Q: Sharp AN200SC Quality vs.Sharp VC-WD1
Michael Nydegger
Saw the VCR from Sharp, the VC-WD1 in action and the conversion is superb
(better than the Panasonic World 1 VCR which I had a few years back)
As both the VC-WD1 and AN200SC come from Sharp, is the same converter inside
the VCR version ???? Heard, that the AN200SC standalone converter is really bad.
Could someone enlighten me ,please
I'am thinking of ordering an AN200SC and $499 is a good price for such a device.
--
// Michael Nydegger E-Mail to:
\X/ ni...@stargazer.aare.chnet.ch
Steve Harrison
ni...@stargazer.aare.chnet.ch (Michael Nydegger) wrote:
If anyone can answer this would they please post to rec.video for all
of us to hear.
Thanks,
Steve.
Micky DuPree
>I'am wondering about the quality of the Sharp AN200SC NTSC-PAL converter.
>Saw the VCR from Sharp, the VC-WD1 in action and the conversion is superb
>(better than the Panasonic World 1 VCR which I had a few years back)
>As both the VC-WD1 and AN200SC come from Sharp, is the same converter
>inside the VCR version ???? Heard, that the AN200SC standalone converter
>is really bad.
>Could someone enlighten me ,please I'am thinking of ordering an AN200SC
>and $499 is a good price for such a device.
Disclaimer: I've never personally seen the output of the AN200SC, but
from accounts, it's the same conversion technology as that of the
VC-WD1 (which I do own). I'll repost an article comparing the AN200SC
to the Panasonic AG-W1 (a.k.a. the NV-W1). It's without permission,
but I've preserved the header.
-Micky
============================
From: B.K...@ee.surrey.ac.uk
Newsgroups: rec.video
Subject: Standards Converters: AN-200 Vs. W1
Message-ID: <930504153...@ainur.ee.surrey.ac.uk>
Date: 4 May 93 14:27:36 GMT
Distribution: world
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 194
BATTLE OF THE STANDARDS CONVERTERS
A Comparison between the Sharp AN-200SC and the Panasonic W1
For a number of years I have been regularly using a Panasonic NV-W1 TV
standards converter to convert NTSC video material from SuperVHS, VHS and
LaserDisc to PAL VHS/SuperVHS. I have just acquired a Sharp AN-200SC
standards converter, and have done extensive comparisons between the two
units. This document outlines my findings so far.
In the comparisons, the tape deck inside the Panasonic W1 was not used.
The sources were a Pioneer CLD-1450 dual-standard LaserDisc combi player
modified for pure NTSC output and an NTSC SuperVHS recorder (a JVC HR-S4700U);
the output was viewed on a Sony KX-D2912U 29" multi-standard monitor/PAL-I TV
receiver. PAL recording, where done, was on a PAL JVC HR-S5000EK SuperVHS
deck using TDK XP-Pro SuperVHS tape.
PHYSICAL COMPARISON:
Both units are identical in the connections they provide, in that they
both have two sets of video with stereo audio inputs using phono connectors,
and a dual set of video/audio outputs. The Panasonic W1 is physically
larger of the two, largely due to the addition of the multi-standard HiFi
VHS deck. The Sharp AN-200SC is a very small and thin unit of about mini
size (ie smaller than midi).
FEATURES:
The two units differ in approach in that the Panasonic W1 goes to considerable
lengths to cover all the colour systems in use throughout the world, whereas
the Sharp unit concentrates on the main three (PAL/SECAM/NTSC) in their normal
forms. The Panasonic also offers anything-to-anything conversion whereas the
Sharp is designed to bring the main formats to the local standard. This is
typified by the way that the output system select switch is hidden away on
the rear panel.
The Sharp has two additional features not found on the W1; the first is the
ability to accept NTSC4.43 in addition to NTSC3.58 (aka pure NTSC), the
second that when the input and output colour system are the same, the AN-200SC
will generate a freeze field. The Sharp does not support all of the possible
colour systems, with PAL-M and SECAM-L are noticably absent.
IN USE:
The first conversion I attempted was to convert a BBC Test Card F from a PAL
SuperVHS recording into NTSC. The performace on the resolution gratings and
linearity charts were almost identical, with both units only resolving the
first two clearly, and showing the beginnings of twitter on the third. This
equates to normal VHS performance of arround 260 lines of horizontal
resolution. [Given the later findings, this is a bit surprising.]
The second conversion I attempted was an NTSC music video clip sourced from
LaserDisc. Almost immediately the Sharp demonstrated a significant amount
of video noise and patterning. There were two distinct types of patterning
present, one took the form of a general fuzz on the picture while the other
took the form of slanting noise bands running diagonally across the picture.
The pictures from the Sharp also looked sat up and over saturated. Despite
this the resolution of the Sharp held up very well, looking if anything
sharper than the Panasonic. I also attempted to superimpose the TV's teletext
clock on both conversions; the Panasonic as usual showed a stable black
rectangle in the correct place. Using the Sharp however it wandered with the
black rectangle, while on the correct scan line, moving fairly rapidly from
left to right. This would seem to imply that the syncs generated by the Sharp
AN-200SC were not as stable as those of the W1.
For the third conversion I decided to attempt a segment from an NTSC SuperVHS
off-air recording that caused the Panasonic W1 considerable grief. This
particular segment involves an emergency evacuation and is shot with the
camera constantly shaking - on the W1 this causes the picture slicing effect
to occur almost constantly. With the Sharp there was no sign of the effect
at all, and the image was considerably more stable.
[The W1 picture slicing effect occurs when the frame being read in at 30 fps
overtakes the frame being read out at 25 fps. The result is that an output
field is generated that contains half of one field and half of another; in
areas of rapid change, this can be very noticable.]
This lead me to investigate another piece of footage with rapid movement,
this time from LaserDisc. This piece contains fleshtones, bright colours
and rapid movement - it shows a sculptress at work on a marble statue.
Once again the Sharp demonstrated significantly better handling of movement
with no slicing at all, and with brighter nature of the pictures giving a
very much cleaner looking picture than before. The W1 continued to render
the cleaner picture of the two however, but only by a little.
I then decided to try one of the most tricky pieces of motion I know. This
is the Star Trek: The Next Generation title sequence where the camera does
a fly past of a large dark planet, and then past the rings of a gas giant.
On the W1 the first planet "shuffles" its way up the screen, almost as a
caterpiller would with a wave of compression moving across its form. Then
during the flypast of the rings, the slicing effect becomes very noticable
once again. Converting this with the AN-200SC, the caterpiller effect is
gone and the motion past the planet is smooth. Moving on to the rings,
with the slicing gone the motion was incredibly smooth looking not
significantly different from the NTSC original. This is one of the few
cases where the DEFT standards converter actually improves on the original
material (which is of course an animation anyway). The impression left is
that the Sharp comes close to equaling conventional industrial standards
converters.
A possible reason for this became apparent during a picture search on the
tape - the field store appeared to freeze on the occasional solid field
and yet transparent through it was the progressing of the search "underneath".
This effect appears to imply that the PAL output is in fact created from more
than a single field, which may explain much of the improved motion handling.
I then moved on to later in the titles, where again there were significant
differences. On the bold titles, the Sharp exhibited increased amounts
of ringing and colour shift, while the colour bled less on the W1 and the
ringing, while present, was considerably reduced.
Investigating this in more detail, I recorded two clips; one with captions
and one an outdoor scene with the conversions of the W1 and Sharp edited
adjacent to each other. On the first of these, the caption, the W1 produced
clear white letters on a dark clean black background with a small amount
of ringing. There was a distinct flicker to the caption throughout. On the
Sharp, the background was grey with the noise and patterning clearly visible;
the ringing was present with at least 2 shadows, but the caption was far more
stable without so much as a hint of flicker.
Moving on to the outdoor scene, the Sharp had the edge by a long way. The
W1 still had the flicker, and on the wooden slats of a roof there was a real
mess of aliasing effects. The Sharp picture was vibrant (if a little sat
up) with the aliasing effect on the roof all but gone. One was left with
the impression that the resolution of the Sharp picture was considerably
higher.
I finally became convinced that the majority of the problems with the
picture of the Sharp were due to the differing nature of the Gamma settings
of PAL and NTSC, and proceeded to adjust the monitor to the correct NTSC
settings using the LD player to feed colour bars directly. Having done this
I ran the colour bars through the Sharp and the pictures looked excellent.
The noise was now hardly visible (if at all) and the colour seemed far more
accurate. Watching some other NTSC footage through the Sharp AN-200SC showed
that these settings did consistantly deliver a good picture, with the noise
element reduced to an acceptably low level.
A further experiement was tried with a music video sequence that causes an
AGC "pumping" effect on the W1 - the Sharp seemed much less affected by
changes within the active picture area than the W1 although rapid changes
of brightness at the left boundary of the picture did seem to generate a
small amount of picture streaking.
TECHNICAL SUMMARY:
Using the test charts on Research Recordings LD-101, the Sharp AN-200SC showed
a smooth and level progression of picture level. A relatively small amount
of video noise on saturated colours was the main feature. On the resolution
gratings, the Sharp confidently resolved all but the last of the bars which
equates to a video bandwidth of around 340 lines. By comparison, the W1 was
incapable of the last two bars, and had severe patterning on the third which
equates to a video bandwidth of around 270 lines. Some aliasing effects were
seen on the curved lines on the SMPTE Indian Head test chart on both converters.
CONCLUSION:
Both the Panasonic W1 and Sharp AN-200SC deliver the ability to convert
between the disparate TV standards of the world, most significantly between
625 line PAL and 525 line NTSC. The Panasonic W1 is very much tied to the
resolution of the VHS format and does not attempt to exceed it, although it
does attempt to faithfully reproduce it in it's entirety. The Sharp AN200SC
attempts to fully convert a standard composite video signal at a resolution
comparable to broadcast TV or SuperVHS in composite mode. While a LaserDisc
would still exceed this resolution, more of it's bandwidith is preserved
even after conversion.
The Panasonic W1 has a greater reportoire of TV standards and the addition
of the multi-standard HiFi VHS deck is very useful. The Sharp is an in-line
converter rather than a complete solution.
In terms of out of the box performance for the conversion of NTSC material
to PAL, the W1 still has the edge. The Sharp is however a better converter
and with the addition of a video processor would be able to produce the
best results. Without such a processor, the pictures may well prove
noticably noisy on PAL monitor without any adjustment applied.
COSTS:
Sharp AN-200SC (or AN-300SC in Europe) UK# 640
Panasonic NV-W1 (or AG-W1 in America) UK# 1,699
(prices given are UK list prices - these tend to be higher than in some
other countries. They include 17.5% UK Sales Tax (aka VAT).)
ALTERNATIVES:
Aiwa HX-W3 Free-standing converter
Aiwa MG-110 Converter with tunerless mono tape deck
Aiwa MG-330 Converter with mono tape deck with tuner/timer
Sharp WD-1 Converter with VHS HiFi tape deck & tuner/timer
Regards, Bevis.
Bevis R W King, | Email: B.K...@ee.surrey.ac.uk
Computer Systems Support Officer, | UUCP : B.K...@uos-ee.UUCP
Dept of Electronic & Electrical | Voice: +44 483 509826 or UoS ext 9826
Engineering, University of Surrey, | Email list for European LaserDisc Users:
Guildford UK GU2 5XH. | europe-l...@ee.surrey.ac.uk to join.
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