H.264 Pro Recorder analog interface issues

Hello,
my customers at the university still have to digitize old magnetic tapes (VHS, SVHS, Video 8, Hi8 etc). Many of the tapes show the usual problems: parts of the tapes contain recorded footage followed by some seconds of tape which had never been "formatted" which a video signal. I live in PAL country.

The point is:
I would like to replace my old PAL MPEG-2 digitizer by a H.264 device. The H.264 Pro Recorder might be perfect for this, offering all the analog and digital interfaces I need.

Unfortunately the analog YC interface (S-Video) is not very solid:

1. PAL is anamorphic 576i and the software does not handle 4:3 and 16:9 at a file level.

See: http://forum.blackmagicdesign.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=684. MX light solves this, BMD does not seem to intend to solve this since approx. 1 year ...

2. Sync problems

Do you remember analog vertical sync issuses: black bars sliding from top to bottom or reverse?

The ProCoder shows this behaviour, when I connect some SHVS or Hi8 devices by YC, especially if there is no change in the frames, e.g. constant blue for seconds. My Hi8 recorder shows such a blue still when not in playback mode.

So: I have to start recording or even switch to capture mode when the footage is still playing. I loose serveral seconds of the footage to be digitized. If I start recording before playing the footage, the blue still shows the "sync problem bar" and the sync problems do not disappear when frames with changing conten appear. Sometimes I even have to disconnect the device from usb and power supply to recover from the sync issue.

This does not happen, if I apply 576i via SDI or HDMI from a live camera. But i happens to me for every 2nd magnetic tape which ist some years old. My time base corrector does not fix it.

My MPEG-2 digitizer does not show this behaviour in the same situations.

3. "Unformatted parts of the tape" tend to corrupt output files

Imagine situations like this: customers have recorder to brand new tapes without any video information on them. They have recorded a lot of takes on them. Unfortunately the had had a look at them after every take and did not stop play back befor the footage ended. So parts of "no signal at all" appear after parts recorded. DV devices tend to restart with a time code of 0:00:00:00 each time this happened.

Media Express file production does not survive this at all: It shows e.g. 1h of recording time, after such a "no footage during playback event" it shows recording since some secs. I cannot find a file containing the hout on my disk. The only file I find is corrupted.

To me, it seems as if MediaExpress tries to start a new file, if it encounters "no signal during recording" and does not succeed to do so.

Again: My time base corrector does not fix it. My MPEG-2 digitizer does not show this behaviour in the same situations.

So: I cannot use the procoder as a device for digitizing (my customers) non professional tapes.

Any ideas please? Thank you very much in advance for your kind replies!

No need to mention: latest software. I do the test every time I find a new release, because I am still hoping for a fix.

Cheers
Dieter

p.s. Is BMD interested in fixing things like that? What is your experience? In the aspect ratio thread ( http://forum.blackmagicdesign.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=684) Sarah said, they where looking into it. No more posting since 22nd August ...

[Joshua Helling]

First, I'd like to clearly state the products name is H.264 Pro Recorder, not ProCoder which is an old Canopus transcoding software that later evolved into Carbon Code from Rhozet (Harmonic). Just want to make it clear as both devices deal with encoding.

1. PAL is anamorphic 576i and the software does not handle 4:3 and 16:9 at a file level.

See: viewtopic.php?f=10&t=684. MX light solves this, BMD does not seem to intend to solve this since approx. 1 year ...

True, this is the case. I know we are currently going and adding the 16:9 options to a number of products, I don't know if when we will be able to do this one. But as you mentioned MX light can do this (which is a shame to have to recommend another product to handle this).

2. Sync problems

Do you remember analog vertical sync issuses: black bars sliding from top to bottom or reverse?

The ProCoder shows this behaviour, when I connect some SHVS or Hi8 devices by YC, especially if there is no change in the frames, e.g. constant blue for seconds. My Hi8 recorder shows such a blue still when not in playback mode.

So: I have to start recording or even switch to capture mode when the footage is still playing. I loose serveral seconds of the footage to be digitized. If I start recording before playing the footage, the blue still shows the "sync problem bar" and the sync problems do not disappear when frames with changing conten appear. Sometimes I even have to disconnect the device from usb and power supply to recover from the sync issue.

This does not happen, if I apply 576i via SDI or HDMI from a live camera. But i happens to me for every 2nd magnetic tape which ist some years old. My time base corrector does not fix it.

My MPEG-2 digitizer does not show this behaviour in the same situations.

This is really odd. From what you are saying is happening I would expect a time base corrector to help with these issues as what you are describing sounds like an unstable video signal. "Rebooting" the device is the way to recover from an issue like this as it will force the device to relock onto the signal. I'm still not sure why the TBC would not help in these issues unless the signal is way out.

3. "Unformatted parts of the tape" tend to corrupt output files

Imagine situations like this: customers have recorder to brand new tapes without any video information on them. They have recorded a lot of takes on them. Unfortunately the had had a look at them after every take and did not stop play back befor the footage ended. So parts of "no signal at all" appear after parts recorded. DV devices tend to restart with a time code of 0:00:00:00 each time this happened.

Media Express file production does not survive this at all: It shows e.g. 1h of recording time, after such a "no footage during playback event" it shows recording since some secs. I cannot find a file containing the hout on my disk. The only file I find is corrupted.

This could be, we'll have to check it. Thought I would think it would simply record black or blue, but if the signal popped enough it would cause the device to attempt to relock, which it might not be able to do. Which might hang up the device and thus make the file bad. I'll try to have someone test this, but I'll need to see if any one my team has a VCR still and tape with blanks (though I think we can create one). We'd only be able to try in NTSC though, but i'd expect similar behavior.

To me, it seems as if MediaExpress tries to start a new file, if it encounters "no signal during recording" and does not succeed to do so.

Actually i'm pretty sure it does not do this, but in my opinion it "should" do this. At least to save the file if the video signal gets interrupted as apposed to going into lala land.

Hello Joshua,

thank you very much for your replies. It's great to see BMD staff is present on the forum ...

I spent some time on my sync problems today:

footage: Video 8 tape, taken 1998, duration 1h.
Devices: TBC (tvone-task 1T-TBC-GL), VCR (Sony EV-C2000E) high quality YC cabling, connected from new.
Software release: 9.6.5.0

Switch to capture mode
This time(!) I started with a blue preview, no sync problems. (121011_SyncTBC_01 being attached)
Start capture
Start playback: Sync problem (121011_SyncTBC_02)
Stop playback: Sync problem and image problem (121011_SyncTBC_03)
Start playback again: Sync problem survives (121011_SyncTBC_04)
Disconnect Power and usb, still in capture mode, capturing active (sorry)
Recovery, same as (121011_SyncTBC_01)
Start playback, sync problems occur again ...

In my first posting, I asked to remember vertically sliding black bars as an indicator of sync problems...

I forgot to mention, that "my black bars" (e.g. 121011_SyncTBC_02) don't slide: they remain in the same vertical position as long as the problem persists.

My problems are reproducable in the presence of a time base corrector.
It also happens to work without sync problems in the same setup from tape (same postion) to device

Thank you for your efforts

Cheers
Dieter

Just an idea ...
according to my distributor, I own one of the first Pro Recorders delivered on the german market.

There were issues with the autodetection of the active input at least in the early times of the device:

Formerly I had to wait for more than 5 seconds until YC-input was beeing recognized. BMD fixed that. But it still takes a significant amout of time to start capture mode.

Is it possible, that polling the other inputs causes the trouble I encounter?

Why don't you let the user select the input as you do in every other of your products, so far as I know them: by a dropdown box in your software.

Yours
Dieter

[Joshua Helling]

Hrm. Does the issue happen if you are just using composite (vs S-video)? I've not seen many issues like this, but I must admit I think I see more people using HD than SD with this device.

Just trying to narrow down where the issue may be.

Hello Joshua,

sorry for my late reply. I was out of office for some days.

I feed to the composite input, same recorder, another tape, ...

1st without tbc:

a) The issues occur in a slightly different way.
a.1) Mostly I get a correct sync when starting playback
a.2.) Every time I stop playing, I get the sync problem: a black bar sliding vertically through the blue still generated by may VCR.

You notice the difference to YC feed: The bar slides and it occurs every time I stop playing.

Starting playing, I geht the bar sometimes. If it occurs, it does not(!) slide during playback.

So I can reproduce a non sliding bar during playback and a sliding one in stop mode (blue screen) without tbc.

2nd with my tbc :

My tbc doesn't like the signal at the moment ...
Tomorrow, I will give it another try with new cables. Just to remove their possible influence ...

Thanks again for your efforts
Dieter

Hello,

just to terminate a topic, which seems to be of no interest to BMD ...

My sync problems are present with another Hi8 VCR (same model), SVHS recorders, other cables and so on. I give up.

Just a thought on the usage of the world "professional" in product names etc.:

I am quite disappointed. I spent a lot of money in BMD products. H.264 Pro Recorder deals with analog inputs but YUV, with SD in PAL country. It does not handle anamorphic 16:9 at a file level and is (very) sensitive to composite and YC input signals, which are typical to, maybe non professional, SD times. It dies when it encounters parts of a tape which does not contain video signals.

If you only look at this side of the product: would you call it professional?

Or is it professional, because it addresses only professional users with YUV equipment, that don't have tapes like mine?

Sorry, me English was not good enough to distinguish things like that ...

Cheers
Dieter

I assume the word Professional in this case is in relation to the device's support for professional features like BNC connectors, balanced audio and, above all, SDI and RS422 support which are definitely professional features that differentiate it from many other H.264 encoders on the market.

Today I ran into the same problems you encountered. So no improvements have been made, sorry to see.

1. Timecode resets when there is no signal, corrupting any recording thus far
2. Sync problem / black bars moving through the video