  Kudos for going through and doing all this hard work. 

The Panasonic DMR-ES10 should arrive tonight. I'm excited!

Here's my new setup!

SilverWook said:

The mind boggles! How many people went into a porno shop looking for a copy of Star Wars?

"Hey kids! I'm off to the Smut Shoppe, you want me to pick you up something?"

It does look interesting...

 Can I include this as a quote on the cover I design for PS78?

My week of experimentation is finally complete.

What I've learned:

• The temporal luma variations (blown-out blacks and whites at scene changes) are definitely a part of the VHS. I must have failed to notice this defect on my 10" CRT TV.
• The Panasonic DMR-ES10 stabilizes the horizontal jitter very well and slightly improves the big ugly curve on the lefthand side of the picture.
• Using the Panasonic DMR-ES10 in passthrough mode is preferable to using it in record mode, as the latter suffers from too many MPEG-2 artifacts.

Plan of action:

• I'll be doing five captures, at the rate of one capture per night, starting tomorrow evening.
• I plan to use g-force's median-of-five (a.k.a., Median2) function on the five captures.
• I'll have to capture the audio separately and sync it manually.

Goodnight!