Hi8 capture increase framerate to remove jittering?
 

Hello, I'm trying to capture my old Hi8 video tapes with a Sony CCD-TR360E Handycam. I'm using Windows 10 and Virtual VCR and/or VirtualDub and/or softwares provided with the acquisition devices. I have about 30 tapes to record.

Note : when I plug the camera on my TV, the images are perfects.

Here are the results of the same sequence, using 3 different acquisition cards (sorry for properties screenshots in french, but I might stay understandable :laugh: ) :

Hauppauge USB-Live 2
http://zaghor.free.fr/video/Hauppauge.gif
http://zaghor.free.fr/video/HauppaugeSettings.png

AVerMedia CE310B
http://zaghor.free.fr/video/AverMedia.gif
http://zaghor.free.fr/video/AverMediaSettings.png

Generic USB Video Recorder
http://zaghor.free.fr/video/VideoRecorder.gif
http://zaghor.free.fr/video/VideoRecorderSettings.png

The question is : as you can see on the third device, the framerate is put to 60 (by default), and there is no jittering anymore. But... the image quality and contrast is very poor comparing to Hauppauge (I bought this generic usb plug 11€ on Amazon...) :mad4:

So, do you know if there is a "hack" to increase input framerate on acquisition on devices such as the Hauppauge USB-Live 2 ?

Or, do you have a reference of an acquisition card which provides high framerates with decent quality ?

Or, this problem has nothing to do with framerate ?? On this forum, some posts are referring to TBC, is it relevant here ?

Many thanks for your advices

Yann

It's not due to framerate, the generic card just runs some deinterlacing by default going from 30 interlaced to 60 progressive and resizes and compresses in the process. The jitter stuff is due to the cards being bad at handling unstable video coming out of a VCR, the chips used in the avermedia and hauppauge (presumably the same conexant chip) is escpecially bad at it, the chipset used in the cheap one may be a bit better at it but has other issues as you noted. It's looks a bit jittery, just not as bad as the two other ones. (The marketing around modern capture cards is rather deceiving, despide being marketed as usable for digitizing videotapes 99% of them are in fact quite bad at handling video directly from a VCR/camcorder.)

This stuff has been covered tons of times here, you would want to look for a Hi8 or Hi8-capable Digital8 Camcorder with TBC/DNR (typically newer sony ones, there is an incomplete list on the forums.). (Or, alternatively a Panasonic DVR like the DMR-ES10 or DMR-ES15 to pass the video through, though those can have a little impact on the video quality.) Furthermore an external TBC can help avoid frame drops/sync issues between clips on the tape, but it's possible you can get away without that if you have a camcorder with TBC.

The issue is lack of line TBC (and frame TBC), combined with crappy capture cards.

Some TBCs, a better card, and those problems will disappear.

After a while of having put the digitalisation projekt on the shelf, I want to get going with it again.

I have a Hauppauge USB Live 2 which suffers from the problem described by OP. However I also have a Panasonic DMR-ES15. Are there two considered a good enough combination or should I get another capture card. I honestly like the idea of a PCI-e one but the amount of those out there seem to be scarse.

The Live2 simply does not work correctly at times, sometimes not at all.

The ES15 is not a TBC. It's a DVD recorder with a crippled+strong line TBC, and non-TBC frame sync. The OP here has a Hi8 camera that likely already has a line TBC, so the ES15 is somewhat redundant here. Hi8 and Video8 can be drop-happy formats, which require actual frame TBC to be in use.

PCIe is just a communication method, no better than AGP, PCI, USB, etc. What matters is the quality of the capture card, not the comm method.

Myeah, I get that. A real TBC is just incredibly expensive. So what I'm looking for is a good "inbetween" solution. The Panasonic seems to fix this annoying jittering that exists with the Hauppauge.

My players for Hi8 are a EV-C500E and a EV-T2.

I'll admit that I turned this (too old?) thread into something about myself. Maybe I should've made a new thread but I didn't see the reason.

Agreed. That was more of a "nice to have" thing as it would be integrated into my computer instead of being something loose laying about. I like neatness. But of course if the available PCI-e devices are crap, then it's not worth it. I've been eyeing the AVerMedia CE310B, do you know anything about this device?

For those VCRs, a ES15 will give a better result than the standalone TBC units imo, they don't really deal much with horizontal jitter so they're not ideal if you are not using something that already has a built-in TBC unit. The newer sony camcorders have improved playback circuitry compared to a 90s vcr, and an excellent TBC, but whether you prefer the image from them is a bit subjective. I don't know whether either of those vcrs suffer from the edge chroma issue that the cameras and the fancier VCRs do though.

Afaik the C310 reacts similarly to unstable video as the hauppauge card but if you are using the ES15 for stabilization that shouldn't be an issue as it will output a stable signal. No idea if it has any other issues though.