Can I buy a decent capture device nowadays?
 

Hello everyone!
I bought a good VCR (JVC HR-S7600) ✓
I set up an old laptop with Windows 7 ✓
Installed Vitualdub ✓

And I stuck with my Elgato. What should i buy now? I think its the hardest thing to find a decent Capture card. It can be second hand too. Can you share some links with recommendations? ~100€, Europe.

I tested 2 tapes with elgato and one of them has this issue (every few seconds). I guess its Elgato's problem.

Thank you in advance!

Elgato earned the nickname Elcrapo for their video capture cards. Terrible devices. (Elgato makes other decent products, but not these.)

You want 2nd-hand (used) cards. Everything sold new is now, at best, variable quality (due to long production life), or outright garbage, the "best" Chinese quality that money can buy ($1 cards sold for $100 by rebadgers like Roxio). Avoid junk like ClearClick and others, too. Awful cards, ruins your video.

Historically, the best capture cards are in the $300+ range -- though noting overpriced junk is sold in that range as well (ie, HD cards like Blackmagic). Drop down to ~$150 range, there can be options, almost all USB from late 00s and early 10s. But under $100, that's the land of junk and variable quality. Cheap stuff, not good stuff. So budget accordingly. Don't make your capture life harder by trying to save a few bucks. In the grand scheme of things, where TBCs are $K, and VCRs are pushing $K, capture cards prices are negligible. These are all typical prices, not the crazy deals that rarely show up now.

Quality capture cards are getting harder to find, very true. Same for VCRs. But the hardest to now locate is a quality TBC (and not just any random TBC, or random item claiming to "also have" TBC). Where did that VCR come from? VCRshop.nl, I'd hope, not eBay.

Looking to your picture it seems to me a tape problem rather than a capture card problem. How does the tape look on your TV?

I agree, he should troubleshoot the workflow starting from the video source not the other way around, I just hope it's a tape problem and not a faulty VCR with chipped heads. Where did you buy the VCR from?

I checked the tape on my old tv (s-video) some days ago and it was great. I only checked it for like 1-2 minutes though.
On my new tv I have B&W issue and stretched image (no s-video).

Now I play the tape again on my laptop and after 1 minute or so it happened again. I rewound it (1-2 times, im not sure) for some seconds and then I played it again and it was Ok until the next one.
I also checked 5-6 tapes and I didn't see that issue, idk... Maybe its the tape. Does that make sense?

I bought it from VCRshop.nl

It sounds like tape shed syndrome, You will have a hard time capturing that tape and hope you don't ruin your VCR heads. Need more information and demonstrations to further assist with this problem.

Fortunately the tape is Harry Potter 1, so I don't really care about that tape. I was just trying to figure out whats the issue. So, I'll move on and hopefully never seeing that problem again.

During capturing I'm getting these results (2 different tapes). Is everything ok?
How can I tell If everything is fine using these results/values? I couldn't find a tutorial for that. Thanks.

Im sorry for the quality. Its an old laptop, I couldn't screen record.

I don't know what that supposed to show but could you upload a sample capture here or at least a video of the capturing screen. One thing I noticed is the frame rate is wrong. Follow the vdub guide somewhere here to get the right capture settings.

Besides the wrong frame rate (24fps), your CPU usage is spiking above 80%, and you're getting inserted frames, possibly a result of high CPU usage. Which codec are you using for capture?

My settings: PAL_B, 25FPS, 720x576, UYVY (YUY2 isn't available with my capture card) , Huffyuv v2.1.1

1 min test. I removed the audio and I reduced the size with handbrake.

BTW, while "snow" (garbled nothing of a signal) is often an issue with the VCR, it can still be an issue with capture cards (or cable boxes, etc). So never immediately rule out capture card as being the culprit, especially if the person has a belief that it's the culprit. It could be. The only way to know is to acquire another card, and test with it.

And as I wrote here, or elsewhere recently, if you have to get another card to test with, then just take the opportunity to upgrade. Because overall, capture cards are cheap, when compared against quality VCRs and TBCs.

6-1.mp4 is unwatchable quality, sorry to say. Headache-inducing vertical jitter (bounce) throughout.

Try another test tape and/or confirm whether or not it also bounces on TV, not just through the capture device.

I noticed that too. I hope it's not VCRs fault :hmm:
I'll check some more tomorrow and I'll post them. Thanks.

@mlsnag, I just signed up to give you an answer from my side.
I am currently on the quest to convert various old NTSC, PAL, VHS and other tables into a digital format.

I tried many different capture devices, and the best turned out to be Hauppauge Impact VCBe.
It delivered the cleared picture while at the same time looking most realistic.
And if I remember correctly, followed by my JVC on board digital conversion and the cheap CSL STK1160 Grabber.

Format, capture software, settings? That matters as much as the card.

The main issue with Hauppauge is they recycle model names/numbers. The "same" card can actually vary wildly, as it's not at all the same at the board chip level. Always give Hauppauge advice carefully, buyers must proceed with caution. Pinnacle is just as guilty here.

This is an Easycap rebadge.

That is interesting.

I can tell you what the primary chip says on the PCI-E card:
Conexant
PCIe A/V Decoder
CX23888-32Z
PFPS7121D
1921 CN

In addition it is labeled as 71200 LF, Rev H4, Product of Malysia
710000-06D LF (c) 2007

Ordered and bought directly from Amazon Germany.


In regards to the settings, I am using VirtualDUB and capture and stored as YUV 4:2:2.
This is as raw as it gets given the capture card for this capture card.

Thank you for your response :)
I think it would be really hard to find the exact same model.:hmm:

I have a similar card, namely "terratec pci 250" with Saa1733 chipset, it was good but sometimes had weird green glitches on single frames, never really understood why (didn't seem like drops)

Now i mess with an hdmi card (timeleak HD72B) and a sony dvd recorder with hdmi out, the gain is here. 0 drops for 1 hour long caps (480/576i), crisp picture and yuy2 native caps