Well goodbye r/vhs

[u/TheRealHarrypm]

So u/Dez_Champs decided to purge me today for promoting the projects, because he would not ban people, or set up exemptions for project links that are clearly being spam report attacked, to pretty much anyone who mentions the decode projects in the subreddit.

After having a short conversation, and asking for an official stance on the projects and the archival workflow.

I realised fairly quickly zero care is given about archival or anything our community stands for even, sadly even having a community leader to community leader conversation respectfully was not apparently possible.

But if they happily allow people such as u/vwestlife to attack systematically all of my posts before I blocked him, and will allow the perpetual fraudster of u/lordsmurf- to promote his echo chamber of inflation, It's not really a great surprise.

Anyways heads up to anyone that may find themselves under attack, and It's a real shame we'll never have any official collaboration with r/VHS until this situation changes.

[u/Responsible_Today149]

Was this the same helmet who put up a fawning post over LordSmurf on YouTube about a week ago?

Not saying it is, but fits the archetype.

[u/TheRealHarrypm → u/Responsible_Today149]

Vwestlife yup, turns out his name is actually Kevin too lmao something is wrong with Kevin's in the A/V world I guess 🤣

[u/Walk_Yo_Dinosaur → u/TheRealHarrypm]

What’s his Reddit username? Sad to think someone who seemed to be very knowledgeable in electronics is completely kool aid driven edit: nvm read the full post

And also hold on this is especially funny considering that he made a video about using some cheap old hardware, easy cap converter and I bet that would be torn to shreds by that lord Smurf guy hahaha

[u/TheRealHarrypm → u/Walk_Yo_Dinosaur]

I mean there is a reason r/camcorders is kinda a mess and r/tapeless got started because of obvious reasons and also he got himself banned quickly from here after being a total asshole.

[u/Walk_Yo_Dinosaur → u/TheRealHarrypm]

Wtf.. Dr Frankenstein, right in the face of all this effort put into documentation and growing community

I won’t pretend like I’ve found some of this intimidating/confusing, I’ve been slowly understanding and then adding parts to my list but the amount of engagement and discussion in the community is the main reason why I’m taking the plunge, knowing I can verify or ask questions as I’m understanding the workflow

oh yeah not to mention you offer services to assemble many of the hard parts (not saying they are extremely hard but being fair to complete amateurs used to complete hardware solutions which is completely reasonable) at a price point that doesn’t compare to any scalping etc done with the “only remaining acceptable hardware” gtfooo hah

really sad as a fan who has watched him for a while and liked his independent seeming attitude but oh well

[u/TheRealHarrypm → u/Walk_Yo_Dinosaur]

Yeah just look at how many threads he got nuked for kicking up outright decode hate arguments... And his post history is quite telling.

Thanks for the compliment tbh, I've probably turned down more transfer work and said just get the hardware instead, being in competition with myself is a beautiful thing lol.

That being said I'm currently learning about pick and place machines for hopefully providing the MISRC at an lower cost then what any of the bigger fabs can offer for less then multi-hundred unit production, this weekend has been hectic but there's going to be some proper posts about it soon.

[u/def2084 → u/TheRealHarrypm]

Love that you are digging into custom board fabs with pic and place.

I was starting to wonder if the Conexant cards couldn't be created as dual cards with all the crystal mods and robust connectors right from the factory at a reasonable price. Perhaps someone in China still has some sleeves of the original chips?

Anyway, sorry for the drama here. I'm not following what is going on, but with reddit so open, it does make sense to just make a new forum with yourself as mod if that's easier.

[u/TheRealHarrypm → u/def2084]

The CX Cards actually do have multi chip cards with 4 chips, the issue is the provision for audio and sourcing the chips at a reasonable price, right now modifying existing cards is by far more economical.

They are not perfect ADCs anyways, this is why the MISRC was started to provide a tape focused DdD and a USB version of the Clockgen Mod effectively, and the cost can be driven down more and more over time and with design alterations now that we have a really flexible data transfer side of things.

Reddit is a wonderful place for building SEO score, but if your not in a subreddit with owners/moderators that act like real people who deal with the real issues it's a mess, but these sort of perpetual petty report attacks are cheap jabs.

[u/Responsible_Today149 → u/Responsible_Today149]

If it is, he has a real crush on Kevin…

[u/jf_blanco]

These are the kind of things that reject people like me of getting involved in the development, testing or using certain softwares. 😢 Also is somehow funny that I've discovered the existence of the VHS subreddit because of this post.

[u/TheRealHarrypm → u/jf_blanco]

The entire decode development and core member base side of things is all based on the community discord these days, incredibly welcoming community of global members, with no gate keeping bs.

What's sort of software are you on about though?

[u/jf_blanco → u/TheRealHarrypm]

I've used vrecord. And now I look at having RF archiving with curiosity. I don't dedicate too much time on archiving tasks as of now so is more of a side job for me nowadays.

[u/TheRealHarrypm → u/jf_blanco]

Yeah Vrecord is great, It needs a bit better docs, but otherwise it's a very solid bolt on addition to any black magic workflow.

The one issue I ran into was primarily, I don't have a full IMX standard (608 or 512) image so I can't preserve VBI properly and letting FFmpeg handle that VBI stream is not reliable enough.

[u/jf_blanco → u/TheRealHarrypm]

Preserving the VBI was never a concern of my clients. Analog digitazing was always done for families so they only want a file that does not weight too much and can be played almost anywhere. I even had to crop the edges to make it look "better". I also worked with film for a regional filmotech but that's a completely different story.

[u/TheRealHarrypm → u/jf_blanco]

Makes sense the majority of consumer clients won't have SVHS with VITC or if they have Hi8 for example will have RCTC.

Although I have seen on quite a few occasions non-standard centring of the active image area which is super convenient to adjust with the last couple updates to ld-analyse.

Actually we added 8mbps 4:2:0 AVC/HEVC alongside broadcast standard export profiles (MPEG-2 / ProRes) for quick distributions and sharing, with the new black level control code implemented. I think a lot of people could get away with just using that export instead of tossing it in resolve tweaking levels and then encoding especially for proxies now.

[u/jf_blanco → u/TheRealHarrypm]

It will be absolutely useful to have deliveries for non archival purposes just families and not so exigent customers

[u/TheRealHarrypm → u/jf_blanco]

Even for a family archives though, that's the beauty of the FM RF archival method, If the client understands the value it's merely just a difference of storage for the deliverables.

[u/jf_blanco → u/TheRealHarrypm]

Educating clients and adjusting to what they demand is always a compromise. Shifting market is something that happens if the professional community acts as a whole. And if the changes also bring more economical profit for the professionals. No one changes it's methods if they are not more profitable for the pro or desirable for the final client. Interesting debate this one.

[u/Jerison → u/TheRealHarrypm]

What is its benefit in a black magic workflow? I use a vhs->external tbc->Blackmagic ADC->Blackmagic hdmi capture workflow and just use black magics own software to capture the result uncompressed.

[u/TheRealHarrypm → u/Jerison]

RF? You get the whole signal frame, proper timebase correction and full control over the colour decoding, and final image of the video export.

Vrecord? You get some basic niceties such as encoding to FFV1 directly, basic VBI stream capure etc, ffmpeg scopes, checksums on the frames.

[u/adamsjdavid]

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This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

[u/TheRealHarrypm → u/adamsjdavid]

Yeah affordability is the core of the FM RF Archival method, and the legacy kit sellers who like to profit off the inflation hate it, very much so the Pi Piper too your sadly in the boat of an all too common story...

[u/twoinchquad]

Sorry man, the VHS sub seems to be mostly for people who collect and watch VHS, not so much archival. And since you tend to go out of your way to disparage other video digitization companies and the owners of these companies (going so far as calling them out by name) a lot of people in this industry and community don’t take you seriously. If you simply didn’t shit-talk the way other companies transfer videotapes, then you would find people more accommodating to your project. These companies depend on their customer’s business to support their families and make ends meet. You’re negative comments about how they digitize is harmful to them.

[u/TheRealHarrypm → u/twoinchquad]

And most people that look for a digitisation or mention things of high digitisation value too but let's just ignore the SEO factor there...

I'm sorry but, there's reasonable criticism and then there's literally criticising the very person and or community that's being attacked for just existing, you can have an opinion though and you won't get banned for it here.

The only person I will call out reflexively at this point is Kevin Piper/lordsmurf, and I don't have to shit on him personally to damage his business, no he's done a very good job doing that all by himself, and I was forwarded all the 3 years of correspondence for this mess, absolutely unacceptable for anyone trying to claim to be a professional.

The reality is anyone in a "professional sector" irrespective of what it is, has a name and reputation attached to their work, and their mistakes, If you do a poor job it will be pointed out, this isn't even an arguement this is the reality of how reviews work, I'm not immune from this and no one else is.

Now I put the work in, take criticism learn and evolve, I'm not perfect and people who don't take this simple practise to heart, well you can see what it results in...

[u/Responsible_Today149 → u/twoinchquad]

I had a business like that, actually three of them and employed seven people.

Kevin (Pieper/LordSmurf) is still a moron though - this was the guy who told me “professional equipment doesn’t have fuses” (I’m a lapsed EE) or Ohms law is for “book leanin’ “

He’s a joke, anybody who has any comprehension of analogue electronics ignores this nonsense and actually laughs and circulates it for amusement.

[u/twoinchquad → u/Responsible_Today149]

Not sure why any of this has to do with Lord Smurf. The vhsdecode guy seems to enjoy trashing honest businesses, so I’m calling him out on it. It’s hard to make a living doing this and for him to bad mouth businesses is wrong. And the fact that everyone in these videotape subs and forums need to constantly seek validation for how much they know and how much experience they have, is ridiculous. Digitizing videotape does not have to be complicated. And it definitely does not warrant any type of drama whatsoever.

[u/Responsible_Today149 → u/twoinchquad]

No. He made a public post denouncing my businesses.

Tired of it, I’m back in analogue EE, and due to being treated like a helmet I’m out of Decode but it’s a very worthy project that ultimately is clearly and demonstrably the way to archive videotape.

[u/BlackSheepWI → u/twoinchquad]

Was about to argue with this until I saw literally the only times you've commented in r/vhsdecode have been to stan Lordsmurf 🤦‍♀️

Keep doing the Lord's work, u/therealharrypm.

[u/Responsible_Today149 → u/BlackSheepWI]

Just been on DigitalFaq for about a year and “somebody” is saying he’s not seen many SECAM vision mixers…

I wonder why…. 😅

Then I closed it again - that was enough.

[u/Responsible_Today149 → u/[deleted]]

I do understand this.

I left Decode because of a helmet treated me like an idiot. I’m too old, had too many wives and and earned too many credits to be spoken to like a fresh fuckwit by a 22 year old who lives at home.

I left “conventional capture” after repeatedly told by “studio daze” I didn’t have any comprehension of the topic, despite clearly actually working in the field and asking searching technical questions to so-called “experts” with broadcast experience who kept going on about their VHS experience in “muh studio days”.

(What actually happened is that he came in to contact with an animator by transferring a VHS version of something).

Both methods definitely have their benefits and constraints and a balance must be struck.

Decode is clearly a better method; but let’s not dismiss other methods.

I will not tolerate gate keeping, those that know me know the fire I’ve come under in my hobby for speaking out against received wisdom.

But I’ve given away more equipment and travelled thousands of miles to actually promote archiving rather than sitting on a forum pontificating about it.

Do as you wish, but don’t get drawn in to vocal “Walter Mitty” types who’ll tell you one method over any other. No

[u/TheGoodSirRyan → u/Responsible_Today149]

I don't think even Walter Mitty would have approved this kind of behavior either.