#1  
07-17-2019, 04:10 AM
Okiba Okiba is offline
Free Member
 
Join Date: Jul 2019
Posts: 68
Thanked 1 Time in 1 Post
Hello everyone!

Recently my folks moved to a new house, and they asked me if there's a way to digitalize our old Cassette collection, as the storage space in the new house is much smaller. The collection has both VHS Cassette, and VHC-C Cassette. The content in both Cassette types is footage of us being young, and was taken with a Sony Camera, so I'm not sure the quality is top-notch, as they didn't have professional equipment. They still own the Adapter for the VHC-C cassette and a VCR (not sure about the model - it's something I need to check with my folks). They might still have the Video Camera that used the VHC-C
cassette, I need to check it again. Let's say they don't and I plan to use VCR they have with Adapter for the VHC-C cassette.

I was sure that today, It will be an easy task (convert VHS into Digital media), but boy I was wrong. I did some research in this forum and outside, and it seems that for the best quality - I need a dedicated Windows XP machine with AGP slot. I actually might be able to set it up, but my problem is not that - but Converters availability. I don't live in the states or Europe - and most of the old gear mentioned here I did find in EBay, but they all has insane shipping cost to my country (some items shipping cost was triple the item). So I'm pretty much forced with sites that ship globally like Amazon, and that means a new Hardware.

Also, I wasn't sure if the XP/AGP/Card setup is worth it for a video quality I can't vouch for - as most people here seems to be professional and rate in a professional eye. And while I have a good eye for quality (I own high budget TV/Monitors setup because I can detect differences) - I'm aiming for that 90% and not 100%.

So I checked the ATI All In Wonder Alternative Sticky, and ATI TV Wonder HD 600 seems to be popular here. However, it being old - again - I'm unable to pick it on a decent price as shipping cost are insane.

What I did find in Amazon, is the Hauppauge 610 USB2 capture stick mentioned in the Sticky and Diamond VC500 that been state quite good around (no in the Sticky but in previous posts).

That being said, a lot of the posts are old. Like 2012 old. I wonder if perhaps there's new alternatives. and I'm doing a mistake being and old option. But I can't trust Amazon it seems. For example the most rated device is the Elago Video Capture USB (1VC104001001) but here the community bashed the MPEG4 and low resolution is comes with. So obviously, Amazon Review is not something to count on, and I suspect people rate the device based on the Software rather than the hardware. I plan to use VirtaulDub starting with this guide: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sn_T...ature=youtu.be

Now, I know there much more to it like the type of VCR they own, the TBC etc - but I'm going to start with a decent Convertor - see if I like the quality - and tweak things up (I probably stand at about 50$ price point for converter).

So I would very much like to hear your opinions about the Hauppauge 610 and Diamond VC500 and if they stand they passing of time, or if perhaps there's other modern option in Amazon that I can get (couple of options here https://www.amazon.com/s?k=converty+VHS&ref=nb_sb_noss).

Thank you!
Reply With Quote
Someday, 12:01 PM
admin's Avatar
Ads / Sponsors
 
Join Date: ∞
Posts: 42
Thanks: ∞
Thanked 42 Times in 42 Posts
  #2  
07-17-2019, 06:47 AM
hodgey hodgey is offline
Free Member
 
Join Date: Dec 2017
Location: Norway
Posts: 1,680
Thanked 446 Times in 383 Posts
The Hauppauge and VC500 have similar hardware.

This startech dongle has the same hardware (TI TVP5150) as the ATI 600 USB from what I can find so it may also be worth considering.

Also some ATI 600 and similar for sale here.

Last edited by hodgey; 07-17-2019 at 07:07 AM.
Reply With Quote
The following users thank hodgey for this useful post: Okiba (07-17-2019)
  #3  
07-17-2019, 07:08 AM
Okiba Okiba is offline
Free Member
 
Join Date: Jul 2019
Posts: 68
Thanked 1 Time in 1 Post
Hello hodgey!

Thanks for the quick reply.
I wasn't aware the Startech dongle had the same hardware as the ATI 600 USB. That's great news!

It seems like the ATI 600 dominate opinion here as the best before a dedicated ATI All in Wonder card, so that will probably be my first option.

If both The Hauppauge and VC500 has the same hardware, I guess a second option would be VC500 as it's 15$ cheaper.

I also wanted to check if my father VCR comes with DVD, because there's a chance I just do that, but I'm leaning towards external converter because I can tweak with things if converting will be strange, and I'm not sure how quality those build in VCR/DVD units are.
Reply With Quote
  #4  
07-17-2019, 10:04 AM
lordsmurf's Avatar
lordsmurf lordsmurf is offline
Site Staff | Video
 
Join Date: Dec 2002
Posts: 13,503
Thanked 2,449 Times in 2,081 Posts
Quote:
Originally Posted by hodgey View Post
This startech dongle has the same hardware (TI TVP5150) as the ATI 600 USB from what I can find so it may also be worth considering.
I striked out that line from your last post, don't want to mislead people.

- the SVID2USB23 is not the same hardware as the ATI 600 USB
- the harder to find SVID2USB2 (no 3) can have the same TI capture chipset
- the easier to find SVID2USB2 (no 3) might also NOT have the same capture chipset, as there are at least two variations of the model. Startech is a rebadger, and rebadgers have a bad habit of changing chipsets mis-production. So you won't know until you get it, crack it open, verify.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Okiba View Post
I wasn't aware the Startech dongle had the same hardware as the ATI 600 USB. That's great news!
See above. Not accurate. Easy mistake to make, don't make it.

Quote:
It seems like the ATI 600 dominate opinion here as the best before a dedicated ATI All in Wonder card
Not here. The ATI AIW is always the best choice, better quality, but it requires a dedicated desktop running XP. For folks that don't want dedicated system on XP, the USB cards are the next choices. And of those choices, the ATI 600 is on the preferred card list.

Quote:
If both The Hauppauge and VC500 has the same hardware,
Not the same hardware.
Hauppauge has many models, also with some mid-production changes. Some are good, some not. However the good cards are better than the VC500.

- Did my advice help you? Then become a Premium Member and support this site.
- For sale in the marketplace: TBCs, workflows, capture cards, VCRs
Reply With Quote
  #5  
07-17-2019, 10:38 AM
Okiba Okiba is offline
Free Member
 
Join Date: Jul 2019
Posts: 68
Thanked 1 Time in 1 Post
Hello lordsmurf,

Thanks for clearing it out.

Quote:
Startech is a rebadger, and rebadgers have a bad habit of changing chipsets mis-production. So you won't know until you get it, crack it open, verify
If I understand correctly - Startech is SVID2USB23, and not SVID2USB2 like the ATI 600 USB. So anyhow the Startech won't come with the capturing chipset that the ATI 600 has?

Quote:
Not the same hardware.
Hauppauge has many models, also with some mid-production changes. Some are good, some not. However the good cards are better than the VC500.
The Hauppauge Amazon sells is 610 USB-Live 2. Does it have an edge over the SVID2USB23 or the VC500? because if I won't find the ATI 600, it's going to be one of the three unless more options will be raised here.

Quote:
The ATI AIW is always the best choice, better quality, but it requires a dedicated desktop running XP.
I think I can arrange XP machine, but I'm not sure if it's worth the work. I tried to look for video that compare dedicated card vs USB to see if I can tell the difference and couldn't find such video. Also, it also depends on the source itself? because if the videos were taken in a cheap home oriented Video Camera, will that still worth going for the expensive setup? or because the source content is not filmed with professional gear a dedicated machine is over-kill?

Thank you :-)
Reply With Quote
  #6  
07-17-2019, 02:04 PM
latreche34 latreche34 is offline
Free Member
 
Join Date: Dec 2015
Location: USA
Posts: 3,257
Thanked 537 Times in 497 Posts
Fields are only half the vertical resolution how did the guy in the video make them into frames of full resolution? I'm I missing something here?
Never used Yadif before so I don't know how it makes up for half of the missing lines in the frame?

Last edited by latreche34; 07-17-2019 at 02:22 PM.
Reply With Quote
  #7  
07-17-2019, 02:19 PM
keaton keaton is offline
Premium Member
 
Join Date: Jan 2017
Location: USA
Posts: 184
Thanked 85 Times in 60 Posts
My experience with an ATI 600 USB was that it had no adjustments for the Brightness and Contrast settings. Therefore, I was reliant on an external proc amp in my capture chain to adjust those levels for correct level capture. Refer to explanation of Virtualdub Histogram feature in this thread: http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vide...-settings.html

In order to gain control of these settings in the capture device itself (hence no longer dependent on a proc amp), I switched to an ATI AIW of the PCI-Express variety (also requiring an XP machine I believe). There are a lot of these PCI-Express AIW cards, however, they require a special I/O connector on them, in addition to the usual purple (or domino) I/O ATI cable that the older AGP based cards use. Unfortunately, this additional I/O connector for the PCIExpress cards come in two variants, and are much less common to find. I ultimately found both variants on ebay. The first was incorrectly packaged with the card model I got, but then found the variant I needed soon after on ebay. Not sure how often that kind of luck occurs. But it's worth trying. I got the X600, which required a different variant of the I/O connector than most other PCIExpress brand AIW cards. The saga was captured in this thread: http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vide...creen-aiw.html Lots of gory details as the puzzle was being solved, but you skip to the pictures of the two different connectors and which cards we think go with which connectors. The difference seems to be with which connectors are provided onboard and which ones are on the I/O connector. This thread also got an actual AIW X600 install disc to be posted. For the other card models, you would have to use the more generic software Lordsmurf posted to the standard AIW driver post for the PCIExpress cards, if you don't come by the actual disc for that card.

I was very pleased with the change from a USB to dedicated AIW capture card, as I find I need to adjust brightness and contrast quite a bit from tape to tape to keep video levels legal during capture. I also preferred the quality of the capture a bit more than the USB. Although both are quite good, so long as you have captured within gamut.

VHS will never look great. My experience is that because VHS varies from OK to bad to begin with, it is quite important to try and get the best gear you can to try and get the most off of the tape as you can. Just as making a copy of a tape to another tape makes it worse, using inferior gear to playback/correct/capture makes what was on the original tape even worse in the digital domain.
Reply With Quote
  #8  
07-18-2019, 05:25 AM
Okiba Okiba is offline
Free Member
 
Join Date: Jul 2019
Posts: 68
Thanked 1 Time in 1 Post
Hi Keaton, thanks for sharing your experience.

Was the original Brightness and Contrast were bad? or the converting with the ATI 600 hurt it and therefore you have to post-play with it?
Before sinking myself into converting old VHS, I was under the impression it's probably easy to do so today - and if I won't do it today, probably it will get easier in the future as Hardware becomes cheaper. But it looks like most of the good gear is Legacy by now and there's no good alternative.

AT some point I even told my fold that perhaps we should not ditch the old VHS cassette as maybe in the future more efficient ways to convert them will pop up, but by the look of things - it seems that perhaps there is no real use in keeping them after making them digital - as soon there will be no technology to even play them.
Reply With Quote
  #9  
07-18-2019, 08:07 PM
keaton keaton is offline
Premium Member
 
Join Date: Jan 2017
Location: USA
Posts: 184
Thanked 85 Times in 60 Posts
Trying to say it another way, the ATI600 USB does not provide brightness or contrast control. Therefore, if the video levels seen by the capture device (i.e Histogram mentioned before in Virtualdub) go below level 16 or above level 235 (i.e. the minimum and maximum legal levels in the PC capture domain), the video levels will be clipped. Just as with clipping audio levels, clipping video levels causes information to be lost. Shadow detail or highlight detail can be lost. To prevent this, the video level needs to be reduced so that they do not exceed said levels. It's not that the original tape was necessarily bad. It's just the combination of the tape player and capture device registered a signal "out of gamut" when capturing. So I had to add something to my video capture chain to reduce brightness and contrast, because the ATI600 did not have this feature. Getting a capture card that did have control of this removed my dependence on a proc amp to resolve this issue, and was less expensive overall.

My point was that you could very well need to find a proc amp if you used the ATI600 USB, because of this feature not being present. If you did not, you could use the Levels command in avisynth to force levels to not go below 16 and above 235. However, the damage has already been done at capture because the signal was "out of gamut" as said before. There are plenty of threads in this forum that go into this in more detail.

I am very thankful I found the digitalfaq before I started digitizing videotapes. One of the reasons is they have shown me that, with a few exceptions, the gear needed to do the job well was made 10 or more years ago. I really should have been doing this 10 or more years ago. However, I am thankful that some gear is still out there. It costs more, and some of it costs quite a bit to have restored (i.e. the Panasonic AG-1980 VCR) to correct working order. Sadly, the video capture gear manufactured today is designed for digital/high definition capture. Most of the best Analog to Digital video capture equipment is sold second hand because it's long been discontinued by the manufacturer. To use much of this equipment also requires old PCs running software such as Windows XP, also long discontinued. This would seem to imply that it will only become harder and more expensive to get the best gear to play, restore (proper TBCs are also becoming quite rare), and capture analog video. So, although I feel about 10 years late, I am still hopeful I will have digitized my personal collection with the best equipment. Bigger picture, there is an awful lot of broadcasted content and personal home video in the world still only on videotape that has never been transferred to the digital domain. My perception is that much of this history will inevitably be lost, and it is a bit of a race against time to try and preserve or digitize as much of it as possible as the equipment and tapes themselves continue to age and someday will no longer exist in their original analog form.

Regarding the future, I think it is a long way off, but there is a project that has started out for laserdiscs that may someday find it's way to videotape (Umatic, Beta, VHS, Video/Hi/Digital8, and whatever else). It has evolved quite a bit for laserdiscs, and is quite exciting for that sector (as Laserdiscs are rotting and also being lost to time). They are skipping all the hardware like TBCs and these discontinued capture devices, and capturing the video RF signal right off the player itself (hardware mods to players required), to modern day programmable hardware that can capture all this RF. They then feed it into software to do things like TBC the signal, ideally fixing as much or perhaps more than what we can today with our current hardware TBCs. The guys that are behind this ld-decode project also did a podcast on the RetroRGB youtube channel. They also have a few of their own videos on the domesday 86 channel. Search youtube for ld-decode. Here's a couple threads in this forum talking about it. http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vide...ng-vhs-rf.html http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/news...capturing.html I am not counting on it, but am interested and following it, although it seems focused solely on Laserdisc at this time. The sad part is there is so much more videotape than laserdisc that is need of something like this. This is the one thing I've heard of that might be a game changer that could help solve the issue we face as the hardware continues to get more scarce and expensive. Then we would theoretically be able to use any old tape player (properly aligned of course), rather than rely on these precious SVHS decks with built in line TBCs.

It is also a good point that digital has not been good with having a standard that we can be confident will survive decades from now. When they digitally restore a film, they transfer it back to film because they don't trust digital as archival. However, sticking with HuffYUV AVI for lossless and MPEG-2 or H264 for lossy compressed would seem to have a good shelf life, in terms of digital anyway. MPEG-2, in particular, has been around for quite some time and remains a broadcast standard. Don't see it dying anytime soon. As storage continues to get cheaper and bigger, even lossless AVI files may not be all that big someday. 30 GB per hour may someday not be all that much. And we may be able to continue re-converting that to whatever the new lossy format of the day is.
Reply With Quote
  #10  
07-21-2019, 02:56 AM
Okiba Okiba is offline
Free Member
 
Join Date: Jul 2019
Posts: 68
Thanked 1 Time in 1 Post
I'll tell you why I'm going into details - I have this 'Perfect' disease in Audio, where sometimes I would spend hundred dollars more just for a 3-5% quality improvement. I can easily tell the difference between a bad lossy audio file. I can tell the difference between good lossy audio file and loseless - but on this level - it's very hard to dedicate. And when I do listen to music, there's so much other variables besides quality, like the speakers, where I currently am and how sound is being spread etc. So while there is a difference, mostly paying that extra cost for the extra %5 quality is negotiable in the long run. Another example would be Cameras for example. Sometimes my Camera Historgram will tell me I'm clipping whites. In reality, those white are just clouds, and lossing details on clouds is not something that matter too much on long run.

Because I couldn't find a compare online between a dedicated XP All in Wonders Cards vs just a decent stick, it's hard to tell if it's worth it, as video quality is already quite low on VHS.

I think that as for now, I will be going either the:

Hauppauge 610 or Diamond VC500

Because the two of them have decent reviews here on the forum (after doing a search). The StarTech SVID2USB23 might be better, but the convert chip is a risk, and I'm not sure if the bad covert chip is better than my other two options. So I think I'll go on Diamon VC500, unless someone has more to add. I'll see where It goes.

EDIT:
Just for the fun of it, I checked and it seems the ATI AIW cards are actually cheaper than the newer USB sticks in EBay? or I'm looking at wrong models? because the AIW 9000 is not that expensive, and I do have an XP machine with AGP.
Does all AiW devices will be better compared to USB sticks? is there a difference between the AiW devices? a reason why not to pick a cheap AiW model compare to more expensive one? or there's no differences Capture wise?
Reply With Quote
  #11  
07-21-2019, 09:26 AM
sanlyn sanlyn is offline
Premium Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: N. Carolina and NY, USA
Posts: 3,648
Thanked 1,307 Times in 982 Posts
Quote:
Originally Posted by Okiba View Post
Because I couldn't find a compare online between a dedicated XP All in Wonders Cards vs just a decent stick, it's hard to tell if it's worth it, as video quality is already quite low on VHS.
Likely you won't find a formal 1-to-1 comparison. And likely, even if you had both old and new for your own use, it would be difficult to see the difference between the old AGP's and the new (high quality) USB's until you've done a lot of capturing and restoration. Even so, both will give excellent results over cheaper gear or devices not designed specifically for analog sources.

Yes, VHS quality is comparatively low next to DVD and BluRay (and I've seen plenty of YouTube crap that looks worse than a bad VHS tape!). But that's all the more reason to use quality devices and decent processing. If something already looks poor, why make it look worse? The idea is to use good stuff and skillful processing to make mediocre stuff look better. Otherwise it's a waste of time -- may as well buy a cheap used DVD recorder and be done with it.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Okiba View Post
I think that as for now, I will be going either the:

Hauppauge 610 or Diamond VC500
Both are OK but frankly I'd go for the VC500. Bypass their poo-poo capture software and use VirtualDub. The Hauppauge clips blacks at y=16 (which will make a dark video scene look pretty icky) and the VC500 holds bright detail better. The VC500 brand-new doesn't cost nearly what it did years back, and you might be able to get a used Hauppauge USB Live cheaply enough to compare both if you want.

My experience with Startech over the years in building PC's and tracking forum video posts is that Startech versions and quality vary enormously. I don't trust them.

AIW cards: be very careful that the seller includes the connecting dongle and cables for any All-In-Wonder product. They also came with a remote, which is something you'll never use so forget about it. But if the dongle and connecting cables aren't there, the AIW is completely useless and can't even connect to a monitor.
Reply With Quote
The following users thank sanlyn for this useful post: Okiba (07-21-2019)
  #12  
07-21-2019, 09:54 AM
Okiba Okiba is offline
Free Member
 
Join Date: Jul 2019
Posts: 68
Thanked 1 Time in 1 Post
Quote:
Both are OK but frankly I'd go for the VC500.
Great. So unless you have a better recommendation (https://www.amazon.com/s?k=capture+VHS&ref=nb_sb_noss_2 here's a quick list to browse easily) I'll go with VC500 :-)


Quote:
would be difficult to see the difference between the old AGP's and the new (high quality) USB's until you've done a lot of capturing and restoration.
New and High Quality USB will be the Diamond VC500? or are you speaking about the Professional gear like the Matrox mentioned here on the forum?

Quote:
The idea is to use good stuff and skillful processing to make mediocre stuff look better.
And is this goal achievable for the casual guy who just want to back up his old VHS tapes? or this kind of skillful processing require a lot of background information and research about how videos works and how to fine tweaks all the VirtualDub settings?

Quote:
AIW cards: be very careful that the seller includes the connecting dongle and cables for any All-In-Wonder product.
Take this for eample:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/ATI-AIW-Rad...UAAOSw8mpbKQju

What do you mean by Dongle and connection Cables? it's hard to tell, but isn't that just SVideo there? can't I just connect the cables from the VHS player into the SVideo and that's about it?

Thank you!
Reply With Quote
  #13  
07-30-2019, 02:40 AM
Okiba Okiba is offline
Free Member
 
Join Date: Jul 2019
Posts: 68
Thanked 1 Time in 1 Post
Updates:

I have been visiting my Folks the other day - and check the gear they own. Lucky enough, my old Windows XP machine was up, and still running. I had Hercules 3D 9700 Prophet Pro Video card, and It even have S-Video on it, but sadly it's only out, and not in.

The Video unit it 'new', because It had both cassettes and DVD. The DVD model is LG RC288. I couldn't even find spec-online. That leads to new question:

1.I'm guessing it's possible to convert VHs to cassettes within the unit itself. Are those known to be notoriously bad? or it depends on the unit and what capture chip it has? does it anyhow preferred over USB Capture device?

2. Is that a reasonable VHS to work with? or because it's "new" there's a good chance quality will be bad?

3. Because I have Windows XP ready, I'm looking at the Ati in Wonder option. There's cheap ATI All in Wonders 9000 cards in Ebay, But those are just the cards. If I am to understand correctly, I also need a n Input adapter that look like a black/purple box with AV and Svideo on it. I can perhaps buy those separately from the card - and the end-price is not far off the price of USB capture device. Is that all I really need to convert with Ati In Wonder? the Card (9000) and the Black/Purple box that connects to it? or there's more accessories that are must?

Thanks!
Reply With Quote
  #14  
07-30-2019, 09:42 AM
jwillis84 jwillis84 is offline
Free Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2017
Location: College Station, TX
Posts: 800
Thanked 217 Times in 174 Posts
Converting "direct" from VHS to Disc is converting direct from analog to compressed digital, it by-passes a step people often find necessary today.

It is convenient but the quality is often found substandard, especially when compared to what you can do with an ATI 9xxx capture card or ATI usb capture dongle.

The signal stored on VHS has often degraded or was never captured off a good source, poor broadcast reception ect..

Capturing with a card or usb device you can perform software fixes on the video before compressing the video down and putting it on a disc. This produces a superior product.

The ATI cards and usb devices are considered the "top of the line" and best at capturing "uncompressed" which means they capture absolutely every detail in the analog video signal and makes a large digital file. Then correction software can be used to fix a great deal. This cannot be done on a "compressed" capture. A compressed capture is "lossy" it drops information from the signal to save space and that cannot be recovered. So the processing to a compressed video file is one way, once it is done, there is no way to go backwards.

ATI was a company that existed until about 2006 when it was acquired by AMD. At that time Windows XP was the only operating system on the market that could use the ATI cards. After ATI ceased to exist no new device drivers were written for Windows Vista, Windows 7 or Windows 10. Microsoft does not allow older device drivers to be loaded in their current operating system for security reasons, they automatically brand them malware and treat them as worms or viruses and fight any attempt to load them, even if compatible, or in emulation mode.

This is now getting worse as Microsoft is expiring signatures for "old" device drivers that were even written for Windows 10 to force manufacturers to update and maintain their drivers, its is technically a (misuse) of the term 'security' but its become the "buzzword" for do it our way or we will ban you from the market.

Windows XP generally does not have a problem running older hardware or software or device drivers once they are installed and working. It keeps on working.

Buying cards on Ebay is risky. You could buy one without the proper cables, and missing the software that you need to install them in Windows XP. The ATI 9600 models in particular are usually missing the custom Weison cable which breaks out a VGA connector to connect to a Monitor. Without this cable it will not be possible to use the card. It cannot be paired with a separate video card in the same computer. The (Purple) connector is for Input and is often called the Purple (Barney the Dinosaur) connector after the cartoon character. The Purple connector is not that rare, but the Weison connector is extremely rare, there are many Weison connectors and even if you find one making sure it is the correct one is often confusing. Buying them as a "kit" from a seller who used them for video capture is often safer.

This website has a marketplace where ATI capture cards are sold and its often a better, safer deal. The costs may be cheaper or a little higher.. but the people you deal with generally know what you should be getting as part of the deal.

Avoid going to the AMD website for ATI device drivers and software. AMD purchased the ATI brand name and makes some legacy software for their hardware available for download. But its not well maintained and not very informative. The device drivers usually have little documentation, no installer, and no support. They also do not make full versions of the multimedia center software available since the MPEG2 compression codec required a license and they no longer offer that since they do not pay for the license.

Instead be sure to get the CDROM that came with the card if at all possible. That will contain the full device drivers, software and installers. Any required licensing will autoactivate upon installation. The experience will be much more satisfying.

If you cannot get the physical CDROM with the card and cables, this website generally makes ISO file image archives available for each of the ATI cards. You can find them attached to forum messages discussing that ATI card, or by asking the website owner to post them so you can download and assemble them. Then burn them to a blank CDROM image and install from that.

Lastliy there are many "How to Do (Guides)" on this website, find them and read them, they will teach you how to select a VCR, select a TBC, how to select a Capture card, Cables, CDROM image and how to fix video with software after capture and burn that to a disc. Most of the time people will tell you what not to do, and then point you at the guides.
Reply With Quote
The following users thank jwillis84 for this useful post: Okiba (07-31-2019)
  #15  
07-30-2019, 09:50 AM
hodgey hodgey is offline
Free Member
 
Join Date: Dec 2017
Location: Norway
Posts: 1,680
Thanked 446 Times in 383 Posts
The service manual shows it to have a SAA7136 analog to digital video encoder, and an LSI chipset for system control and mpeg2-encoding (for dvd).

The LSI chipsets are quite well regarded here for their mpeg2-encoder, whether that applies to all LSI encoders or just some I don't know though, someone else would have to fill in there. Of course recording directly to a DVD means that you will be stuck with the artifacts from the mpeg2-compression and it could happen that the recorder will stop recording if it thinks there's macrovision copy protection on the tape.

The A/D chip I'm not sure about the exact quality, though does not do much or any correction of horizontal jitter. The Philips/NXP/Trident SAA chips are generally otherwise quite good at dealing with unstable video signals.

On these dvd-recorder combos, the video signal you get from the video outputs go through the A/D chip, and is then converted back to analog. On the positive side, this means that the signal out should be stable for the capture card to deal with, though it's possible the recorder may output macrovision signal (which some capture cards don't like) if it detects it on the tape or when playing DVDs. On the negative side, this means that using say a DVD-recorder with a line-tbc feature like the DMR-ES10 won't be able to stabilize jitter since all of the non-visible video data will have been stripped and re-created.

Testing it on a TV may give you an indication of what quality you can get with the VCR in question.
Reply With Quote
  #16  
07-30-2019, 10:02 AM
jwillis84 jwillis84 is offline
Free Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2017
Location: College Station, TX
Posts: 800
Thanked 217 Times in 174 Posts
Agreed

Combo VHS and DVD recorders are to be avoided.

They do not generally allow you to insert anything in-between the VHS and DVD sides to stablize or clean up, or filter false positive Macrovision signals. They can be very limiting and frustating for their owners.

And with age the signal quality of the video on the VHS tape will have become worse. There may have been a brief time long ago when combos worked "well enough". But that time has long passed.

At best, if the VHS is still working good enough to get a signal out, feed that into a time base corrector (tbc) or signal filter like an ES10 being used as a pass-thru device and then into a capture card or totally separate DVD recorder.

Choosing to record straight to DVD will be sacrificing the ability to perform any further fixes to the video after capture, but using separate devices affords the ability to at least perform some repair before compressing it and putting it on disc.

The best thing to do however would be to record losslessly with a capture device using VirtualDub and proceed from there, with all options available.
Reply With Quote
  #17  
07-31-2019, 05:34 AM
lordsmurf's Avatar
lordsmurf lordsmurf is offline
Site Staff | Video
 
Join Date: Dec 2002
Posts: 13,503
Thanked 2,449 Times in 2,081 Posts
Quote:
Originally Posted by jwillis84 View Post
Combo VHS and DVD recorders are to be avoided.
Just remember all rules have exceptions. There are some specific JVC Pro combo decks, pairing S-VHS VCR (with line TBC) with the LSI based encoder. As stated, you cannot inject other hardware, like external TBC, between the VHS and DVD. However, with excellent sources, non-retail, the recorder does seem to be more resilient to false anti-copy, likely due to the Pro nature.

For the most part, however, I suggest these for making a DVD copy (immediate watching copy) in tandem with the lossless capture for archives/editing/restore.

- Did my advice help you? Then become a Premium Member and support this site.
- For sale in the marketplace: TBCs, workflows, capture cards, VCRs
Reply With Quote
  #18  
07-31-2019, 08:44 AM
Okiba Okiba is offline
Free Member
 
Join Date: Jul 2019
Posts: 68
Thanked 1 Time in 1 Post
jwillis84, hodgey and lordsmurf - Thank you for the detailed answers! I appreciate it.

There's something I'm missing here I think. First of all, I'm assuming VHS-DVD option will output a Lossy results and VirtualDub will output a Loseless results (and I can make it lossy later based on my own requirements). Am I'm right to assume it?

And if I understand you correctly - USB Dongle let you control the quality of the results. From adjusting brightness to fine tuning things like white/black clipping. So to a level you make the results BETTER than the original VHS on some parameters. Are all those adjust-able from within VirtualDub? or you have to use middle-hardware to control those parameters?

So if I'm not interested in tweaking brightness or black/white clipping for example - and want the same quality the VHS video had - Using VHS to DVD and Usb Dongle with just VirtualDub with no tweaking will output almost the same quality? or will I still be able to identify degrading quality in the VHS-DVD?

And thanks for the heads up about the EBay card. In that case, if I'll go on AIW card I will make sure I buy one here.
Reply With Quote
  #19  
07-31-2019, 08:54 AM
dpalomaki dpalomaki is offline
Free Member
 
Join Date: Feb 2014
Location: VA
Posts: 1,694
Thanked 369 Times in 325 Posts
Quote:
...Instead be sure to get the CDROM that came with the card if at all possible...
That is a good starting point, and hopefully all you need. If it isn't broken, don't try fix it. But just keep in mind that the original distribution CDROM, especially for early production models, may have old releases of the drivers and software and be missing important patches.
Reply With Quote
Reply




Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
ACE Advanced Convertor/Enhancer any good? Mejnour Restore, Filter, Improve Quality 6 06-05-2013 03:45 AM

Thread Tools



 
All times are GMT -5. The time now is 04:25 PM