One Small Step for VHS Tapes (Hayou Tsurugi v2)

When Orphan released Hayou Tsurugi last year, I noted that "the tape had copy protection, which caused problems during the ripping process and may have contributed to audio sync issues in the encode." In another small step for improved analog ripping, that issue has been overcome, and Orphan is releasing a new, improved, and properly synced version of the show.

Since the Domesday Duplicator became available for ripping laserdiscs, and uncompressed capture was shown to be the best way to rip VHS tapes, progress on improving analog media capture has been slow. The Duplicator software (ld-decode) has continued to improve. A VHS analog, called VHS-decode, is making progress, but it's not ready for prime time. AI-based image cleanup has not panned out; AI can't cope (yet) with blended frames and other imperfections in source material.

However, one option for improving VHS tape capture has been available for quite a while - the time-base corrector (TBC). A TBC eliminates the timing stuttering and playback artifacts introduced by the mechanical instability of the VHS playback hardware or by copy protection. It's not essential with many tapes, but it's absolutely necessary to accurately capture tapes protected by Macrovision's analog copy protection (ACP). Although not common in anime, Hayou Tsurugi used Macrovision ACP. As a result, Orphan's original capture had both video errors (washout) and audio sync problems.

Recently, our media guru in Japan was able to acquire a working TBC at a reasonable price. When he tried it on the Hayou Tsurugi tapes, he got a capture with proper audio sync and without the awful washout that had afflicted certain scenes. Old version:

New version:

While the audio sync issues were fairly consistent (around five frames), they were not constant, particularly in the second episode. This is fixed in the new release.

I won't repeat my description of the show from the previous blog entry. It's still a routine sword-and-sorcery fest. For the original release, Iri translated, ninjacloud timed, I edited and typeset (very little), and Topper3000, Uchuu, VigorousJammer, and ImAWasteOfHair QCed. For this release, I tweaked the timing, and Nemesis did a release check. If you downloaded the first version, you should replace it with this one. You can get the show from the usual torrent site or from IRC bot Orphan|Arutha in channels #nibl or #news in irc.rizon.net.

The TBC won't set off a flood of new versions, because unlike previous improvements - the Domesday Duplicator and uncompressed tape capture - it applies to only a small amount of source material. Bakumatsu no Spasibo was also Macrovision protected, but it has other issues, so a new release isn't immanent. VHS-decode will be the next big milestone in the pursuit of analog perfection.