Choosing between 110 and 300...

[mason]

This is a great site and I am glad I found it. I know there are many threads discussing this topic, but they have led me to ask a few more questions. I am going to convert a good number of VHS and S-VHS tapes into my Mac Pro. These are tapes dating back to the early 90s but most are from around 1998 or 1999.

I would like the best quality transfer. I would also prefer not to have to tweak much after the transfer as I really do not know much about it and have a lot of things I need to do. I wouldn't mind if the quality of the tapes got enhanced a bit, some are copies of copies and could use it (or can I not improve tapes that are not the original source?). However, I found on here something that mentions ghosting when transferring tapes that involves things moving fast.

These are mainly high school football tapes I am transferring over for a documentary and I am concerned about this. I don't mind spending the money on the higher priced unit but if it ghosts then it is pointless. I am not converting tapes of family reunions and that jazz, these are action and players in motion.

The VCR I will be using also has TBC which I can toggle on or off before transferring. Will getting the 300 have a good effect on the quality of the football tapes, or would you recommend me using the 110 and the TBC on the VCR and call it a day?

I just need the best quality possible as one of the players recently passed and these are the only tapes of him left on the planet and need to be preserved the best they can. Thanks for your help, any direction is appreciated.

Mason

[kbosward]

My understanding of "ghosting" is that it can only occur when you deliberately muck up field order in an interlaced video (e.g. changing to upper field first instead of lower field first or when converting or upscaling from a progressive video). If none of what I just said makes any sense, then I don't think you are going to have a problem with ghosting. At least that's what I understand, happy to be corrected :)

If you already have a S-VHS VCR with built-in TBC then you are 90% set. That is the most important thing you need with old tapes to get a well-defined signal for capturing. If your VCR does not also have built-in noise filtering, then you may benefit from the noise filtering capabilities of the ADVC-300.

See the following thread for some more info, including links to some samples showing the noise reduction possible with the ADVC-300:
http://ediusforum.grassvalley.com/fo...ead.php?t=4864

Ken.

[mason]

Thanks for your reply Ken. I read that thread you referred to before I posted, but I read it again and it makes a little more sense to me. I understand what you are talking about regarding ghosting from interlaced video, but that is just from searching on google and learning as much as possible in the last two days. I have zero experience with it.

I had just read that when using the 300 that artifacts can get introduced during conversion, especially during fast movements? These tapes I have are of football games captured from a camera, not from TV or anything. There is a lot of movement and tracking of the football and players running around the field. Maybe "ghosting" was not the correct term.

The VHS I will be using is a JVC S-VHS (I am waiting on a friend to text me the model) that also has a dvd drive in it. It has TBC/NR I believe. Now granted these tapes are not really of poor poor quality, it is just that I would like to get the best possible picture and sound quality out of them. I am also on somewhat of a time constraint as I will most likely be getting the 110 or 300 tomorrow.

Once again, thanks for your help.

[mason]

It is a JVC Sr-mv45