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  #1  
10-05-2015, 09:18 PM
johnny7 johnny7 is offline
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I apologize in advance for the noobiness of this post!

Hi all, I'm currently in the process of putting together a little setup to transfer my old video8 tapes to digital. But I need some advice on everything as I want to make sure I don't skimp on any bit of my setup.

So far I've collected:
AVT 8710 (older green one)
Sony TRV-615

At the moment I'm a bit unsure of what I should buy next capture card wise. I've only started looking in the past week and can't seem to find any ATI TV Wonder 600s for sale on ebay. I decided not to go for a 650 as I read the quality isn't as good. I did find the USB version but it lacks the S-Video/Composite input adapter and I'm not sure where to buy that separately.

I've been considering, as an alternative since I've read it's a better setup anyway, to use an older desktop computer that runs windows xp in order to transfer my old tapes.
I have a couple of systems on my hands, the one I had in mind is a Dell Dimension 4600 from 2005 or so.
It has:
a pentium 4 cpu
an agp slot and a few pci card slots
1 gb of ram I believe

I need suggestions on first, an AGP based capture card I can use and find for cheap on ebay. I also need a decent sound card compatible with windows XP, and finally some sort of PCI based GPU since I had to pull the original AGP one out. I have an ancient one from 2001 that works, how important is a GPU in the process of capturing analog video? Any suggestions on these parts would be very much appreciated

Couple more questions..

Would putting together a system be too much trouble/money compared to just waiting for an ATI 600 to pop up on ebay? How much better output will I be getting from using an older setup?

I also have one more question regarding audio capture. Many of the capture cards I see have RCA input so why is it that I need to use a dedicated sound card, is the quality just a lot better and preferred with those?

To have an idea, in AVI, how much space can I expect for my captures to take up for example a full hi8 tape?


Again, any information from you guys would be super helpful,
thank you!
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  #2  
10-05-2015, 10:26 PM
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About 5 years ago, I was first attracted to this site, because I (personally) could not stand the results of the VHS-TO-DVD Combo units. I wanted the easy way, and so did my friends. One time my friend told me that his VHS to DVD recorder would not record,because his HOME Tape had an Image of a Rolling Stones Album in the background! (Digital Copyright Rights Management)....(I Transferred many precious VHS tapes to DVD using these units until the DVD Drive in these units Gave up the ghost!..but I wanted to get my precious tapes transferred to Digital, and then backed up before my place burned down, and/or for posterity/history,etc...Many of your questions can be answered if you Carefully read the GUIDES on this site...If you have older XP PC's laying around (and the XP Discs by the way) then you are half way there! Find a ATI All In Wonder (AIW) card on e-bay to use for Capture (see Guides first). Treat Your XP PC (Capture PC) as if it was an off-line DVD recorder, in other words, separate, and OFF-LINE from your other normal ONLINE PC!...I have had a OFFLINE XP Cap PC for 5 years now with no problems!...The need for an additional AGP soundcard (Like SOUNDBLASTER) is because the AIW card is dedicated to processing Video, but most of the ATI/All IN Wonder cards have an external connection 1/8th jack (Audio out-to soundcard in) on the same PC,as well as an internal sound jumper for audio. Please keep in mind that I got my ATI/AIW 9600xp AGP card on e-bay (With cables) for 75.00 5 years ago, but yes,you have to use an XP machine for best results. Please read and then re-read the guides!!

Last edited by rocko; 10-05-2015 at 11:08 PM. Reason: add
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  #3  
10-06-2015, 09:30 AM
sanlyn sanlyn is offline
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Rockovids' advice makes some good points and reflects widespread practice recommended for capturing and digitizing analog tape. Your Dell 4600 is quite adequate for the task -- I have one of those myself and capture tape on it with an ATI AIW 7500 AGP. No problems. I'd suggest that you upgrade to 2GB RAM if you can -- not absolutely necessary for capture itself but handy for further processing, file transfer/copying, and other video work. XP is recommended not only for its compatibility with the best of the analog capture devices but also because hundreds of high quality, free and paid video apps are still available for it. Even if you could get a Win7 or Win8 PC for capture (not that easy), most of the utilities you'd use for post-processing will not work in later Windows, and most post-processing as depicted in this and other forums works with 32-bit plugins anyway.

Quote:
Originally Posted by johnny7 View Post
I need suggestions on first, an AGP based capture card I can use and find for cheap on ebay. I also need a decent sound card compatible with windows XP, and finally some sort of PCI based GPU since I had to pull the original AGP one out. I have an ancient one from 2001 that works, how important is a GPU in the process of capturing analog video?
"GPU processing" isn't used for what you intend to do and in fact isn't very good compared to discrete encoding and processing apps. An AGP graphics card is used to feed your monitor. If your capture device was an ATI AIW AGP card, you'd have a full-service all-in-one graphics adapter and capture card in one unit. The ATI 600 USB does not use GPU processing and is a capture-only device. Using it, you'd still need an AGP graphics adapter for that Dell and your monitor.

Quote:
Originally Posted by johnny7 View Post
Would putting together a system be too much trouble/money compared to just waiting for an ATI 600 to pop up on ebay? How much better output will I be getting from using an older setup?
It's not a question of "better" but of convenience and flexibility. Any PC system can clean up analog defects and encode a final delivery video, but beyond XP the choices are far more limited for capture and post-processing. The first time you capture a tape you'll be shocked at the amount of noise, spots, stains, chroma disturbances and other problems you'll get from analog tape. When you play a tape directly through your TV you're in the analog domain from start to finish. With capture, your analog source enters the digital world, which is ruthlessly unforgiving when it comes to noise and the unstable character of analog tape playback. Your camera supposedly has a line tbc built-in for what are known as scanline sync problems, and the AVT-8710 is used to correct frame-to-frame sync anomalies. Digital capture and encoding devices don't correct for these problems -- they just ingest what they see and digitaize those analog waveforms, distortions, glitches, and everything else.

Because of the nature of analog video, for best results you wouldn't capture directly to lossy encoded formats. We all know that it's easier and quicker to record a tape directly to MPEG or some other lossy encode, but that method is loaded with problems. Lossy encoded formats aren't designed for corrections, cleanup, or editing. They're called final delivery formats, "final" meaning that making corrections is not part of the final delivey game play. Final delivery is for playback, not for re-processing. Analog tape is best captured to lossless media in a YUY2 colorspace using lossless compressors like huffyuv or Lagarith to reduce file size without lossy compression. YUY2 is a colorspace that most closely resembles the video storage system used in analog tape. The YUY2 video is stored as decoded AVI, which is simply a wrapper for the video content. Most would use VirtualDub for capture software. You won't need the ATI MMC application that comes with ATI software. All you'll use are the basic capture drivers. VirtualDub is a good choice for lossless capture.

Furthermore, lossless capture is suited specifically for corrective and editing work. You can modify and change lossless video again and again into new working files with no quality or data loss -- which is not possible with final delivery formats. Three other problems occur with capturing directly to lossy formats: first, lossy encoding makes a mess of analog noise and defects, so the results will look worse than the source. Second, once those defects are imbedded as digital artifacts, they're extremely difficult if not impossible to correct. Third, you'll get better loooking encodes with discrete encoders than you'll get with "auto" encoders.

Lossless capture with huffyuv or other lossless compressors and standard definition video takes about 30GB of storage per hour. Capture to lossy DV-AVI, which is not recommended for analog sources, would still use about 25GB per hour, isn't easy to clean up, has easily visible compression artifacts, and would still have to be lossy re-encoded a second time for anything other than PC-only playback, with added loss from the second compression stage.

While the ATI 600 USB is getting tough to find, the input adapters are often sold separately. There's also a similar device, the Diamond Multimedia ATI TV Wonder HD 600 (and it's not "HD" by the way. That's just marketing hype). You have an AGP motherboard, so it's possible to find an ATI All In Wonder AGP card. The AIW 7500, 9600XT and 9600-Pro are favorites, not easy to find, and most owners who still use them are reluctant to let them go. Forum posts reveal that the 9600 and 9700 have RF interference problems.

Quote:
Originally Posted by johnny7 View Post
I also have one more question regarding audio capture. Many of the capture cards I see have RCA input so why is it that I need to use a dedicated sound card, is the quality just a lot better and preferred with those?
A dedicated sound card is superior. No contest. There are plenty of SoundBlaster PCI cards around -- not the very best, but still a big improvement over onboard sound cards and more than adequate for analog capture.

VHS transfer ain't as easy or as dumbed-down as mass consumer blogs make it out to be. The boys at Cyberlink/Pinnacle like to use words like "professional" in their ads, but there's no truth to it. Analog capture is usually cleaned up and prepped for encoding with free apps like Avisynth and Virtualdub. A high-priced "Pro" NLE like those from SONY and Adobe are fine for "editing" and special effects but even the pros who use them work with lossless media, not with pre-encoded video. The only NLE I use is Adobe AfterEffects, mostly for color correction with ColorFinesse and timeline edits with lossless video. NLE's can't be used for repair of analog noise and defects -- they weren't designed for it. Avisynth and VirtualDub together have some 400 filters available, all the corrective filters and color correction you'll ever need. For analog tape you'll need both apps. You'll see the necessity for those tools the first time you see a capture. For later encoding, most people use stand-alone encoders like TMPGEnc, the free HCenc, or GUI's for the X264 encoder. If you wish you can get into much higher prices for encoders, but there's a heavy learning curve and you pay for many features you'll never use.

I capture with AIW 7500 and 9600XT cards on XP machines. The captures are reviewed for any problems, then transferred to external hard drives. Those drives make it possible to work with those files on my other PCs that have updated CPU's and XP or Win7 for post-processing and encoding. I still use XP, and I also process HD on that newer machine with XP.
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10-06-2015, 06:22 PM
johnny7 johnny7 is offline
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Thank you both so much for the very thorough and easy to understand replies!

I think I've grasped a better understanding than I had before so I went ahead and ordered a few thing from ebay...
I managed to find an ATI AIW 7500 used for $7 (seems a bit low but it was tested and working) and an input adapter
I also got a Turtle Beach Santa Cruz sound card (It mentioned dell in the title, I don't think there's a difference between that and a normal turtle beach one, the PCBs look identical) with a 4pin connector which I'm hoping will work with my AIW 7500.

Next on the list is a 1tb HD for my Dell so I can capture right to it and then I'll just pull it and put it in my main windows 10 computer for editing.

And while I wait for all of my stuff to get here I shall read/look up as many guides as I can and download all of the software I'll need

Again, I really appreciate you guys responding and reading my whole post



Thanks again!
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10-09-2015, 05:37 PM
johnny7 johnny7 is offline
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I've run into a little snag

Does anyone have a recommendation for connecting a Sata drive to a computer that only supports IDE? I've been looking at Sata to IDE bridges (http://www.amazon.com/HDE-SATA-Drive...ds=ide+to+sata) but am a bit worried about speed and reliability.

I also found a PCI based one that looks more promising ( http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...=sr_1_1&sr=8-1 )

Would either of these work for me? I want to be sure that the transfer rate is fast enough. Any other suggestions and experiences are greatly appreciated, also if any admins would like to link me parts (either ones you suggest or just the ones I linked) with a custom amazon link that can benefit the website that would be great as I'd like to support you guys
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10-11-2015, 08:52 AM
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rocko rocko is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by johnny7 View Post
I've run into a little snag

Does anyone have a recommendation for connecting a Sata drive to a computer that only supports IDE? I've been looking at Sata to IDE bridges (http://www.amazon.com/HDE-SATA-Drive...ds=ide+to+sata) but am a bit worried about speed and reliability.

I also found a PCI based one that looks more promising ( http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...=sr_1_1&sr=8-1 )

Would either of these work for me? I want to be sure that the transfer rate is fast enough. Any other suggestions and experiences are greatly appreciated, also if any admins would like to link me parts (either ones you suggest or just the ones I linked) with a custom amazon link that can benefit the website that would be great as I'd like to support you guys
This reminds me that my used Gateway XP cap PC (I pourposly bought for ATI/AIW Card/Cap PC) came with a small "C" drive, but I had an additional 320 or 500 Gig drive installed, expressly for directing new recordings to. (Less strain on main drive during capture) I don't know for sure without tearing open my XP Cap PC, But I think I found a new extra internal IDE drive (Back in 2010) and capture is just fine...If you are talking about setting up an older AGP based Cap PC?
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10-11-2015, 01:59 PM
johnny7 johnny7 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rockovids View Post
This reminds me that my used Gateway XP cap PC (I pourposly bought for ATI/AIW Card/Cap PC) came with a small "C" drive, but I had an additional 320 or 500 Gig drive installed, expressly for directing new recordings to. (Less strain on main drive during capture) I don't know for sure without tearing open my XP Cap PC, But I think I found a new extra internal IDE drive (Back in 2010) and capture is just fine...If you are talking about setting up an older AGP based Cap PC?
Yeah, I'm fixing up an older Dell as a capture box. It already has a 160gb IDE drive that I've got a fresh install of windows on but I'd like to add another drive for capturing. Problem is, I'd rather buy a sata drive but I need either a sata to ide bridge or the pci based adapter I linked, just not sure how reliable these devices are for capturing, specifically if their up to par in terms of IDE or better speeds/if they'll be okay being used to write for several hours at a time without hiccups. I could buy an IDE drive off of ebay if I have to but am trying to avoid that as I'm not going to be capturing loads of video, it's just a one time hobby for me so the drive won't be living in my old pc for very long and I'd like to throw it in my main pc after I finish capturing all of my home videos.
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