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as in “are you seeing what I’m seeing”?
as in “are you seeing what I’m seeing”?
What do you mean? There is a lot of memes featuring Jim Halpert and I don’t know which one we’re talking about.
What method do you recommend to [capture the video interlaced, preferrably as losslessly as possible]?
It’s been a while since I’ve done this but unless you’re recovering the Ark of the Covenant, it should be enough to follow these simple steps: use H.264 in OBS with high bitrate on a fast PC and preferrably using a USB 3.0+ port (even if the capture card is 2.0) to avoid clashing with other devices on the bandwidth-limited 2.0 bus. Check that the output is indeed interlacd. Look at stats/logs to see of any frames are dropped and investigate if it’s just the 59.94 Hz compensation, actual blank sections of tape or some part of the processing chain unable to keep up. Adjust audio levels; you might get better results using your PC’s mic socket rather than the capture card’s audio ADC (most tapes are mono anyway) but make sure to disable auto-gain or else quiet sections will get boosted like crazy, increasing the noise.
If I did want to capture the raw signal
Never done this; see recommended techniques by the vhs-decode
community.
the composite to HDMI converter has a single switch from 720p to 1080p
Composite is 480i/60*. That is, 60 times per second a blanking interval occurs, then 240 lines of picture are drawn - either the top (odd) or bottom (even) field. This is neccessary for CRT TVs because a 30Hz refresh rate would cause seizures but drawing all 480 lines 60 times per second would be wasteful. Look it up online for details: if you want videos, I recommend the Television playlist by Technology Connections on YouTube, especially the first video.
*Technically, the vertical frequency for NTSC is 59.94 Hz (precisely 60000/1001) to avoid interference between color and audio while keeping compatibility with B/W sets. In practice, you should check that the video output is actually at this frequency; if it’s 60 then every 1000th frame will be duplicated - no big deal usually unless this also swaps odd&even fields. No such problem exists for PAL, which was always exactly 50 Hz.
If the converter only outputs 720p or 1080p (presumably at 60 Hz), all 720/1080 lines are drawn 60 times per second, which means lines are added with some scaling technique, after some kind of deinterlacing happens.
Deinterlacing is basically a task similar to scaling but with key differences:
There are various deinterlacing techniques that could be used here:
Don’t use the converter if it cannot output 480i or at the very least 480p! Scaling should happen during playback, the files should be original resolution. You can also try non-trivial upscaling with some AI tools but still DEFINITELY keep the original resolution file for archival.
use a [separate] worse quality VCR for cleaning
I don’t have experience with moldy tapes. It might be a good idea but adds wear; I’d just clean the VCR after every tape if I suspect mold. You’d still need to clean the cleaning VCR after every tape to avoid cross-contamination so it would be
Is [advanced deinterlacing] possible in OBS?
Idk, I just keep my files interlaced and stored as high-bitrate H.264 (I don’t have enough computing power to encode sufficiently good bitrate in better codecs). If I wanted deinterlacing, I could process the files with ffmpeg
filters or some other tools.
I don’t expect newer VCRs to be made, there’s a lot of precise mechanical engineering and the R&D that would need to go into making a professional-grade VCR today does not make financial sense. However, there is an option to refurbish existing ones and capture the magnetic signal as directly as possible. On media such as VHS or LaserDisc, the signal is not quite composite video, as that would require some 6 MHz of bandwidth. Instead, the color subcarrier is remodulated to a way lower frequency and then back to normal for playback. The folks behind ld-decode
(a project that takes raw signal from a LaserDisc’s laser pickup and translates it into composite video) and its fork vhs-decode
have made software that captures everything the head picks up into a raw file, and then does TBC and chroma decoding to create the best possible video. They also documented what hardware can be used for the capture (usually a firmware-modded Conexant video capture card or a beefy FPGA) and how to connect it to some VCRs’ circuitry.
Of course, this is quite an over-the-top effort for home tapes, I’d just go with a generic composite capture card that does not deinterlace nor upscale and not bother with TBC.
Why a separate VCR for cleaning tapes? It’s enough to clean the heads AFAIK.
Also, you should definitely not use default deinterlacing techniques for the video, especially not ones built into these generic dongles. Capture it interlaced, preferrably as losslessly as possible, then use deinterlacing software where you can fine-tune the settings if you need to.
No, TBC most likely cannot be done in software, unless the video features a prominent vertical bar (such as a black border). It depends on the quality you want to reach, look closely and decide if the jitter is acceptable.
Edit: TBC can obviously be done in software if you have the raw composite or head signal but that is not possible with the capture cards you have.
It was advertised as “2 TB (64 GB Extended)” at a local clearance sale (not AliExpress), which was basically correct though I would prefer “64 GB but misprogrammed so everything can get corrupted at any time”. When buying it, I didn’t yet know if I could reprogram the chip but the low price was justified for the pretty aluminum case with a USB-C port and place for a custom PCB. I decided to buy it also to prevent another, less technical person from using it and losing their data. The store was getting rid of inventory for very cheap and would close soon so no more fake drives would be ordered.
Well, depends on how much you’re OK with some problems. I knowingly bought a “2 TB (64 GB Extended)” flash drive, tested its sectors and reprogrammed it to 32-in-64-GB for wear leveling and bad sector avoidance because it was still a cheap 32GB USB drive. I made sure to label it for “non-critical use” such as movies.
As for camping lanterns, ones charged from mains might have a nasty habit of shocking their users. (The YouTube channel contains a huge number of cheap Chinese charger teardowns and most don’t meet safety criteria. Usually, there is just 1 or 2 layers of thin tape between mains and the output you can touch.)
Sometimes, counterfeits or unknown brands are so similar to the real deal that it barely matters. I’d say that basic electronics (alarm clocks, kitchen scales, calculators, SD security cams) or even RAM is fine. With appropriate expectations, parts like video or USB cables, hubs etc., small home improvement items (hooks, screws) are fine too. Avoid categories where a lot of items have fake specs (storage devices, LED bulbs, anything that claims a runtime on a Li-Ion battery). Power electronics (especially if using mains or non-tiny Li-Ion batteries) can be downright dangerous. For novelty items and electronics modules, it’s usually easy to find text or video reviews on other websites because they’re easy to uniquely describe. Remember to consider ways in which the product can be utter crap despite high reviews citing good first impressions; it also helps to have practical knowledge of testing the properties of the items and fixing common issues.
Well, then you’re going to hear
most of the time, much like Spotify.
(Last time I was in a Spotify-“enhanced” waiting room was 6 years ago so no idea if that still holds.)
You just described the Czech pub stereotype in a nutshell. They love complaining and arguing and do it for sport, but when somebody disagrees with their worldview on a substantial level, they won’t get invited to the table at all.
Does this pub behavior extend to ActivityPub? Maybe…
Woah, another Czech Lemmy user! @pmjv@lemmy.sdf.org @subarctictundra@lemmy.world There’s like 4 of us!
Well, honestly the administration is more than a single person, which is why the other points raised by @DandomRude@lemmy.world are important.
Too bad a hundred million people are still too detached from reality to acknowledge this. The unfucking of America will take at least the better part of a century.
The sad thing is, he will end up winning more than 20 states despite this.
Thanks; I thought “his town hall” meant that the town’s administrative building (Rathaus) was named after Trump.
Yes but you’ll need to intercept the HDMI cable with a beefy microcontroller to turn it back on when displaying patient data again so you don’t get fired. At this point, I’d be looking to disable the corresponding software if the computer is accessible.
…Like MS-DOS getting open sourced. It’s pretty much worthless unless you need to use some really old device.
And hours of The Office, presumably.