This probably falls in the category of a solution waiting for a problem but I thought I would share my findings for what it is worth.
I picked up a video surveillance DVR (the Zmodo DVR-H9114V) for next to nothing a thrift store and decided to see how it would work for digitizing analog video, specifically VHS tapes. This is a class of digital video recorders designed to work with analog surveillance cameras. The DVRs typically take a continuous feed from multiple cameras and digitize and store it on a hard drive. They are like mini-computers with networking capability and USB connections.
the Zmodo DVR-H9114V is circa 2012, based on the date of the firmware for the unit.
Most of this unit’s special capabilities, like the four channel input on my model, are of course wasted if all you want to do is digitize a VHS tape. But I wanted to see what kind of result one would get.
PROs:
Up to 704x480 resolution H264 encoding, with up to 2.5 mbps (which is more than enough to adequately capture a VHS taple). Also 704x240 and lower resolutions.
NTSC/PAL/SECAM video standards. Has the ability to input in one standard and output in another.
Ignores copy-protection on commercial VHS tapes (because who would have thought that anyone would be crazy enough to use it for that.)
Adjustable brightness, contrast, etc settings.
Outputs in .mp4, avi, and “raw” H264 formats. Of these only the .avi is useful. I re-mux the .avi content into a .mkv container and it plays perfectly in standard video programs. It outputs in 500 MB chunks, but these were flawless combined in mkv toolkitnix. The unit’s mp4 output is a proprietary container designed for some old version of Windows Media Player and works with nothing. The program includes a driver for its mp4 container but I didn’t want to risk messing up my system by installing it. The “raw” H264 is only video (no audio).
CONs:
Audio capture is only mono and capture is 16bit 8Khz. In contrast CD quality audio is 16bit 44.1Khz and most commercial video is 16 bit, 48Khz. So the sample rate is low and music is not going to sound very good. But it is perfectly adequate for movie dialogue, and the overall effect is not “tinny.”
Some of the RCA in and outs are BNC connectors, so you need to get convertor plugs to use with standard video equipment.
One can set selections to output chunks of video, but only down to 1-minute gradations. This means that one can output the whole chunk of the capture, but one will have to use other video programs to more accurately trim the beginning and ending.
There are many work-arounds because it was never designed to transfer discrete VHS video tapes. I finally found the setting to remove the date and time time-stamp on the video, which would have been a deal-breaker for producing useful video transfers.
So how is the final video quality of the transfers?
I would say perfectly adequate. Below are some screen capture from a commercial VHS tape coming from a JVC SVHS 9500. Once again, this DVR only accepts RCA video in, not S-Video. The real weak point is the audio capture quality. I’m not about to give up my HDD DVD recorders for this, but some of the features of this DVR (like ignoring copy-protection and multi- video standard input/output) could be useful for certain projects.
Remember too, that this is a relatively old unit (from 2012). The newer units may have more capabilities that would be useful for our kind of video transfer. But then again, newer units are not likely to show up cheap at thrift stores.
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