VHS to Digital using Mac
 

Okay, so I need to convert a lot of VHS and some Video8 tapes to digital. I recently tried both Elgato and Vidbox capture systems, and unfortunately, the quality is not up to my standards and does not appear the same as if the tapes were played on an actual TV. Upon, doing a a few google searches and coming across this site, I quickly realized a quality transfer process is neither easy nor cheap, and actually appears rather confusing. However, after doing some reading I feel I do have a basic idea as to what is needed, which is what I need clarification on.

1) Quality S-VHS player, which I found the list of on this site, and I will likely buy a quality JVC player
- my understanding for this is that one of the critical functions is built in TBC for signal correction

2) A quality TBC of some sort such as the Datavideo TBC-1000 or Green AVT-8710. Problem is, the only one of these I've found for sale is $2000 for the Datavideo TBC-1000. What is a reasonable price for each of these brands? Are there any other alternatives? The purpose of this TBC in the system is to correct any picture problems, correct?

3) Not sure on the capture device. I was looking at buying the Canopus ADVC-110. But have also seen different USB option recommended that are good quality?

Other relevant considerations: I'd like to use my MacBoook laptop and Final Cut Pro to record. Is that possible, or what is on Mac? I could try and find a windows computer to use if absolutely necessary. Also, any benefit of NTSC vs PAL? I was planning on using NTSC devices.

As far as budget, I'd like to keep it under $1000 total if possible. But, I do have hundreds of tapes to transfer and don't want to waste my time buying stuff that doesn't work well

Hi for PAL 576i i like the Aja IO HD best and it´s Mac only and needs Mountain lion(10.8.5) OSX to work good and you need a TBC otherwise you get lip sync problems
it does work with Yosemite(10.10.5) but it gives more lip sync problems

i have a Datavideo TBC-5000
but i use my Matrox MXO2 Le MAX as passthrough TBC to my Aja IO HD it´s better quality then my Datavideo TBC-5000 but it does not remove macrovision

my setup

VCR > S-video(Cable) > MXO2 > SDI(Cable) > AJA IO HD = NO lip sync problems :) and i capture to 8bit Prores 422

I think you need to provide exact details of the hardware and software version Mac that you are running, and you may be required to never upgrade the OS in order to keep using a capture device that works with the version you have now.

Video capture experts who use Macs exclusively are extremely rare, on this forum and anywhere. With good reason. Even after you suffer through the task of capturing on Mac, you're stuck with files that are much more easily post-processed to clean up analog issues using free software on a Windows PC.

You don't get to choose. The recordings were made using a certain color encoding scheme, and now you need to use equipment that supports that standard. If all your recordings were made in N. America, then they're NTSC.

Okay. Well maybe using my Mac for the recording process is a poor idea then. Is there any problem using a basic Windows laptop with Windows 7 on it. I am not sure what the specs are on that. What specs are important?

All recordings are made in N. America, so NTSC.

I've captured lossless 480i on WinXP using a second-hand Dell laptop released sometime before Windows Vista existed (and I still do sometimes). I wouldn't worry about the specs of a Win7 laptop for this task.

If you can locate WinXP drivers for the laptop and don't mind nuking the existing installation, that would be preferable (make an image of the existing install first though!). The XP drivers for many USB capture devices offer more controls than the Win7 ones.