SiignVideo processor - overscan adjustment when capturing from camera

SignVideo and their predecessor, the Studio 1 video processor, are manufactured under the NTSC TV standards. In the age of pre-digital TVs,  images are shown under-scanned on TV sets. This hides various defects in the TV picture, such as videotape head switching noise, which appears at the bottom of a TV image. This was all hidden because TVs and video monitors of the 1990's (pre-digital TV) were purposely set to under-scan (or not show) the edges of the image.

Computer capture cards, however, show the very outermost edges of the picture, even the video head switching noise at the bottom of the screen.

The SignVideo & Studio 1 processors were designed under the old TV standards, and if you're viewing their processed images through a computer card, you'll see an area at the bottom of the screen that isn't being processed.  This is the area that contains video head-switching noise, and other artifacts. This area isn't shown on most TVs, and if you're capturing directly to a DVD burner the head-switching often doesn't show. Customers capturing VHS tapes directly to computer normally crop out this bottom area that contains the head-switching noise.

We've had a few customers who run TV cameras through the SignVideo processors, then into a computer for digital capture. Because there's no VHS head-switching noise present, they wonder why the bottom of the screen isn't being processed. This is normal, and as explained above is because SignVideo designed these processors to be used on pre-digital TVs that don't show that bottom area.

TGrant Photo, however, has the ability to make a modification on the SignVideo/Studio 1 processors that will expand the useable height of the image that it processes. After this modification the processor will show full height on computer captures and will also still work normally with other applications.

Please note, this modification is not needed unless you're capturing directly from a video camera through the SignVideo processor and then to a computer capture card. With computer captures from video tape you will crop or mask this bottom area anyway.

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