Hi8 tape causes PVR-150 picture break-up

[georgem]

I am observing picture break-up while recording a tape created with my Sony Hi8 video camera recorder (CCD-TR600) using the PVR-150.  The camera is about 9 years old.

The picture break-up is quite dramatic and appears to be somewhat like an out-of-sink TV picture.  It occurs only when recording from tape and is always associated with rapidly changing scenery or camera motion, .e.g, such as recently in Colorado and when I was video taping while walking rapidly down a snow covered path in an alpine forest with many trees nearby.  Slow moving scenes do not cause any problems and the picture on the PVR-150 is of excellent quality.  Interestingly, I can record from the my Hi8 camera to a VCR recorder, then play the VCR recorded tape into the PVR-150 card and get the same result.  When playing a live picture from Hi8 directly into the PVR-150 I have no problem even when moving the camera rapidly, It is only associated with taped material.  Additionally, my Hi8 tapes play with no problem when fed into a television.
 
I have no problems viewing and recording TV programs with the PVR-150.
 
I tested my camera on a friends computer that also has a PVR-150 and observed the same picture break-up.  He also has a WinTV-PVR-250 on another computer and my Hi8 tapes played back flawlessly on that card.  No motion problems whatsoever!
 
Apparently the problem is associated with the encoding of the Hi8 taped analogue signal to digital.  Some brief searching of the WEB turned up some information on "field order" problems when digitizing Hi8 videos using transfer through a firewire or USB port.  I am not knowledgeable of the technologies involved, but I assume that some type of related problem may be occurring in my situation.  I also understand that on the PVR-150 the audio and video electronics have been incorporated into a single chip instead of two as on the PVR-250.
 
I would appreciate any help or response that   someone might give me in regard to this problem.

[The_Doman]

I am observing picture break-up while recording a tape created with my Sony Hi8 video camera recorder (CCD-TR600) using the PVR-150.....

The picture break-up is quite dramatic and appears to be somewhat like an out-of-sink TV picture.

..and is always associated with rapidly changing scenery or camera motion, .e.g, such as recently in Colorado and when I was video taping while walking rapidly down a snow covered path....

The breakup is caused by a unstable sync signal of the recorded videotape.
This is (probably) caused because the camera was heavily moving while the recording was made.
Here is someone on the dutch forum who had probably exact the same problem, he made a recording while he had a rough ride on his bike.
http://www.hauppauge.tv/hcwforum/index.php?showtopic=2837
 
The PVR-150/500 is quite sensitive to a bad sync signal it seems.
I don't know if the older PVR versions are less sensitive to that problem?
( Ah , I read the 250 worked without problems with your tape)
The same problems can occur with bad VHS recordings.
A solution would be to use some form of a (expensive!) TBC to fix the sync signal or use some other card/device to capture the video.
I personally use a (D8)DV camcorder with analog in for my VHS captures. It has some built in TBC which works wonders with unstable/older recordings

[uconnkoala]

I have had the same problems that are described here with my VHS tapes.

I think the problem occurs when the VCR adjusts the tracking.

Something in the encoder gets stuck, and I get artifacts and errors for the rest of the video.

If I start the encoder on good video, then see a tracking error, the same artifacts, blocks, and errors occur from that point onward.

TV encoding is fine.

People have said you need a TBC (time base corrector) in order to get around this.

I am going to try things out on a PVR-250 and see what I get....I'll post screenshots later....

[BoiseNative]

Glad to know I'm not the only one seeing this problem.  I've seen the video tearing problem with both 8mm and VHS tapes - always duing scenes with a lot of action or where the camera had been jostled or moved.

I guess misery loves company, but I'd really like to find some resolution to this problem.  Hoping for a registry hack or some driver fix or tweek.  Afraid this is going to come down to some sort of hardware flaw with the 150 card.

Very disappointing since I have a stack of analog tapes that I need to digitize.  Was hoping to go straight to Mpeg2 with the Hauppauge card.  Looks like I'm going to have to go through my DV camera's input then waste a bunch of time encoding from DVavi to Mpeg2.

Please, if someone finds a fix for this problem let us all know.  You'll certainly be my hero.

[LMK]

This does not bode well.

I just bought a PVR-150 primarily for transferring old tape (VHS and Hi8) to DVD. The first tape I ran through showed exactly the symptoms described - breaks up when the camera is being shaken (not vigorously).

I returned a Leadtek PVR2000 (basically equivalent product to PVR150) because of problems capturing from tape, and although the sypmtoms there were different (colour banding) I believe it is probably the same problem. I think these cards may share some hardware which isn't a good sign.

Both cards seem to capture perfectly from TV (although I think now the PVR2000 was actually better in most respects).

I had great difficulty getting the vendor to take back the PVR2000 and swap it for the PVR-150, I am not looking forward top the fight I will have on my hands now.

Has anyone had any response from Hauppauge on this issue? I emailed them tonite... Leadtek's support was very prompt to reply, but unfortunately the language barrier (taiwanese) was just too much and I don't think they could understand my problem.

Anyone else capturing from tape please reply.

Cheers,

- Lachlan

[amackay11]

Hi,
Thank god I'm not the only one with this problem!   I just bought the 150 last week, specifically for transferring old 8mm tapes to digital format.  Every few seconds there seems to be picture jitter, not necessarily with camera shake.   Viewing from camcorder to regular TV is perfect but camcorder to WinTV is terrible.  I copied the 8mm to VHS and the jitter was visible when playing the VHS through WinTV (but fine through regular TV).

I think I'll try to return the card.  Very disappointing!

[LMK]

I have now returned my PVR150, as far as I am concerned it is one of the most useless products I have ever wasted my money on, and I said so to the retailer. They came back offended and told me they had many happy customers which I find hard to believe given the problems I had.

I have now tried three different capture cards for converting tape to DVD.

The first was an old Pinncale DC10+ that captured in raw AVI. In hindsight this was a really good product and I regret selling it. The reason I sold was that the encoding from AVI to MPEG was really slowing me down. Quality was perfect though.

Next I tried a Leadtek PVR2000, which is basically equivalent to the PVR150 (hardware MPEG capture). This was a reasonable product, apart from the usual driver issues and poor support. I had as issue with colour banding when capturing from tape which is why I returned this card. In hindsight I could have lived with that card and I regret returning it for the PVR150.

The PVR150, when capturing from tape was just junk. The picture would jump all over the place, like it couldn't get a vertical or horizontal hold, and it would randomly "pixelate" quite badly. Just shoddy. If I can play a tape fine on my TV I don't expect it to look any different on my capture card.

So my advice is do what I did and return your card and either wait for the next generation of cards and hope they're better, or wait for set-top hard drive recorders to get cheaper.

Rant over.

[The_Doman]

I have now returned my PVR150, as far as I am concerned it is one of the most useless products I have ever wasted my money on, and I said so to the retailer. They came back offended and told me they had many happy customers which I find hard to believe given the problems I had.

The PVR150, when capturing from tape was just junk. The picture would jump all over the place, like it couldn't get a vertical or horizontal hold, and it would randomly "pixelate" quite badly. Just shoddy. If I can play a tape fine on my TV I don't expect it to look any different on my capture card.

Most of the happy customers are often just the casual MCE users..
Their demands are not that high it seems 

And yes, the will PVR150 often give problems with (analog) camcorder captures because there is no good video stabilizing circuit. (or not active/programmed)
Your TV will stabilize the fluctuations in the videosignal and the picture will look fine.
Also part of the problem are the relative small videoheads used in those camcorders, this causes even more problems then capturing from VHS.
Ofcourse the problem is they do everything to keep the cost of the card down, including  something like a video stabilizer (TBC) would make things more expensive.
(There is a Conexant A/V encoder chip available with built in TBC)
But at least the older  PVR versions (250) seems to work a lot better with analog tape captures.

[SHS]

From look of I say your problem has more to do with tape or cam output then the card and it been well know that capturing VHS and Hi8 and even from miniDV in most case are real pain a@@ to do and from look of it it look like you need TBC

[LMK]

I have tried VHS and 8mm tape from different sources, including commercial with both the PVR-150 and the Leadtek PVR2000. All have produced problems of some form or another and none are close to what you see on a TV screen direct from tape, when the issues occur.

I feel that these companies should not be marketting these devices as "convert your tapes to DVD" if they can't hack it - it's false advertising plain and simple. Especially as most people like myself are probably trying to convert older home video tapes before they become too deteriorated.

Doman, what products contain the TBC-inclusive chip? Do you know if there are any PAL ones?

Cheers.

[zaphod7501]

A couple of things here. I have been digitizing my library of Beta tapes, some of which were 2nd generation copies, some were PAL conversions and have no problems. I am using a PVR250 however and cleanup with VideoReDo so that may have some bearing.

I have been servicing camcorders for about 20 years (BetaMovie in 1985) and there could be another problem with 8mm that I have seen. Most 8mm players are suffering from severe deterioration of the electrolytic capacitors if they are over 6 or 7 years old. The circuits that fail first are the servo (motor control) circuits. Many people want to back up their analog tapes so that they can move up to digital formats and are actually seeing a failure in their machines rather than a problem with the capture cards. A TBC would help (to correct failing camcorders, not defective cards).

As to VHS, anything recorded at EP or SLP mode will have a lot of timing errors that can be minimized by playing back with the same machine that recorded them. Also any video tape will stretch with use, causing errors which cannot be corrected. Even stand alone DVD recorders have problems unless they have built-in TBCs. I am actually amazed how well these cards work considering the inherent problems with videotape. It took TV manufacturers almost 10 years to fix the stability problems they had with video tape playback. They never corrected the player problems, just the TV circuits.

[LMK]

zaphod7501 -

Interesting points. Doesn't help me much from an "ignorant consumer" viewpoint, however.

For what it's worth, I tried capturing using three different tape devices; a Sony VHS VCR, an old (~1990) 8mm Richoh camera (which was actually pretty flash at the time and still takes crystal clear video after having all caps replaced recently), and a relatively modern (~2000) Sony 8mm camera. I tried tape recorded from both cameras and PVR 150 failed miserably with both. As someone previously posted, every time there is slight camera movement the picture will lose vertical sync and distort badly. That is on tape recorded with the new Sony. On older (~12 years) VHS tape, the video is basically unwatchable as captured by the PVR 150. But fine on TV...

I never recorded anything in any format other that SP.

I find your explanation of the technical factors perfectly believable, my problem is with the capture card manufacturers basically exaggerating there capabilities.

Buyer beware, I would say.

[SHS]

LMK did you ever try reg Antenna, Cable or Satellite

[The_Doman]

From look of I say your problem has more to do with tape or cam output then the card and it been well know that capturing VHS and Hi8 and even from miniDV in most case are real pain a@@ to do and from look of it it look like you need TBC

SHS, It's not the tape, this problem is reported many times now with the PVR150!!
Capturing analog video from DV won't give problems because the video signal is from a stable (digital) source.
 

I have been digitizing my library of Beta tapes, some of which were 2nd generation copies, some were PAL conversions and have no problems. I am using a PVR250 however and cleanup with VideoReDo so that may have some bearing.

Big difference is you use the older PVR250 card!
Many reported it has much less trouble/issues then the (cheaper redesigned!) newer 150/500 cards!
All analog VCR (without builtin TBC) will have timing errors because of the mechanical fluctuations, but some cards seem to handle it much better then others.
Even when I capture analog tape with my old BT848 pinnacle card it handles it much better (not perfect!) then my PVR150.
The Videoredo is very good but has nothing todo with the capturing process.

For the best quality VHS captures I use the analog conversion option of my D8DV camcorder. This will give a perfect stabilized capture. (It does some form of TBC).
Ofcourse much more time-consuming but worth it!

[SHS]

The_Doman I don't buy that becuases I my have had a some tape do just that showing in that screenshot from few friends and family member that ask me to convert there home video tape over to DVD Disc.