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  #1  
02-23-2021, 02:02 PM
DetroitPaula DetroitPaula is offline
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My marketplace equipment has arrived, JVC-VHS and FOR.A TBC and now I need guidance on connection wires and order.

I bought these to hopefully improve from what I had --a SONY VHS and the ADVC-300. I was about 5 video tapes into my approximately 120 tapes (VHS and D8 mixture) using just these two items and my family thought the quality was good but I was not so sure after reading this forum.

Ok, so here I am scouring this forum for the basics.

Is it VHS-- S video cable to TBC--S video cable to ADVD-300 then firewire to my MAC.

My MAC PRO is running the current software 11.2.1 and I am unable to go back to the older software like it is recommended here and I have no access to a PC computer with older Windows.

If someone could also direct me to the proper threads on whatever settings I need to set on the VHS, I would be most grateful.
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  #2  
02-23-2021, 02:39 PM
bookemdano bookemdano is offline
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Hi Paula. I take it your Mac Pro is the 2013 model (affectionately known as the trash can)? Or do you have one of the brand new ones? Or is it a MacBook Pro?

I guess though if you were already using the Canopus box before then you already have the appropriate cables/adapter(s) to connect the firewire output from the ADVC-300 to your Mac.

But yes you will need a couple of S-Video cables--as short as is feasible. You run one from your JVC VCR's output to the TBC's input. Then another one from the TBC's output to the ADVC-300's input.

I take it you're using iMovie to do the transfers?

Also, if you have D8 tapes I'm assuming you have a D8 camcorder to transfer them. For that setup you will not use the TBC or the ADVC-300. Just a cable connecting the firewire output from the camcorder to your Mac's firewire port/thunderbolt to firewire adapter.
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  #3  
02-23-2021, 03:14 PM
DetroitPaula DetroitPaula is offline
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Yep, it is the ol' trash can with the legendary Thunderbolt display. Don't laugh but I kept this whole setup for just this project so I don't disturb all the external hard drives and what not attached to the trash can. I have a dedicated area in the house. I am determined to get this done and reclaim the space.

I do have the camcorders so that is a bit of a relief!

When I first started this project I was doing one tape at a time. After uploading yes in iMovie I would do all the chopping and make short 7 to 15 minute movies so no one would later be bored. I would then upload to a family playlist on YouTube for any family members near and far to view at any time. That was extremely slow. I am now going to upload all the movies to external hard drives and get all these tapes out of my space and work on editing movies over time. NEW YEAR NEW PLAN.

Thank you for this quick reply.

I am going to start it all up and ask more questions. I am also gonna cross my fingers that these results are better than the old way because I have a husband who thinks I am crazy for upgrading the equipment. He thinks the prior movies looked perfectly fine.
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02-23-2021, 04:02 PM
latreche34 latreche34 is offline
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Two many conversions in the chain especially when it ends up with a lossy codec like DV, Why don't you connect the S-Video cable straight from the VCR to the ADVC-300? What went wrong that forced you to use an external TBC? I know the ADVC-300 has a good frame synchronizer so there shouldn't be any dropped frames there.
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  #5  
02-23-2021, 04:49 PM
DetroitPaula DetroitPaula is offline
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To be very honest nothing went wrong. I just thought from reading this forum I needed a TBC. I will compare and try and discern whether I need the TBC. My husband is in your camp latreche34.
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  #6  
02-23-2021, 05:05 PM
bookemdano bookemdano is offline
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She may have been going off of LordSmurf's suggested workflow. I think she bought the stuff from him.

latreche34 makes a valid point that the DV codec used by the Canopus box is lossy and reduces the already crappy chroma (color) resolution in VHS tapes even further. I think it's debatable how noticeable that loss is if you're just planning to use the footage as-captured.

But part of making VHS look as good as possible is by using avisynth filters to process it, and filters do the best job when they have as much chroma and luma resolution as possible.

That said... you're sort of at a crossroads here. Macs are really only set up to capture DV via firewire (as you're doing)--especially in the Catalina/Big Sur era where Apple has removed a lot of underlying support for other methods. There probably are still some working solutions to input analog from Blackmagic devices (latreche34 do you happen to know?), but I know LordSmurf is not a fan of Blackmagic's analog capture hardware.

The other way to proceed with your Mac would be to get a box that converts analog to SDI (there are a few available but they can be pricey unless you luck out on ebay). SDI is a high quality digital format that would capture the full quality of VHS tapes. Then once it's in SDI format you can use a simple box like Blackmagic's mini Recorder which has a thunderbolt output that would go right into your Mac. You would then use Blackmagic's included software to do your captures--and that does work on Big Sur.

But then once you've got these high quality files and want to run them through avisynth, you're stuck again because avisynth is a windows program. There is a Mac version called vapoursynth, but I have no experience with it and I don't know if it can use all of the avisynth plugins (which are the meat and potatoes of the whole thing). Maybe someone else can clarify whether vapoursynth is doable for the normal VHS restoration plugins.

The cheaper and perhaps easier alternative (especially if you already have a Windows PC in the house) is to buy a windows-based capture card (which doesn't have to be expensive) and use the free program Virtualdub to do the captures from Windows. You could then run the them through avisynth and end up with files you can then edit and assemble on the Mac if you desire.

Technically, Boot Camp (running windows on your Mac) is an option here, but I don't know how complex you want to make this.

By contrast, none of what I just said applies to your D8 tapes, which will be a cinch in comparison. They are already in the DV codec and all you're doing by connecting your D8 camcorder to your Mac is dumping the digital files off the tapes into iMovie. Easy peasy.

You can also just ignore everything I said and continue down the path you are already on. Capturing VHS to DV the way you're doing it is perfectly valid. But by skipping the avisynth step in the process you might prove your husband right (in that you may not perceive much of a quality improvement).

The JVC VCR should definitely give some improvement though, by virtue of its TBC and noise reduction, and the For.A TBC is a reliable option (and could be used with the windows setup if you choose to go that route).
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  #7  
02-23-2021, 06:25 PM
DetroitPaula DetroitPaula is offline
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Thanks bookemdano for your thoughts.

I am now sitting here with about 40 VHS tapes from 1988 to 1997 and wondering about life and the pursuit of happiness.

Will my kids even appreciate this journey? Is this process helping me avoid dementia? Is Tiger Woods going to play golf again? Yes my thinking is all over the map.

I am very appreciative of your efforts to help me here.

We do have a Windows Computer in the house. It is my daughter's. She had to move back home due to financial issues. It is downstairs in her work area. She has two jobs one to make some money and the other in her field which involves the computer. The job she has to make money she leaves the house and I could set up downstairs but I have been a Mac person since 2007 and thus I just am not sure about that process. I love editing video/movies on my mac. Also her Windows computer is running the latest Windows which as I have read here is another problem.

Can you share with me what is a box that converts the analog to SDI? You said I may have luck on eBay.

Is running Boot Camp a complicated deal? I do have 3 Mac computers in my house. Turning this old trash can into a Windows computer might be ok. I am only using it for this video to digital process.

What do you think?
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  #8  
02-23-2021, 07:56 PM
DetroitPaula DetroitPaula is offline
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While I am trying to figure out where to go from here, I did try to just go from the JVC VHS to the ADVC-300 to the computer without using the independent TBC but alas I have no sound capture only video. I believe the video is better than my Sony VHS but now I have no sound whereas with the SONY my captures were sound and video. Can anyone suggest why this might be happening?
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  #9  
02-23-2021, 08:00 PM
bookemdano bookemdano is offline
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I totally get your thought process. I went through a similar dilemma a couple years ago when transferring my family's ancient old 8mm movies (film, not video) via a contraption that did the job, but at mediocre quality compared to what I know it *could* be if I had used better equipment ($$$). Ultimately, my family was over the moon just to be able to see that old footage after many decades of it lying fallow. No one noticed the poor quality except me.

That said, I promised myself that once I had a sufficiently better method available, I would transfer them all over again--if only to satisfy myself. I like to think that maybe distant relatives might care (sort of the way we look in amazement now at old restored movies from the early 1900s, color footage from WW1, etc.). Since you're the one who's going to be doing all the work, it's really yourself you have to please.

If you decide to stick with your Mac (I'm a Mac person first and foremost too, so I get it) and you want to go the SDI route for capturing your VHS tapes then I think maybe the cheapest way to go would be to pick up a Blackmagic Design Mini Converter on ebay. It's a small box that takes a composite or S-Video + stereo audio input and converts it to SDI. Then to get SDI into the Mac you'd need a Blackmagic Mini Recorder box. There are now two versions on the market. The original UltraStudio Mini Recorder has a Thunderbolt output, which would plug directly into your trashcan without any adapters (though you would need to buy a thunderbolt cable if you don't have one). It's been discontinued but is available used on amazon/ebay. The new UltraStudio Recorder 3G uses a Thunderbolt 3 connection. For that you would need to buy Apple's Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 2 adapter, plus a thunderbolt cable (if you don't have one).

The Blackmagic recorder has its own Mac app (free download on their web site) that will capture your video into whatever codec you want. If you're going to go through the trouble of this type of capture you would want to use 8 bit uncompressed video, or Apple's Prores422 HQ (which is only lightly compressed and visually lossless). You could then take those files to avisynth on your daughter's computer, or you could use Boot Camp to set up a windows partition on your Mac Pro. Or maybe someone will chime in if vapoursynth directly on the Mac is workable.

There are more expensive analog to SDI converters that incorporate a TBC/frame sync (such as the Ensemble BrightEye 75), but given that you already have a good frame TBC then I would just go for the Blackmagic Design Mini. Note that you would also need a few cables/adapters to connect everything up. I can detail those if you want, but I've already thrown a lot of info at you.

I'd say to go that route you'd be looking at about $250-300 (~$100 for the Design Mini Converter, ~$125 for the Ultrastudio Mini Recorder, and $25-75 for cables/adapters, depending on what thunderbolt stuff you'd need).

If all that has you feeling overwhelmed and you want to step back from the brink, your two simpler options are:

1. Just use what you have and take comfort in the fact that your family won't care about how it looks. VHS is pretty much potato quality to begin with, so it's not like you're ever going to be able to make it look like it came from an HD camera.
2. Use your daughter's PC for the capturing and processing (you would get a lot of handholding here if you want it--most of the gurus here are well versed with Windows capture/restoration tools). Once those steps are complete you could retreat to the comfort of your Mac for the editing/assembling in iMovie. Note that this option would still require purchasing a suitable capture adapter for the PC, but you can get one for less than $100--perhaps much less.

Whatever method you choose you'll need a lot of storage space. Hope you have (or plan to buy) some large external hard drives to store your captures.

You may want to set aside some more time to think about and research this before deciding what to do on the VHS side. In the meantime, you could work on capturing the D8 tapes, since you already have everything you need to get those done.
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  #10  
02-23-2021, 08:07 PM
bookemdano bookemdano is offline
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Just saw your newest post. Did you connect the RCA white and red cables from the JVC to the Canopus box? The S-Video cable is only video (which can be confusing since it has four pins inside). You still need the red and white cables for the audio. Make sure all cables are firmly connected, and that you've got them plugged into the VCR's output jacks, not the input ones).
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  #11  
02-23-2021, 08:09 PM
DetroitPaula DetroitPaula is offline
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bookemdano, I just read this and I felt the empathy from your soul. I am going to go to bed get up and reread this again with hope in my heart.

Thank you for your kindness.

-- merged --

And I am going to redo those cables in the morning. Even try a different set than was sent to me.

Thank you.
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  #12  
02-23-2021, 08:26 PM
bookemdano bookemdano is offline
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My pleasure. There are plenty of helpful folks here, so rest assured whatever route you decide to go you'll get as much help as you want.
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  #13  
02-23-2021, 09:05 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DetroitPaula View Post
My marketplace equipment has arrived, JVC-VHS and FOR.A TBC and now I need guidance on connection wires and order.
Video = all s-video
VCR out > frame TBC in > frame TBC out > capture card in

Audio = VCR direct to capture card via RCA (red/white)

Nothing to be set on the TBC, essentially preset to act like a TBC-1000.

VCR needs menu set, must have remote
R3 OFF
Picture mode AUTO/NORM
Calibration OFF
Overlay/Superimpose OFF
blue screen OFF

Quote:
Originally Posted by bookemdano View Post
Also, if you have D8 tapes I'm assuming you have a D8 camcorder to transfer them. For that setup you will not use the TBC or the ADVC-300. Just a cable connecting the firewire output from the camcorder to your Mac's firewire port/thunderbolt to firewire adapter.
This isn't entirely accurate.

Capturing DV/D8 over Firewire isn't the end-all/be-all "best method" often touted. There are valid reasons to capture over analog. The transfer method can lose footage. Just seconds, but those can be valuable. It's also a nuisance when it breaks into clips, and software often ignores your setting to NOT break. Consumer optics never hit 720x480 true resolve, so you're not missing anything. The conversation changes when pro glass was shot, higher end DV25 camera.

Modern Firewire is a PITA, adapters don't always cooperate, PCI chipsets can suck.

Quote:
Originally Posted by DetroitPaula View Post
I am now going to upload all the movies to external hard drives and get all these tapes out of my space and work on editing movies over time. NEW YEAR NEW PLAN.
Do so with extremely good bitrates, and good deinterlacing (use Hybrid for Mac, for QTGMC).

Quote:
He thinks the prior movies looked perfectly fine.
My cat likes her cat food. I'd never eat it. Yuck.

Quote:
Originally Posted by latreche34 View Post
Two many conversions in the chain especially when it ends up with a lossy codec like DV, Why don't you connect the S-Video cable straight from the VCR to the ADVC-300?
No.
No frame TBC = terrible idea.

Quote:
Originally Posted by bookemdano View Post
latreche34 makes a valid point that the DV codec used by the Canopus box is lossy and reduces the already crappy chroma (color) resolution in VHS tapes even further.
Immaterial.
Loss in one areas is no reason to create/allow loss in others.

I'm not anti-DV. Not great, should be avoided, but sometimes only viable method (mostly Macs). The quality hit here is still better than quality hits from lack of TBCs.

Quote:
But part of making VHS look as good as possible is by using avisynth filters to process it
Eh. The primary issue is good hardware to capture. Without that, Avisynth has nothing to work with.

Quote:
but I know LordSmurf is not a fan of Blackmagic's analog capture hardware.
It drops frames without reporting. Unacceptable.

Quote:
The other way to proceed with your Mac would be to get a box that converts analog to SDI
I don't think this person needs to go down that path.

Quote:
avisynth is a windows program.
Unlike capture, you can run Avisynth in a VM. I did that 10+ years ago, on a Mac Mini that I still have (OS X 10.6).

Quote:
Technically, Boot Camp (running windows on your Mac) is an option here, but I don't know how complex you want to make this.
Newer macOS are apparently forcing Win10 only for Bootcamp, and then the new M1 chip may not support it at all (not read either way on that one).

Quote:
The JVC VCR should definitely give some improvement though, by virtue of its TBC and noise reduction, and the For.A TBC is a reliable option (and could be used with the windows setup if you choose to go that route).
Yes.

That JVC VCR will give a large quality improvement, and the frame TBC will ensure stable quality.

Quote:
Originally Posted by DetroitPaula View Post
Will my kids even appreciate this journey?
Yes, they will.
Sadly, you may be gone by then -- which is the catalyst for them to care.
Tip: make family time include family history, and photo/video is an important part of it.

Quote:
Is this process helping me avoid dementia?
Actually, yes! Research shows.

Quote:
Can you share with me what is a box that converts the analog to SDI? You said I may have luck on eBay.
This is a can of worms. I'd not go down that path.

Quote:
Is running Boot Camp a complicated deal?
No.

Quote:
Originally Posted by bookemdano View Post
No one noticed the poor quality except me.
People are often too nice to say anything. But they notice. You'll know because you'll often get compliments for how good it looks when it does look good. Again, experience, been doing this for 25+ years now.

Quote:
I like to think that maybe distant relatives might care (sort of the way we look in amazement now at old restored movies from the early 1900s, color footage from WW1, etc.).
Yep. Exactly.

Quote:
If all that has you feeling overwhelmed and you want to step back from the brink, your two simpler options are:
1. Just use what you have and take comfort in the fact
I think now is a good stopping point for her. I really do think she has what she needs here. Too much more, and it'll overwhelm, and result in project abandonment.

Quote:
2. Use your daughter's PC for the capturing and processing (you would get a lot of handholding here if you want it--most of the gurus here are well versed with Windows capture/restoration tools). Once those steps are complete you could retreat to the comfort of your Mac for the editing/assembling in iMovie. Note that this option would still require purchasing a suitable capture adapter for the PC,
This is a good option as well.

Quote:
but you can get one for less than $100--perhaps much less.
Much less? Doubt it. That's the territory of crap cards (Easycaps, Elgato, "grabbers", etc), and you're better off with a DV card.

Quote:
Whatever method you choose you'll need a lot of storage space. Hope you have (or plan to buy) some large external hard drives to store your captures.
Note: You cannot capture directly to external drives. Capture internal, transfer files.

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  #14  
02-24-2021, 01:23 AM
latreche34 latreche34 is offline
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DV capture boxes such as the ADVC-300 cannot be used as a pass-through I get that. but capturing DV to a firewire they work and produce a very stable signal (I've seen their captures). Now, if the OP wants to use an external TBC I suggest that he captures lossless with a USB or PCI card under a windows platform. In my opinion using an external TBC with a DV capture device is not a such good idea but the OP is free to do whatever he thinks it works better.
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  #15  
02-24-2021, 09:19 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by latreche34 View Post
they work and produce a very stable signal (I've seen their captures).
Not really. I have one here, have for years. These boxes drop frames like anything else, can lose audio sync. The "TBC" is laughably worthless, does nothing. I have some excellent captures to show how craptastic the ADVC-300 boxes are, just not had time to craft sample videos yet. The box needs a good VCR with line TBC, chased by frame TBC.

Then the worst aspect is the DV chroma loss.

If you have to swallow a tough pill, DV loss is the one I'd prefer. It tastes foul, but you'll live. Because lack of TBCs is like swallowing poison (captures ruined far worse).

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  #16  
02-25-2021, 02:54 PM
DetroitPaula DetroitPaula is offline
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Good Afternoon,

I took a day off from thinking about this project.

First off the OP is a SHE! Just wanted latreche34 to know because I realize most of the time it is the guy of the house that is charge of the video projects because he most likely was the cameraman. In our house I was the family historian. I carried two cameras around my neck for years. One manual and one point and shoot. Sometimes I also had what I feel now is the dreaded video recorder/camcorder. If I wouldn't have taken those dang movies I wouldn't feel guilty about all this.

Back to the game plan.

First off, I started thinking about this project 18 years ago. At the time the ADVC-300 was something people were suggesting as "the thing". I am not sure if you all had this forum going that far back but I read it somewhere and I can probably safely say not here. Anyways, I bought it and there it sat for 18 years. In 2013 when I got my MacPro I started puttering around with it but never but my foot on the gas.

So I started back up again and came upon this forum around December 2020. I felt I probably could do better and thus I got some equipment from this forum's marketplace.

As it stands today. I am a bit confused as to the use of "lossy codec like DV" as described by latreche34. I gather it means the ADVC-300 is converting the analog into data that is not all that great. My question is as opposed to what? DV means Digital Video right? So what are the different codecs? And if my goal is to share family history via editing a 2 hour video down to interesting snippets with the best possible resolution what codec should I aim for that is reasonable?

Next, let's say I move the whole project down to the basement and use my daughter's desktop Windows based computer. What exactly is a "capture card"? Are you saying after the TBC there is a piece of equipment or is it software I get for the computer? I am kind of confused about this. And if she has Windows 10 is this going to impede the process? Also, I for sure need an end product to do the editing on the Mac.

lordsmurf, can you clarify what you mean by, "You cannot capture directly to external drives. Capture internal, transfer files?" Are you saying don't even open the external hard drive just do everything on the computer's hard drive and the copy it to external hard drive? So does that mean I don't even open the external hard drive just do one video at a time and copy and paste onto the external hard drive? My computer is 1TB. I prepared for this project with two 12 TB external hard drives and a few 8 TB ones. My flow was to have everything on the 12TBs and the finished edited movies on the 8TBs.

I did on a happy note resolve the sound issue. I had my connectors in the wrong output slots on the back of the JVC.

Thank you one and all.
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  #17  
02-25-2021, 03:33 PM
latreche34 latreche34 is offline
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First sorry for referring to you as "he".
DV is a format that was used for storing video on DV and Digital8 video tapes, It did okay back then but it was never intended for capturing and archiving analog videos, The format used for this purpose is called D1 standard, it is a lossless AVI 720x480 (720x576 PAL/SECAM) 4:2:2 chroma subsampling compared to DV which is only 4:1:1 for NTSC.
With lossless AVI you can edit, correct and de-interlace with minimum loss, and off course you can always encode to a much efficient and better codec than DV such as H.264 for sharing, even when keeping the chroma sub. at 4:2:2 and a decent bitrate you will end up with files equal or less to DV in size but with much much better quality.
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  #18  
02-25-2021, 03:35 PM
bookemdano bookemdano is offline
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I'm chuffed to see some female representation here, Paula.

LordSmurf will likely chip in his take but here are my answers:

The DV codec has a long history dating back to the mid '90s. There are multiple "flavors" of it, but the type that got used in consumer camcorders (and firewire boxes like the ADVC-300) degrades the color resolution a bit in order to keep the bitrate down. A distinction should be drawn here between DV camcorders like D8/miniDV and boxes like the Canopus.

With D8/miniDV camcorders, the encoding to digital (in DV format) was done in the camera at the time that footage was filmed. Its resolution is "baked in", and the act of transferring it to your computer over firewire is simply copying those digital 1s and 0s off the tape to the computer.

With the Canopus and other similar boxes, the video starts out in analog format and the ADVC-300 is what digitizes it to DV (reducing the color resolution in the process). There is nothing wrong with that per se. That reduction is not really noticeable when you're simply dumping off footage and then viewing it as-is, but it can reduce the effectiveness of processing that footage with filters, color correction, etc.

If you think you won't want to do any fiddling with the footage (other than just editing it), then you may just want to continue on with the ADVC-300 and your current methods. Advantage being that you don't need to buy anything else, mess with Windows, etc.

But if you want to capture your VHS tapes in the highest quality possible, either for further clean-up now or just to keep a "master" copy of the tapes so you can get rid of them, then you may want to explore using a capture device (it's sometimes referred to as a "card" because they used to always be an internal PCI card that plugged into the motherboard of a PC/Mac. Nowadays there are USB and thunderbolt options). One of these other capture devices would allow you to obtain a capture that preserves the full color resolution of the VHS tapes.

Maybe a half-decent analogy would be scanning a 4x6 print of a photograph with a flatbed scanner versus using a specialized scanner to scan the original film negative. Both give you a decent-looking scan on the monitor. And if you're just looking at it casually you may not notice any difference in the two. But the film scan has more detail, which matters if you wanted to tweak the colors, enlarge it, etc.

Given that you want to do your editing on a Mac, the best codec to use for the best quality capture is called Apple ProRes422. iMovie can handle it fine. It takes up more space than if you used DV, but you get better color resolution, which would be a boon if you want to process it with filters.

To reiterate, with the D8 tapes you have, the conversion to DV has already occurred there, so there's no extra resolution to capture.

RE: the TBC, TBCs are hardware--full stop. The TBC you purchased can and should be used for any analog tape capture, no matter whether you do it on your Mac or a PC. The frame TBC's job is to take the sort of unstable signal from the VCR and correct it to something the capture device expects to see. I guess you could sort of think of it like a faucet filling up a funnel with water--no matter how hard you turn on the tap, or if the tap is inconsistent, water will always come out of the funnel at the same rate. A frame TBC sort of does that for frames/fields of video.

Windows 10 is a problem for certain capture devices, but I think it's OK for others. Some of its issues are just annoyances that can be ameliorated.

If you have (or are willing to acquire) a copy of Windows 7 then you could install that on your Mac Pro via bootcamp. It's not exactly childs' play but it's not rocket science either. Macs have a built-in app called "Boot Camp Assistant" that assists you through the process.

Regardless of where/how you capture the footage, you should be able to use iMovie on the Mac to edit it, add titles, upload to YouTube, etc.

External drives can sometimes be too slow for the actual capture process. That and occasionally they can lose power or connection to the computer (like say the family dog trips over the USB cable) which would cause the capture to fail. So I think LordSmurf was just conveying that it's a best practice to capture to an internal drive. And then you can move those files to an external drive later (either as you go or capture a bunch of tapes in order and then move all the files to an external).

I think your drive setup (internal and external) is fine. You can always buy more externals later if you need them (you might not).

Last edited by bookemdano; 02-25-2021 at 03:45 PM.
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  #19  
02-25-2021, 04:48 PM
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Originally Posted by DetroitPaula View Post
Just wanted latreche34 to know because I realize most of the time it is the guy of the house that is charge of the video projects
There's always been a bad assumption that video is male, and older. And that this forum is USA only. But all are false. While male does have the majority, a large/not-small minority is female. Of all ages. And from all over North America, Europe, Australia, and South America -- with only Asia and Africa taking smaller stakes in viewership. We have a nice community here.

Quote:
First off, I started thinking about this project 18 years ago. At the time the ADVC-300 was something people were suggesting as "the thing".
Lemmings parroting Canopus marketing. Fake advice. Not actual advice from knowledgable users.

Canopus was a real BS operation back then, before bought out by Grass Valley. All of their stuff was inferior, be it Edius, Procoder, ADVC, etc. They were 2nd-string behind Matrox, ATI, Adobe, MainConcept, and others. So they used marketing to bluster and BS buyers. Of all the offerings, Procoder 1.6 was excellent, but that was really it (nothing later, nothing earlier, just 1.6).

Quote:
I am not sure if you all had this forum going that far back
2002, but I had guides and info on other sites years earlier. I've been around a while, using this same name for about 26 years now.

Quote:
DV means Digital Video right?
No. "DV" actually means nothing. It was a play on term, to make you think it meant Digital Video. But it does not. "DV" means DV.

Quote:
Next, let's say I move the whole project down to the basement and use my daughter's desktop Windows based computer. What exactly is a "capture card"? Are you saying after the TBC there is a piece of equipment or is it software I get for the computer? I am kind of confused about this. And if she has Windows 10 is this going to impede the process? Also, I for sure need an end product to do the editing on the Mac.
This is easy.

VCR > TBC > capture card ... standard workflow
Win10 need approved capture card known to not have issues with Win10 (and Win10 is the SOB here, the card is not at fault), and I believe that graphics cards play a part here, with nVidia cards being the main vilain, not integrated Intel/AMD graphics.

Quote:
lordsmurf, can you clarify what you mean by, "You cannot capture directly to external drives. Capture internal, transfer files?" Are you saying don't even open the external hard drive just do everything on the computer's hard drive and the copy it to external hard drive?
Correct.

Quote:
My computer is 1TB.
1tb is empty?
DV video is 13gb/hour
Lossless is about 2x-3x that, with Huffyuv about 35gb/hour (it varies on content)

Quote:
I prepared for this project with two 12 TB external hard drives and a few 8 TB ones. My flow was to have everything on the 12TBs and the finished edited movies on the 8TBs.
Seems fine to me.

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I did on a happy note resolve the sound issue. I had my connectors in the wrong output slots on the back of the JVC.
Ah, good. That deck should serve you well.
I need to make some per-unit diagrams for connections and menus. Added that to my to-do list!

Quote:
Originally Posted by bookemdano View Post
The DV codec ... degrades the color resolution a bit in order to keep the bitrate down.
50% is more than I'd consider "a bit", for NTSC 4:1:1. It has noticeable color loss, in addition to DV blocking (similar to straved-bitrate MPEG), and most DV codecs also soften (like certain MPEG encoders). For PAL, 4:2:0 is like most of compressed format, and I'd be more okay calling it "a bit".

Quote:
I guess you could sort of think of it like a faucet filling up a funnel with water--no matter how hard you turn on the tap, or if the tap is inconsistent, water will always come out of the funnel at the same rate. A frame TBC sort of does that for frames/fields of video.
That's a really good analogy. I'm using that for a guide I'm writing!

Quote:
External drives can sometimes be too slow for the actual capture process. That and occasionally they can lose power or connection to the computer (like say the family dog trips over the USB cable) which would cause the capture to fail. So I think LordSmurf was just conveying that it's a best practice to capture to an internal drive.
Not best practice, but required. And it has nothing to do with Fluffy or Spot. External drives communicate in different ways, including the through CPU. The speed is not there. It's not sustained, but burst. You need sustained. The internal drives are directly into motherboard BUS/PCI lanes, sustained, and fast.

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02-25-2021, 05:44 PM
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Ok just for the sake of full decision making effort, what all would I need to go from here with the equipment I have to the PC/Windows route?

What capture card?
What software?

Goal being, all the VHS tapes onto the external hard drives, take those external hard drives upstairs and work on editing one video at a time on my Macs. So I need guidance to make sure the end product is something I can work with in iMovie. Now if correcting color and whatever through filter software is something I could learn on the job I would consider that too.

I guess I just want to feel real solid on my decision and then throw out these tapes!

https://imgur.com/a/KA96Pal

PS From what little you all know me here am I better just going with the Mac set up? I am throwing this in because besides you all will anyone be able to tell I went the Windows route? Are there any video clips somewhere for me to view the differences I might see with PC/Windows computer vs this DV set up I have at this time?

Last edited by DetroitPaula; 02-25-2021 at 05:52 PM. Reason: one more thought
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