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08-08-2020, 12:16 PM
cdisimone cdisimone is offline
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Hi- I'm have been in the process of converting home videos on and off for several years. I have been living in Mac/DV land and despite everything I know from reading these forums for years, it has mostly been working out for my needs. Don't hate.

However, I recently came across a few 8mm Sony MP120 tapes that I just have not been happy with the quality, particularly in the darker scenes. Very noisy, and the DV compression and chroma issues more apparent than in previous captures. It made me wonder what the captures would look like if I did them on the recommended setups discussed in this forum and videohelp.com. Despite what you may think from paragraph 1, I do really care about quality and preservation of my home videos, and I'm ready to see for myself the improvements I could potentially make by avoiding DV for analog.

I am willing to step into the Windows world to try to do this "right"... or better, or at least the best I can but I am down a deep rabbit hole and I need some guidance. Being that I have a "working setup" albeit not the most ideal, I have to figure out what I have and what I would need to get there and make sure it's in the cards for me.

Here are my current available options:

1. I have an old PC that a friend and I custom built probably around 2005-2006 that has Windows XP on it. We built it (at the time) to be fairly beefy in terms of graphics and other specs because I was into digital photography and was running Photoshop etc. I tried to boot this up today and I think the power supply went bad in the last year. It turns on and off immediately. So without replacing the power supply (if that is even the problem) I can't even check the specs and everything else to see if it's a viable capture machine.

2. I have a Dell laptop Latitude E6430 that has Windows 7 Professional on it with 8GB of RAM. On board graphics card so nothing fancy there. Is it possible to use this laptop for capturing? What other specs would you need to know to answer this question?

3. My main computer is a late 2013 iMac with 10.10 Yosemite and I have and am comfortable using FCP7 to work with my DV captures for basic splitting, titling, fading. Are there any better options for me in this environment avoiding the DV compression? There really isn't a lot of consistent information about Macs out there as I've seen over and over "it's the wrong tool for the job" but - is there a USB or Thunderbolt device out there that could possibly work if I were to try capturing in ProRes422?

Other potentially helpful info:
-I do not currently have a TBC. (gasp)
-I do have a JVC S-VHS deck for my VHS tapes. (JVC SR-MV55) I'm done with VHS tapes but I would consider going back for re-dos at some point if I figure out a better option here.
-I do have the original camcorder the 8mm tapes were filmed on, it has S-Video out. (Sony CCD-TRV99)
-I had some luck playing the 8mm tapes from the TRV-99 in my Sony Digital8 camcorder (DCR-TRV530) and that's what I had been going with for a while until the brand of tapes were switched to the Sony MP120. The camera just doesn't like those tapes and I mainly get audio or bad tracking issues.
-In those cases I was using the Digital8 as a passthrough for DV conversion as the original camcorder plays them fine.
-I also have a DataVideo DAC-200 that I have used instead of the passthrough. Oddly, the 8mm tape captures, when they did play in the Digital8 cam, looked better to me than the TRV99->DAC200 (all DV).
-I haven't gotten up to my collection of VHS-C tapes yet, but that would be next. They were filmed on a very cheap-o Quasar camcorder that took a lot of abuse in college. It seems to have one combined A/V out port so I likely would use the VHS adapter on those tapes when I get to them in the S-VHS VCR.
-I have seen people make reference to DVD recorders but I think particularly the ones that record from VHS. Not sure if this helps but I do have an old Pioneer DVD recorder/HDD that I used to use for recording TV before the days of cable box DVR. I doubt this does anything for me but, it's a Pioneer DVR-640H-S, just in case.

So lonnnng story short: Can I use my Windows 7 Dell Laptop for capturing? If so, I can start looking into acquiring the recommended USB Devices, possibly a TBC (are these really ~$1000 or are there cheaper options?). Or, is there something that would/could work with my Mac? Or, if I want to do better, do I have to go and get a different PC too??

Side note: I have already installed VirtualDub with LordSmurfs filter pack, HuffYUV, and got all that working with some other random USB Capture stick that I am sure is terrible - I had bought it to try something once a while back since this one has component cables, but it was awful and I never used it. The package says "USB Video & Audio Grabber" and the software that is bundled is branded Honestech. It comes with Mac software/drivers and capture tool branded v-cap (it does "work" on a different macbookpro I have that I tried it on just to see). It was enough for me to know I could get VirtualDub and HuffYUV working on the Windows7 laptop but I have to assume either this unit is garbage because the capture didn't look that much better than DV and the audio wasn't great, or that my laptop isn't sufficient for the job.

I'm at my wits end here lost in forum-research-land and I am ready to just get back to it, one way or another. I would GREATLY APPRECIATE some guidance from someone who can take all of the above and give me realistic viable options.

If you've gotten this far, thank you for reading.

Last edited by cdisimone; 08-08-2020 at 12:20 PM. Reason: fix typo
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  #2  
08-08-2020, 09:50 PM
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lordsmurf lordsmurf is offline
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1. Maybe brittle paste of heatsink, reapply. PSU failure usually completely unresponsive, not on/off.

2. Specs seem fine, but laptop monitors usually issue. Terrible shiny/reflective junk, not IPS matte. So you may need external monitor.

3. There are some hackish/maybe methods, using VideoGlide and ATI 600/clone USB. Others here have success, nuisances, and failures at it. Uncompressed is safest, so not ideal. ProRes422 doesn't seem available. Pretty much everything else is HD cards (bad) or DV (compressed crap).

You need TBC of some sort. More money gets better. Budget models have some % of failed transfers, cannot overcome instability of the consumer tapes.

VCR fine.

VHS and VHS-C look especially crappy converted via DV. Lots of compression artifacts and color loss with DV.

Most DVD recorders only look good from cable/satellite/antenna, not tapes. The units choke on noise, barf out artifacts. The only exception is LSI-based units, mostly from JVC. That Pioneer isn't of use here, for tape transfers. At least not if you want quality. Most DVD recorders make DVDs that look worse than the original tapes.

Yes, the best/ideal TBCs are in the $1k+ range now. There are some shortcuts you can take, but quality (some visual, mostly stability) dives quickly. For example, I have a flawed unit in the marketplace, well under $1k for it. You get what you pay for here. This is a backbone of capturing, difference between good/smooth experience, and nuisance/nightmare experience.

Those "grabber" units are all generic Chinese junk.

Video conversion has an easy recipe. There really is no magic/secret to basic video conversion, merely buying the right hardware (and in good condition). Some added patience to get through the modest learning curve. And allow adequate time (more than you'd think!) to do it. It's when cheaping out, seeking alternatives, that bad things happen. So, as always: buy it, use it, resell it. DIY isn't for everyone, but it can be cost effective and enjoyable/rewarding (nostalgia, memories).

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- For sale in the marketplace: TBCs, workflows, capture cards, VCRs
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  #3  
08-08-2020, 10:53 PM
cdisimone cdisimone is offline
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Thanks for the reply.

I’d be interested in buying a USB device that would be ideal for the laptop and *might* work on the Mac. If you have something available you recommend for both of those scenarios, please PM me.

I have a friend I might be able to borrow a TBC from. By the way, does the passthrough Digital8 camcorder / DV method do some type of in-camera TBC? I haven’t noticed any issues with the tapes. Nothing wobbly and no signal loss, dropped frames etc.
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08-08-2020, 11:01 PM
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lordsmurf lordsmurf is offline
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That D8 camera probably has line TBC, but it's only active on Hi8/V8 analog tape playback by the deck, not passthrough from an external source.

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- For sale in the marketplace: TBCs, workflows, capture cards, VCRs
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  #5  
08-11-2020, 02:56 PM
BW37 BW37 is offline
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@ LS: Have you finished your evaluation of the Matrox MX02 mini?

It looks like it would work with either his Win 7 laptop (expresscard input, eSATA output) or his Mac OS (Thunderbolt input) but maybe not FCP7. I'm Mac illiterate though so take it for what it's worth...

It's more complicated and expensive than a USB device, but should provide excellent results and it fits his equipment and software era pretty well.

BW
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08-11-2020, 08:06 PM
hodgey hodgey is offline
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From what I remember with the DCR-TRV330 from the same lineup, there seemed to be TBC active on analog -> firewire input as well, though not as powerful as for tapes played in the camcorder.

The CCD-TRV99 has TBC/DNR as well, so it should be excellent for capturing. It supports Video8/Hi8 XR, so tapes recorded on it was supposed to have slightly higher luma resolution than standard Hi8/Video8 if played in an XR supporting camera. The newer Hi8 and D8 camcorders never mention XR, so I have no idea if they kept the functionality in or not, or whether it makes a difference in those vs the slightly older XR camcorders. Quality should otherwise be very similar.

While the Pioneer DVR-640 as noted is not all that fancy for recording DVDs, these DVRs do feature some Line-TBC/horizontal jitter correction, so it may have some use passing the video through it if you encounter a tape where the JVC VCR TBC ends up with vertical jitter or "tearing" at the top. It's not as capable as the oft mentioned panasonic DVRs, but it can be useful. The TBC in the Sony cameras are very beefy and almost never have the issues when playing 8mm tapes that you can encounter with the TBC in VHS VCRS, so for that it's less useful. It may also help avoid frame drops/audio sync issue if the capture device struggles with that (though again not as good at avoiding missed/duplicated frames as a proper TBC)

Dells Latitude laptops are nice, it's certainly more than powerful enough. I do regularly capture to a laptop with a usb HDD connected via USB3 (while the capture dongle is on a USB2 port so they don't share the same internal hub). I haven't had any issues with it (it did not work as well when testing on an older laptop with a slower usb2 drive), though others here are not fans of capturing directly to USB drives. There is always the option of e-sata as mentioned or optical drive caddy hdd adapter as well to avoid capturing to the system drive.
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  #7  
08-11-2020, 10:46 PM
cdisimone cdisimone is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by hodgey View Post
While the Pioneer DVR-640 as noted is not all that fancy for recording DVDs, these DVRs do feature some Line-TBC/horizontal jitter correction, so it may have some use passing the video through it if you encounter a tape where the JVC VCR TBC ends up with vertical jitter or "tearing" at the top. It's not as capable as the oft mentioned panasonic DVRs, but it can be useful.
Seems like using these DVD-Rs as any type of "TBC" is questionable. I also have access to a Philips DVDR75 which I was just reading up on to see if it would be of any use. Looks like a "no, probably not, but maybe..." The manual states it has a "Virtual" TBC (which apparently is not a TBC at all?) and actually claims "better-than-original copies from old video tapes"

Would this be any better than the DVR-640 if I get into experimenting or don't even bother?
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08-19-2020, 09:02 AM
cdisimone cdisimone is offline
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Would this be better than the laptop in terms of capture/convert machine?

HP PRO 3130mt Core i5 Desktop
2.8GHZ/8GB
Windows 7
GeFORCE

Or possibly capture on laptop, convert on PC?

I was looking into expanding storage on the laptop with the caddy adapter that goes into optical drive slot. For capturing to laptop I only have 3 options. Capture to OS drive. Capture to external via USB3 with ATI 600 in USB2. Or get one of these optical caddies and buy another hdd, which means I have to buy more stuff.

Or forget the laptop now and try this other hp computer available to me and have it double as my conversion machine. (I have concerns about converting video on the laptop which is what made me look for 2nd option.) The HP only has USB2 I believe but I could more easily install second internal hdd (have to buy) and capture to that.

Either way I probably need to buy another hard drive so what option do we like best?

(The only way I could get away with not buying anything else is if I capture to external on laptop via USB3 and then move external drive to HP Desktop for converting, but I don’t know if that is ideal. HP has 500 GB drive.)
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