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Quick Projects

The Quick Project feature provides the fastest way to get started with decoding a TBC (Time Base Corrected) file. Instead of manually creating a new project and configuring all the settings, a quick project automatically sets up everything you need with just a few clicks or a single command.

Using Quick Project in the GUI

  • Open File → Quick Project...
  • A file dialog will open asking you to select a video file
  • Choose a .tbc, .tbcc, or .tbcy file (TBC captures), or a .cvbs, .cvbsy, or .cvbsc file (CVBS captures) from your system
  • The application will automatically:
    • Detect the video format based on the file metadata (.tbc.db for TBC, .meta for CVBS)
    • Create a new project
    • Configure the appropriate video system (PAL/NTSC/PAL-M) and source type
    • Build a pipeline appropriate to the decoder that produced the source (see Pipeline layout below)
    • Select the source stage (with View → Show Preview on Selection enabled, the preview opens automatically)

Large sources take a moment to open before the preview can appear: the pipeline is run far enough to discover what the selected stage can show. When that takes longer than a fraction of a second an Opening Project dialog reports which stage is being executed and how long it has been running. It closes on its own once the preview is ready.

Pipeline layout

The stages a quick project creates depend on the decoder recorded in the source metadata:

  • ld-decode sources get a source stage, a Dropout Correction stage, and a Video Sink stage, connected in sequence (source → dropout correction → video sink). If the source has an EFM sidecar, an EFM Audio Decode stage is spliced into the chain after Dropout Correction (source → dropout correction → EFM audio decode → video sink), so the video sink embeds the disc's digital audio. No separate EFM sink is added — the decode stage in the chain is enough.
  • All other sources (for example vhs-decode) get just a source stage and a Video Sink stage, connected together.

The decoder is read from the source metadata: the decoder field of the .tbc.db (TBC) or .meta (CVBS) database. Older TBC captures with only legacy JSON (.tbc.json) metadata do not carry a reliable decoder identity and are always treated as non-ld-decode, so they receive the plain source → video sink pipeline.

Loading a TBC from the Command Line

Using the --quick Option

To create a quick project from the command line, use the --quick flag followed by the file path:

orc-gui --quick /path/to/your/file.tbc

You can also pass a TBC file (.tbc, .tbcc, .tbcy) directly as an argument, and the application will automatically detect it's a video file and create a quick project (CVBS files require the --quick flag):

orc-gui /path/to/your/file.tbc

The application supports the following video file formats:

  • .tbc - Composite TBC video files
  • .tbcy / .tbcc - Y/C TBC video files (luma and chroma; both files required as a pair)
  • .cvbs - Composite CVBS video files
  • .cvbsy / .cvbsc - Y/C CVBS video files (both files required as a pair)

Tips

  • Quick projects are ideal for quickly previewing and analyzing video files without project setup overhead
  • If you need to save your project for later, use File → Save Project As and give it a meaningful name
  • All standard editing and analysis tools remain available after creating a quick project