Yes,
the ADVC-300 adds a few options such as Time Base Correction and Dynamic Noise Reduction which will help a bit. You can also tweak all these setting during capture whihc you might or might not find helpful.
Although I use a S-VHS deck to playout VHS tapes and connect to my ADVC-300 using the S-Video interface I doubt it'll make much of an improvement in image quality. I'm told that some of the very early early large VHS decks that have manual tracking controls might do better than the newer decks with tapes that are badly worn, warped or badly recorded.
I think from memory I might have had one S-VHS tape out of 100s of VHS tapes, in some circles S-VHS was and still is used quite a lot but it's a bit of a closed group, it never really took of with consummers.
At the end of the day, VHS is well, VHS. It didn't look that bad until something better came along and then you wonder how we ever watched it. Certainly if you're converting to DVD the worst thing with VHS that you have to deal with is the noise, for that reason go easy on the CC as that can make the noise worse.
Bob.

I use a Panasonic or JVC deck with the ADVC-300 and sometimes one particular tape will work better in one VCR than the other. They are both S-VHS Decks.Most of the time I end up at default settings on the 300 but the better the quality of the tape the more I can push the settings of the 300.

JJK

If you already have an s-video output, there is no gain to obtain from an s-VHS deck IMHO.

Neither of my VCRs has s-video output. Composite only.

Even really cheap decks can often playback S-VHS tapes, but the quality of their output is still pretty bad. The key thing is to get a deck that has lots of heads so the timing can be optimized for playing back both the 2-hour and 6-hour mode. While the extra heads are mostly to provide better playback during fast forward and freeze frame, they also improve the quality during playback.

S-Video (not to be confused with S-VHS, of course) outputs may or may not improve the capture quality. It certainly can provide a significant improvement when displaying video on a traditional NTSC monitor because the chroma doesn't have to be extracted from the composite signal. I used to have a deck that let me A/B back and forth between S-video and composite and I did lots of tests. There was definitely a difference, especially at the edges of saturated colors, but it wasn't a stunningly large difference.

TBC, found in some capture devices, can help eliminate "flagging" where the top of the picture bends. Such technology was absolutely necessary when going from analog to analog, such as when we all used to make copies of tapes by connecting two VCRs together. However, the timing information is completely eliminated once the video has been captured. Instead you have 720x480 (NTSC) pixels. When it gets played back out, the timing is re-inserted, which is sort of like a TBC. Thus, the TBC can help get better captures with certain tapes, but may do very little to improve the quality of the capture of tapes in reasonably good condition.

Thus, in my experience, by far the biggest factor in getting a good capture is using a high-quality VCR. The $500 units DO produce a better, less noisy picture than the $49 units.

As for post capture noise reduction, I've written about this extensively, and have found that chroma noise reduction is FAR more important than temporal or spatial de-noising. I use the CNR2 plugin which is an adaptation of the Mouchard chroma denoiser. This plugin can be made to work inside of Vegas via the Wax plugin. HIGHLY recommended for VHS noise reduction. Here are settings to start with:

Luma(Y) 15.98% Wide (checked) 75%
Chroma1 (U) 100.00% Wide (not checked) 100%
Chroma2 (V) 31.7% Wide (not checked) 100%
No chroma shift

The filter is available here: CNR11.ZIP

John,
that link to CNR11 no longer works, tried a Google but all references to it point back to the same non working French site?

I think it needs to be hosted elsewhere.

Bob.

that link to CNR11 no longer works

You're right, but that's bizarre because I brought the page up, as I always do, and then copied the link. I'll see if I can find the right link and go back and edit the post.

...

OK, I edited the link, and here it is as well: CNR Noise Reduction for VirtualDub

Thanks John.
you're right, it's odd because i found another page that had the same link as you had and it didn't seem to work either.
Bob.

I have the S-VHS and ADVC-100 set up also. Lately, I had a problem with audio noise. The last 4 tapes I've tried to capture all seem to have static noise on them. I've played them on other vcrs and they play fine. I may have to get a new vcr soon which is a bummer.

I am currently using the ADVC-100 and have taken notice of the ADVC-300. My business does provide the service of converting VHS tapes to DVD. As technology has continued to evolve... more options are available to us. I question....

Does the ADVC-300 provide a substantial improvement over the ADVC-100? Will the client be any the wiser to appreciate it?

The easy approach... is connect the VCR to a table top DVD recorder. Companies in my area are providing this service for $10.00 per disc. Obviously there hardly any work involved here.

I suppose my question is can the ADVC-300 with some creative post work, really make a much better pivyutr quality over the ADVC-100?

Thanks

Hi John'

Downloaded the Zip. Can you please tell me how to get Vegas to recognize it as a plugin after I extract the file?

CHEERS!

Paul

Downloaded the Zip. Can you please tell me how to get Vegas to recognize it as a plugin after I extract the file?

1. Unzip the files to some folder.

2. Download and install Wax.

3. Put the video on the timeline to which you want to apply the CNR plugin.

4. Click on the fX button for that event.

5. Add the Wax plugin to that event.

6. Within Wax, look for the Virtualdub plugin section (middle left side of the dialog). If you told Wax, when you installed it, where the CNR plug-in was loaded, you should see it.

7. Within the Wax dialog, drag that CNR plugin to the Host Media. You should then get the CNR plugin dialog, and you can set the parameters that I suggested in my earlier post.

A little convoluted, but worth it. If this is too complicated, you can open the video file in VirtualDub instead and apply the filter there.

Thanks John'

Did that and I got Wax pulled up as a plugin but I can's see the Virtual dub plugin anywhere.

Let me make sure I'm clear about the virtual dub ZIP:

Should I have downloaded the End User Zip or the Source Code C++?

Once I downoad the Zip where should I extract the file to?

Thanks again!

Paul

Hi John'

Ok I got all the way up to:
7. Within the Wax dialog, drag that CNR plugin to the Host Media. You

Only problem now is that I'm not seeing the CNR Plugin dialog to edit the Parameters you suggested.

CHEERS

Paul

It really depends on how bad the VHS is to start with. Pristine VHS, no real noticeable improvement. Dodgy VHS with wobbly syncs it can make a big difference. So can Digital 8 camera used in pass through.
Will your customers notice a big enoguh improvement to pay you more, I doubt it, no one seems to care much about quality these days. I have had customers ask how come the DVD looked better than when the yplayed the tape and I explain cuase i got better gear and spent a lot of time tweaking. But this is for material that's going onto their showreels so they'll pay good money to get it looking as good as possible.
They guy with a box of 4 hour LP VHS tapes that were dubs of his mates off air recordings, forget it, send them elsewhere.
Bob.

John, are your recommended CNR parameter values intended for NTSC only, or are they also appropriate for PAL material?

And thanks for the Wax plugin guide...I've been wanting to try several VirtualDub plugins in Vegas, and I didn't realize Wax would enable this.

Douglas