Intro *I start to describe my issue and setup below so you could skip this first bit if you would like.
Hello everyone
Sorry for the long post but I figured it's my first post and I may as well give some back story and context.
Since the beginning of this year I have been studying and preparing to digitize a boat load of tapes that I have acquired over the years. I realized that the task would require more planning and detail than simply buying a capture device and pressing play on my deck.
My goal is to produce some fairly overall good captures and by that I mean captures that are watchable for more than just myself as I will be sharing these captures on the internet. I understand TOP quality requires a lot of time and money and I am okay with spending time and money (I've already dumped plenty of time into this and am enjoying it) but as I said I don't need the BEST quality, just generally good enough to satisfy people looking to enjoy old TV broadcasts they may have watched back in the day.
So far I have only been able to hunt down a low end VCR (Sony SLV-700HF) which I did give new belts and a nice and careful cleaning (didn't touch the heads, they looked unused). I found a Vidicraft Detailer 3 for next to nothing also and it works too but I haven't had any use for it. I also just acquired a Panasonic DMR-ES15 from a local listing that looks to be in good shape and working from what I can tell.
I'm trying to find a better S-VHS deck with TBC/DNR/etc. but they seem to be quite hard to find. A standalone TBC seems to be too pricey at this given time if the cheapest thing I'm gonna find is $1000+ but it is something I would consider in the future if I stick with this long term. I have a few hundred dollars to throw at a better deck in the mean time.
---------------------------
Issue
My captures are coming out with parts that have the audio & video out of sync with one another.
I've done Googling and plenty of searching here and know that many will say that this issue could be fixed with a standalone frame TBC, which at this time I can not afford unless one turns up for less than a $1000 (which seems unlikely).
Online I see people uploading captures that they take with actual garbage VCR's that they find at Goodwill or various other second hand methods and sure the quality is trash but at least they never have sync issues like this, which leads me to believe that there must be some error on my end with
VirtualDub etc.
I've read the thread about setting up
VirtualDub and I have tried the settings recommended there which I'll post again here for convenience.
Capture timing options.png
With these settings I do get good results for short clips or short videos. Usually there will be a sync issue right at the beginning or something small like that but then it goes away and the rest of the capture will be fine with worst case being the audio will speed up or slow down a bit. Some tapes seem to break this exception but generally this is true for captures ~1.5 hours or less.
Now I have plenty of tapes that are 4-6 hours and when I try to do a long capture I get disappointing results with these settings. I do small test captures of the tape first of about 10-20 minutes to dial everything in and I'll be getting good results, start the full 4-6 hour capture and then when I look back afterwards there will be sync issues all over the dang place mid-end of tape. I've tried turning resyncing off but that seems to make things much worse and much more unpredictable. Some of these tapes play PERFECTLY when this VCR is hooked up to my 27" Sony Trinitron.
Am I not supposed to be capturing for that long in one go? Or perhaps some other error I'm making that would be obvious to a seasoned veteran? It's frustrating to some ends because I spend those 4-6 hours capturing and don't know till the end. As I said at the start of this post, I see people online post crap captures off crap decks in 2020 and at least the sync will be fine. Surely there must be some way to fix this up that I've overlooked?
---------------------------------
Setup
Capture Device: AVerMedia DVD EZMaker 7 (C039)
VCR: Sony SLV-700HF (Like New with New Belts)
Connection: Composite
Optional Equipment Available: Panasonic DMR-ES15
Capture Software: VirtualDub
PC: Windows 10 x64, Intel i7, 12GB RAM, NVidia GPU, 250GB SSD + 1TB external HDD w/ USB 3.0
-----------------------------------
Thanks for reading my post.
Any help, feedback, or input is appreciated.
