Capturing with JVC DH30000 D-VHS Deck

Brooke wrote on 8/14/2005, 8:23 PM
I was wondering if someone could post an update on capturing with the JVC D-VHS decks using VV6.

In this particular case, I'm only trying to use it for low-res caps from plain VHS with the external Vegas Capture utility (instead of a fancier deck with a legitimate capture card). I was pleased to see it had deck control, and saw the deck as a "Microsoft DV Camera and VCR," but there were no images or audio in preview or capture. I've played with the I/O settings on the deck, and returned them to "No Conv." and 4:3. I was also unable to get Vegas to see the deck in HD mode within the internal Vegas HD Capture utility using an HD D-VHS demo tape, although I didn't really want to do that anyway because of disk space.

If I have to, I can probably run it through my Pyro AV-Link using component video and analog audio, but I'd rather not if I can avoid it. I'm not as confident of sync holding on a long-running capture that way, and I like the idea of having deck control.

I'm appreciative of any help or wisdom you can offer.

Brooke

Comments

filmy wrote on 8/14/2005, 9:28 PM
I am not 100% sure I am reading the question right but it sounds like you are trying to take analog video and read it via firewire - and to th ebest of my undertsnading there is no analog > firewire conversion going on there. In other words that deck does not do any on the fly up conversion of standard VHS and send the signal out firewire ports.

And that would explain why you have no signal when trying to capture via firewire.

As for the HD capture part - I can not speak for Vegas 6 and how it reads (or does not read) the incoming signal but I do know there is a seperate HDV capture mod that is sort of built in in order to do it. By default you capture with the VidCap mod however I think with Vegas 6 you need to check some sort of option for HDV capture because the VidCap mod isn't used for that...and please someone correct me here if I am wrong. And again..maybe I am not reading what you are saying correct.

Other than that this is the other link - about Vegas 4 workflow with the deck- http://www.sonymediasoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?MessageID=195449&Page=0.
wombat wrote on 8/14/2005, 11:20 PM
I don't know what machine you have, but from what I see on the JVC site regarding your model number, it is likely to have firewire in only - so you can connect e.g. a camera to it.

If on the other hand it is one on the JVC dual DV / VHS tape decks it should be able to encode your VHS tapes to avi on the fly and send it out via the firewire port.

However, to do this you will need to disable deck control in Vegas options. Vegas can control a DV tape (which is digital and has timecode) in such decks, but not VHS, which is analogue and has no timecode. Once you switch off device control in Vegas you would be able to see the raw output from the VHS side of the deck in the capture window, and, of course, capture it.
filmy wrote on 8/15/2005, 11:27 AM
No, the deck he is talking about is a D-VHS deck, not the DV/VHS decks. I have spoken with JVC directly about the DH series units and while they do not advertise firewire i/o it can do it. The problem is that it is not sending a DV signal out the firewire and it does not record DV in - this is a HD unit so it sends, and recieves/records an HD signal. *BUT* I think the later untis may have 2 firewire ports - one of them works i/o and one does not. Either way it is not advertised as such.
Brooke wrote on 8/15/2005, 10:36 PM
Thanks for clarifying this for me, filmy, and for the brainstorming, wombat.

JVC was particularly useless when it came to information on this deck, and the subsequent models. Part of my reason for buying this deck was what I thought I read into earlier posts on editing with it.

I mistakenly came to the conclusion that because the 1394 port was labelled "i-link in/out," and the manual made a reference to automatically upconverting plain VHS tapes to digital signals, that it could work as a cheap, upconverting, edit controllable, firewire compatible VHS deck. I had the same problems getting it to talk to my Canon GL, even using a digital recording from a DVHS tape, so I think I was able to rule out my computer as the problem.

I've come to the conclusion that it still might offer a little better quality than a typical S-deck by running the signal through it's TBC and NR, and feeding it component out to my AV-Link, but I'd have been thrilled to spend the extra money on the current deck, if I had any idea that it might offer greater compatibility. I specifically asked JVC if the newer decks offered any compatibility improvements before I bought this obsolete floor model, but they had no clue what they were almost able to offer with this deck for those of us with marginal VHS/S-VHS archival tapes that we want to convert to DVD.

I know I could always dump it directly to DVD using my GoVideo VHS/DVD recorder, but I don't think Vegas is as fond of editing from DVD-R, as it is with an internally captured signal, unless I'm missing an easier or better solution.
filmy wrote on 8/16/2005, 11:12 AM
The D-VHS is better than VHS for sure and for S-VHS as well however if the source material is analog VHS it may not matter much at the head end anyway. I agess that taking the signal and running it through a TBC would help but if that is all you are doing before bringing it into an NLE you may just want to ski[p that part anyway and do anything needing to be done in the NLE. IMO the more you pre-play with the signal prior to getting it on the computer is overkill anymore. 15 years ago it was a different story...we could take in crappy VHS for an offline eidt anf than take a master tape in for th eonline. Now the concept is pretty much waht is the computer is the "master" and you use that for online, doing any color correction prior to output but after input - if you follow my train for thought here.

Also VHS is not going to be deck controllable because most (all?) of the NLE's now that use firewire base their "deck control" on that, and even in the dual decks the VHS side is *not* controllable via firewire.

I do agree that the overall "tech" side of these D-VHS decks is lacking and a bit questionable. THe whole "upconversion" thng was one of the first things that caught my eye because it sounded as if you could take, say, the firewire (mini-dv) output from an NLE and have it upconverted on the fly to HD. In doing some digging that isn't really what they mean. DV in will stay DV ad anaolg in will, basicly, end up as a DV signal the same way it would if you transfered it over to anymini-DV camera/deck. Lot of people we/are using these decks to record off air HD broadcasts and *that* is the idea - HD in = HD recording. Dv in = digital recording but *not* HD. But how they word it is misleading. And it was not until I spoke directly with "Mr JVC big shot" at N.J HQ did I get the answer of "Well of course you *can* take the output of a NLE's firewire and go into the deck...we just don't advertise that." And that is when I got the whole "It doesn't really upconvert incoming signals to HD but it will take analog tape and "upconvert" it." It is just a wording more than anything - for example in the whole disscussion of "what is 'true' HD?" 720p is, based on specs, 'true HD' but my $30.00 DVD player will "upconvert" the signal to 720p but, to me, that does not make it an HD DVD player. And they don't advertise it as such - they just say "progressive output".