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  #1  
08-29-2020, 03:32 PM
MrEx MrEx is offline
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Hello

I have a new, personal vfx project (and a future project that is related) and haven't found any really good solutions yet. There's a few things I need to accomplish, so hopefully you can offer some help. Apologies for the long first post, but I'm a bit anal when it comes to being thorough.

My current system: iMac Pro 2017 model, 3Ghz 10-core, Pro Vega 64, 128GB RAM. Mac OS Mojave 10.14.6. NVME RAID scratch disk, NVME internal drive for projects, NVME TB3 boot disk, Qnap server for storage. Motu 1248 audio interface.

What I need to accomplish (part 1):
  1. Capture old analog sources (TV noise, VCR, CCTV cameras, old camcorders, game consoles), basically anything I can find cheap on ebay and the like. These captures do not need to be perfect as the point is to have the video look old, degraded, yet legible. Some artifacts and noise will probably enhance the footage. However, I may need a way to upscale some of these sources, at least to 1080p, aspect ratio aside.
  2. I need to output digital video back to analog to run it through old devices to degrade it and then capture it back in. If there isn't an easy way to loop the signal through, I can just record to VHS and then capture that.
  3. I may need to capture multiple streams simultaneously, re: CCTV cameras, as I need to shoot things at the same time from multiple angles.
  4. I need to do this for as cheap as possible because my resources are limited, at least for the time being.
What I need to accomplish (part 2):
  1. To capture VHS, VHS-C and Mini-DV tapes as cleanly as possible.
  2. I may also need to capture some footage from game consoles and some footage may need to be upscaled to 1080p, 1440p, or 4k depending.
  3. Digital capture would be nice as an option, but not mandatory initially.
Part 1 is for a creative project I'm working on, hence things being perfectly clean is not mandatory and I haven't much of a budget. Post-production fx won't work. It needs to be authentically captured on old hardware. I still want to use a half-decent VCR so the footage isn't complete garbage.

Part 2 is for digitizing my old personal tapes and such where I want to have very clean signals. That will be later on since I can't afford a VCR with TBC right now, but I just thought it good to mention so maybe I can reuse some of my initial setup when I get to that stuff.

Being on an iMac Pro, I lack PCI expansion. The closest thing I found was a Blackmagic Intensity Shuttle USB 3.0 device that has I/O for HDMI, RCA audio, composite video, s-video and component. I can't get a clear answer out of Blackmagic as to whether it will work right with my system nor what software will allow me to capture as ProRes 444. It also doesn't upscale. I typically work with ProRes and EXR image sequences and Linear PCM Audio, I composite in 32-bit linear workflow and 48k/32-bit audio. Short of this device, it seems I might need to buy specialized devices for each kind of video connection, which isn't ideal, or spend a fortune on industrial rackmount converters and upscalers.

So, I thought of buying an old, refurbished PC and populating it with old PCI and PCIe cards, but I ran into the problem of available models from reputable refurb companies being notoriously unreliable when it comes to compatibility with converter cards and 3rd party hardware in general—most are workstations and servers. If I can go this route of using a refurb PC, it may be cheaper for how many options I have though, because some old TV tuner cards and graphics cards are selling for $10 or $20 bucks on ebay, and even some old AJA cards and breakout boxes are cheap.

Lastly, I thought of building a cheap-ish, modern PC with a motherboard that has a variety of PCI options, but it's outside my area of expertise and my configurations seem to get too expensive too fast. I'm not sure which motherboards are more forgiving to old PCI cards, what baseline build would provide enough CPU and RAM for capturing a single or multiple streams, etc., since I haven't had to capture any video for probably over a decade.

So, after much scouring of the web, and days falling off the calendar and me going in circles, I came across this forum, and figured I'd ask you guys to see if you can offer some advice and a point in the right direction. My head is starting to turn to soup.

Thanks
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  #2  
08-29-2020, 04:25 PM
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lordsmurf lordsmurf is offline
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Mac is the wrong tool for capturing. It could never do more than lossy/damaging DV capturing, or lossy/damaging HD capturing, with few exceptions (most of which need older OS X). Videoglide and certain USB cards (both good and mostly bad), 640x480 max. ATI 600 USB and clones are known to work with it. I think 10.14 is the last OS for Videoglide to work, but users here report different behaviors with different OS versions.

I'm platform agnostic. Mac and Windows, and Linux(es) and others, are all great OS for different tasks. But some tasks simply require certain OS. Video capture needs Windows.

Post-capture, lots of decent editing tools on Mac. But Windows still vastly superior for options in restoration and editing. The tools exist on that OS, not others.

So building Windows box is best idea. You don't need a "refurb company" to build these. And, in fact, such companies probably would have zero idea what to build for quality capture. There are specific parts that can be acquired to build an excellent ATI AIW system using WinXP. These can be build fairly inexpensive, less than $500.

Cheap doesn't work with VHS sources. Analog video, especially VHS, requires line and frame TBC to look decent. Without that, video is generally unwatchable crap, with audio sync errors, jerkyiness (dropped frames), and all sorts of other image problems.

Remember: buy it, use it, resell it. All hobbies have costs. Video is one of the few hobbies where the supplies/tools needed have good resale value. So buy the good VCRs, the TBCs, capture cards. Don't punish yourself (as cheap gear adds many problems), and significantly lower quality, by cheaping out.

You're in the right place to learn what to do.

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  #3  
08-30-2020, 12:07 AM
MrEx MrEx is offline
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I disagree that there was no way to capture good video on Mac. The pro stuff worked on Mac just fine, as I used it in the past when working for big corporations. These days I would need a mac pro (which wasn't available when I got this machine) or an external chassis with thunderbolt 3 so I could load it with PCI cards. But that would cost thousands for modern gear. We used professional VHS decks, Sony Beta decks, breakout boxes from AJA, and video accelerator cards that allowed After Affects to process uncompressed SD video in real time. I also had an ATI all-in-wonder card for the Mac, but it was limited. There wasn't much in the way of consumer products.

I do agree that finding hardware for mac, especially affordable, there are slim pickings, hence my thinking going with a PC is best, especially since my sources are SD analog.

Also, this isn't for a hobby. It's just for a project of my own, not a client. I still will give it some tender care, but don't have a budget as if I was hired to do it.

I primarily work on music, pro design, motion graphics, editing, etc, and i have plenty of tools for that. This machine just lacks the acceleration that you PC folks get, which unfortunately seems to come from lack of support for the hardware by developers. I was very close to getting a custom PC workstation built instead of getting this Mac, but there were some compatibility problems with software I needed to use and... well, it's a long story

At any rate, I'll start looking through the forums more to see if I can find any info on building a PC. If you could recommend any good motherboards with plenty of PCI slots that have good compatiblity, that would be a great place to start.

Thanks
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08-30-2020, 12:16 AM
latreche34 latreche34 is online now
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If you want to capture hassle free with Mac or modern Microsoft crap get a SDI capture device and a SDI to USB or SDI to PCIe adapter, I've been capturing with this workflow for quite some time with no problem. It might cost you upfront few hundred dollars (depends on the used deal you get) but you get the peace of mind, and if you decide to sell it you can make some profit or break even.

Pretty much any SDI capture device with Y/C input is good, some are built in full frame TBC, some have some TBC'ish functionality for a stable signal.

I cannot recommend a specific product but here are few companies that make such capture devices, Aja, Ensemble Design, Black Magic, they also make SDI to USB3 or SDI/PCIe adapters in addition to Majewell.

Stay away from intensity shuttle, It was designed for capturing pro Y/C not consumer Y/C, BM should have been clear about it but they were not, but their SDI products are good.

Last edited by latreche34; 08-30-2020 at 12:30 AM.
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  #5  
08-30-2020, 01:47 AM
MrEx MrEx is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by latreche34 View Post
If you want to capture hassle free with Mac or modern Microsoft crap get a SDI capture device and a SDI to USB or SDI to PCIe adapter, I've been capturing with this workflow for quite some time with no problem. It might cost you upfront few hundred dollars (depends on the used deal you get) but you get the peace of mind, and if you decide to sell it you can make some profit or break even.

Pretty much any SDI capture device with Y/C input is good, some are built in full frame TBC, some have some TBC'ish functionality for a stable signal.

I cannot recommend a specific product but here are few companies that make such capture devices, Aja, Ensemble Design, Black Magic, they also make SDI to USB3 or SDI/PCIe adapters in addition to Majewell.

Stay away from intensity shuttle, It was designed for capturing pro Y/C not consumer Y/C, BM should have been clear about it but they were not, but their SDI products are good.
Thanks for the info.

Yeah, I was looking at those originally, but they are expensive. The cheaper ones, like Blackmagic Ultrastudio for $115, only have a single SDI input and a single HDMI. In that case, would I need to get a bunch of adapter cables? Would the adapters degrade the quality at all? Some systems like game consoles output composite, others component, others are coax (like an old NES). Also I didn't see any affordable ones that had multiple inputs for capturing multiple streams simultaneously, and I was having trouble finding ones that upscaled, or output video, or output to SD or downscaled.

For instance, the Blackmagic UltraStudio HDI mini seems to have one (3) component BNC input and stereo RCA inputs, 2 SDI outputs and 1 HDMI output, for about $500. It does allow for 12-bit 4:4:4 capture. No way to capture multiple streams though. No s-video or HDMI input. It does have downscaling though and provides some FX acceleration for AE and FCP. It doesn't mention anything about TBC in the spec.

From what I've seen, the multuple I/O options are all PCI based from AJA and Blackmagic, so I'd need an expansion chassis which would cost a few hundred to a thousand or more + the cards. Magewell seemed to sell high quality units that also had limited I/O, so I'd need multiple devices for in and out or their legacy PCI cards, if they would even work.

I've also been able to find a TBC that doesn't cost over $1k.

I never heard of Ensemble so I'll check them out and contact their sales team to see if they can recommend anything. I'll also check AJA and Blackmagic's websites again in case I missed something.

Thanks again
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  #6  
08-30-2020, 02:43 AM
latreche34 latreche34 is online now
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The SDI to USB device or SDI/PCIe card is not an analog video capture device and does nothing to the digital video being carried over to computer other than managing communication protocols between the hardware and software to make sure the digital video from its SDI input gets to the hard drive. I personally have the BM UltraStudio SDI USB 3.0 and cost me $100 used.

The analog to SDI capture device is the heart of the workflow, it takes the analog video, digitizes it, applies the TBC and some other processing if chosen and output to SDI as lossless AVI 4:2:2, I personally use the Ensemble Designs BE75 and cost me I believe $100 but I've seen them go for $700 lately.

I would like to add two more brands that made such capture devices, Snell & Wilcox and Grass Valley.
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  #7  
08-30-2020, 02:59 AM
MrEx MrEx is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by latreche34 View Post
The SDI to USB device or SDI/PCIe card is not an analog video capture device and does nothing to the digital video being carried over to computer other than managing communication protocols between the hardware and software to make sure the digital video from its SDI input gets to the hard drive. I personally have the BM UltraStudio SDI USB 3.0 and cost me $100 used.

The analog to SDI capture device is the heart of the workflow, it takes the analog video, digitizes it, applies the TBC and some other processing if chosen and output to SDI as lossless AVI 4:2:2, I personally use the Ensemble Designs BE75 and cost me I believe $100 but I've seen them go for $700 lately.

I would like to add two more brands that made such capture devices, Snell & Wilcox and Grass Valley.
Ah, I see. That makes way more sense now.

Their units on ebay seem to a be few hundred to a few thousand. I'll hunt around for some. Looks like a great device, accepts SD and HD analog, TBC, genlock and handles NTSC and PAL. I'll check their products to see if they also have a multiple input version.

P.S. thanks to you I learned the term "Phoenix Converter"

edit: by the way, are these bus powered through USB or is that just for data transfer?

-- merged --

Would this device work for outputting to analog and connecting to a VCR for recording?

https://www.ensembledesigns.com/prod...ghteye/be11-hd

-- merged --

Well, thanks to advice from latreche34, I think I might actually understand this now. Please correct me if I don't.

Input Setup:
Analog Source > A/D converter with TBC > SDI to USB/TB3 > Computer

Output Setup:
Computer > TB3/HDMI to HD/SDI > D/A converter > Analog Destination

I so far have been unable to find a USB to SDI box. Only TB3 or HDMI to SDI. I do have an extra TB3 port and an HDMI output on my NVME chassis, but I'm not sure if that will pass the signal for the entire 5k iMac. I need something that I can playback video in an app and have it output at the current video resolution (HD to be downscaled or SD). In Adobe video apps, they usually let you select an output device, but not sure if these will be recognized as such?

Only other question I have is how to handle upscaling. Is a separate upscaler suggested, in between the A/D converter and the SDI to USB, or do they make converters with upscaling that don't cost a fortune?

If I can work this out I should be able to handle everything with the iMac and not need to build a PC or buy a refurb.

Much thanks.
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  #8  
08-30-2020, 03:11 PM
latreche34 latreche34 is online now
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I don't know about your output requirement, For just capturing, the above workflow works fine, If you must require an additional analog output you can use your VCR's composite output if you have S-Video output or from the SDI to USB2 adapter take the supplied SDI out (most adapters do have it) and add a SDI to S-Video converter to record to VCR, Aja makes such adapters and are pretty cheap used on eBay.

Upscaling is done in software much much better, Hardware upscalers are crap.
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  #9  
08-30-2020, 03:19 PM
MrEx MrEx is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by latreche34 View Post
I don't know about your output requirement, For just capturing, the above workflow works fine, If you must require an additional analog output you can use your VCR's composite output if you have S-Video output or from the SDI to USB2 adapter take the supplied SDI out (most adapters do have it) and add a SDI to S-Video converter to record to VCR, Aja makes such adapters and are pretty cheap used on eBay.

Upscaling is done in software much much better, Hardware upscalers are crap.
Right now my output requirements are just SD. I need to output some motion graphics videos to analog so I can record on VCR and then capture it back in, or maybe loop it through a TV. Anything that will degrade the signal so it looks old.

Would that Ensemble Designs BE 11 work for doing D/A SD conversion okay? I found a cheap one. Or did you mean the ED converter was overkill? I also am not sure what VCR I'll be able to get and if it will have s-video ins. It might have composite or coax. I can't afford an expensive deck right now.

Thanks
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08-30-2020, 03:39 PM
latreche34 latreche34 is online now
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If your whole goal is to make a signal look like analog this is not the type of hardware you will be looking for, Any crappy USB capture device work just fine with minor problems. I though you are talking about capturing home videos and rare tapes that never made it to DVD.
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08-30-2020, 03:45 PM
MrEx MrEx is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by latreche34 View Post
If your whole goal is to make a signal look like analog this is not the type of hardware you will be looking for, Any crappy USB capture device work just fine with minor problems. I though you are talking about capturing home videos and rare tapes that never made it to DVD.
I will need to capture some sources cleanly, and yes I have a stockpile of old VHS-C tapes I need to capture in the future. For the project I'm doing things need to look like analog with varying degrees of artifacts, but some sources clean, as the devices will add their own artifacts by default (cameras, etc). It's a mixed bag.

Can you disable TBC in those converters? If possible that would probably be a good way to make some sources nastier with interlacing and such. I guess having control over how clean or dirty the signal is would be ideal in my situation.
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  #12  
09-01-2020, 01:36 PM
Sergei316 Sergei316 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MrEx View Post
Can you disable TBC in those converters? If possible that would probably be a good way to make some sources nastier with interlacing and such. I guess having control over how clean or dirty the signal is would be ideal in my situation.
On the Ensemble Design BE75 you can turn the TBC ON or OFF. There a few settinings that can be adjusted.
Not sure about interlacing or making the video "nastier" during capture tho. latreche34 would know.

Great device that latreche34 introduced me to a few months back. I use it for the SDI conversion then to an SDI PCIe card for capture in Vdub. Works well.
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  #13  
09-01-2020, 07:46 PM
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lordsmurf lordsmurf is offline
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An SDI based workflow can be fine, but it does entail some extra steps for processing the video. And whether or not the Ensemble embedded TBCs are as strong as external TBCs is debatable. But at least it's not HD cards like Blackmagic, which is where definitely problems arise.

SDI is no the path I suggest for most people, and don't want it myself. For me, the main reason is it prevents using other hardware in workflows.

In general, you need to avoid upscaling. The only valid reason to upscale is when making mixed-sources videos like documentaries. Not "just because". Upscaled VHS looks worse, not better. Extreme care must be taken when upscaling, and you need to avoid dummyware like the TopazLabs "AI" junk (massive artifacts).

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