Best setup for Video8/VHS transfer without standalone TBC?
 

Hello. I have read man of the threads herein and am getting a better and better understanding of video. Thank you.

I currently have a number of Video8 tapes that I want to digitize at the best quality possible.

Short of incurring the cost of a stand alone TBC unit, am I best off with the following?:

1. A hi8 or digital8 (that can play video8) camcorder with TBC and DNR, including s-video out.
2. A JVC 6+series vcr with svideo in and out, and
3. s-video to usb capture card.
4. Not sure about software and codec to capture uncompressed or compressed/lossless

For VHS tapes, would I simply use the vcr from #2 above, or do I need additional hardware?

Thanks for your input.
Regards

You must have some sort of frame TBC. It's not optional.

VCR > TBC > catpure card

Ideal =
JVC/Panasonic VCR with line TBC > frame TBC > specific capture cards from ATI or Pinnacle

JVC with line > capture card willallow dropped frames. Frame TBC stops drops frames.

line TBC = clean the image
frame TBC = clean the signal
You need both.

What is a JVC "6+series" deck? That doesn't even sound like it has a line TBC.

VirtualDub using Huffyuv
All s-video if possible. (Some budget options have good composite.)

As always, remember: buy it, use it, resell it. Don't freak out about costs. It holds value. Get the gear to do a good job.

I challenge the OP to reevaluate whether he really needs the "best" setup. Many people come here and ask this kind of question when they really would be quite satisfied with something less than professional quality.

Of course, LordSmurf is trying to be helpful. He wants people to be happy with what they get the first time they capture so they won't have to do it again and so they won't come back to the forums to ask about the problems which were avoidable.

However, the problems solved by an overpriced TBC and rare capture devices are not usually dealbreakers for amateurs on a budget, which is most of us. And the fact is, you can still get something watchable, as long as the VCR puts out a stable-enough signal, and the capture device/software isn't too low-end.

Is it the same result as what a professional gets with TBCs and expensive gear? No, in fact the difference in image quality can be shocking. But it's still good enough for most people. We are quite often talking about a few dozen tapes of home movies, here—weddings, parties, babies, karate lessons, soccer, maybe a ghosty OTA TV broadcast—which they are watching once or twice on their laptops and phones...so how good does it really have to be?

So my answer to the OP is that his plan sounds fine, but to also consider this:

A Digital8 camera may have built-in line TBC and the ability to output a DV encoded stream with washed-out 4:1:1 color (if NTSC) and send it to your computer via a digital connection (IEEE 1394, a.k.a. FireWire). You might find the result of this is good enough. Lots of people do, especially for home movies.

Or, a secondhand Panasonic DMR-ES10 or DMR-ES15 DVD recorder is affordable and can go in between the capture device and the VCR or analog output of a camcorder. It will provide line TBC-like results, making your picture a fairly consistent rectangle, instead of wavy and leaning.

In all of these devices, you will need to play with the settings and disable some filters to get the best result, and sometimes it's a tradeoff, sacrificing one thing to improve another.

If you've read lots of things in this forum and others, you probably already know to avoid "EZcap"-type USB capture devices which are poorly made and intolerant of the unstable signals from many VCRs.

A basic workflow is VCR > TBC > capture card

That's not professional or "best" by any means. That's barebones.

Not just any VCR/TBC/card, but models known for quality. Not just visual quality, but quality of performance, including nuisance-free/problem-free experience.

That's exactly it. Do it correctly once.

TBCs are not overpriced. TBCs were always in the $1k+ range, with very few exceptions in the sub-$500 range (none of which can be bought for $500 anymore). As has always been the case: buy it, use it, resell it. These hold value. It's not something you buy and then stick in a drawer, forever eating the cost of it.

Few capture devices are rare. These aren't something you can buy by just walking into Best Buy, or ordering from Amazon, but still not rare. Right this minute, I have at least a half dozen units available in the marketplace subforum.

Yes, but when you DIY, video becomes a hobby (even if temporary). All hobbies have costs. And video is one of the cheaper hobbies, with one of the best gear resale values. The only component is time. Time to learn, to practice, to do conversion. That cannot be avoided. The irony is that the more you cheap out, the longer the process will take.

One person's "watchable" is another person unwatchable. And from my experience, most people that use "watchable" as a term do so to excuse lack of quality. It's a term that I very sparingly use, generally in a restoration context, where I made something unwatchble into something that can be tolerated (maybe even enjoyed).

Between the VCR and capture must exist some form of TBC. This is not optional.

That's another term I detest: "good enough". Again, this is generally leveraged as an excuse for lack of quality, rather than any sort of determination of actual quality. We're not talking something mild like color tint, but wiggly video with tracking errors, blown out exposures, zigzaggy deinterlace jaggies, and signal dropouts, combined with dropped frames. (See also: idiots on Youtube that use Chinese HDMI adapters to ruin their videos.)

With only 10-15 tapes, use a service. Don't waste time or funds on a low-end solution. The longterm costs will be about even.

Laptops and phone ... for now.
- 10-15 years ago, it was DVD on a 30-50" plasma/LCD
- 15-20+ years ago, VHS on a small tube CRT
- 10 more from now ... who knows. It won't be laptops and phones. Viewing habits change constantly.

D8 via Firewire is literally the source being transferred. Quality is can't be better. The only thing that can be better is the capture experience: Firewire is a PITA in 2020. So lossless capture of D8 is often preferred, especially when you get tired dealing with clip segmentation.

It must be these models, not just any DVD recorder.

An ES10/15 is a not a TBC, but more like TBC(ish), and minimally so. It's just frame sync with crippled line TBC, and there will be a fail rate on conversions. A proper TBC(ish) adds weak frame TBC using the DVK, and then you get a somewhat solid setup. However, you have downside of ES10/15, which affects image quality some. It's not transparent like an actual TBC. But this is where budget considerations come in. But take heed. An actual TBC has easier resale value, TBC(ish) can be harder at times.

Yes, when taking a budget route, shortcuts are required. Sacrifices may have to be made.

Also avoid Dazzle, HD cards like Blackmagic/Magewell, and "gamer" capture cards. Those will respond erratic.

Yes, quality suffers when recommending budget gear or talking about what's "good enough", and I sympathize with having high standards in an attempt to elevate the status quo, but IMO it's not really being helpful to redefine "basic" in such a way as to dissuade people from getting into the hobby at all unless they do it exactly your way, spending money they have already said they don't have (regardless of what might be recouped later), just to get benefits that most wouldn't even notice without side-by-side comparisons and someone pointing out to them everything they should be unhappy about.

The world is full of captures made directly from VCRs and camcorders without the benefit of TBC, with gear & software that just barely works well enough to produce something useful to people. That's the baseline. That's basic. All the things you see as intolerable problems in those videos are, to most people, just the normal aesthetics of an old format, and they truly do not care. Many will not even notice the problems fixed by TBC or caused by lesser gear until you explain and show it to them, and even then, they'll just not care anywhere near as much as you do. You might try to accept that, instead of trying to make everyone feel they are wrong and stupid cheapskates.

We can help people to make the best of limited resources, and steer them clear of the worst products and software, yet still educate & demonstrate better solutions. People will make their own decisions and decide how far above mediocrity they want to rise; some will go on to buy exactly the right devices, but many will not (myself included), yet they will be quite satisfied with their work. Instead insisting that they be dissatisfied calls into question how helpful we're really being.

So if people ask for "best" options, but they also say (as they often do) that a TBC is not an affordable option for them right now, then I, personally, respect their situation. Instead of being uncompromising and insisting on a TBC, I would rather (at most) tell them what the risks of not using a TBC are, and advise them on what less-expensive upgrades will help get them results better than baseline, which is exactly what they asked for.

Budget gear isn't the same as "good enough".

I have no issues helping folks find budget gear, but I will also inform them of the pitfalls and risks associated with it (fail rates, quality hits). Tradeoffs to be expected vs. better gear. I'm not some cheerleader: "Cheap method, cheap method, rah rah rah!" We already have enough of those bozos on Youtube. Budget gear can be, and should be, quality stuff.

"good enough" = crap (usually)

Huh? That is a technical limitation.

VCR > TBC > capture card

It's not optional. It's required. Some form of TBC must be used, otherwise the capture will utterly fail. Frames will drop, audio sync will be lost, picture quality will suffer. ES10/15 minimally qualifies as "some form of TBC", but again limitations are involved.

Nobody here is doing that.

That argument never works on me. The same person that "doesn't have the money" likely blows money on going out to eat, coffee, cigarettes, other hobbies, etc. If they're truly destitute, then I would suggest holding off with video endeavors until such time that your situation improves. I've known "broke" people that spent more money on BS monthly than I even made that month.

We're not talking minor issues here. There is a gulf in quality and technical issues when you sink below a level of acceptable workflow hardware. Lack of any TBC is pretty catastrophic to both the workability and quality of a project.

Useful is debatable.
Quality of some captures are so bad that it looks degraded even on a 5" phone screen.

Very minimal education is required to let a person know that quality can be better, and they then usually seek it. They were aware that quality sucked, and are disappointed. They're often greatful to know that their cherished videos can be had in better quality.

This is rarely the case -- especially as the audience gets older (40s,50s,etc).

That never happens. They'll know there are problem, and use whatever layman terms they can to describe it, generally wanting to know if anything can be done about it. TBC is an extremely common solution to image issues and audio sync (due to dropded frames). TBC inclusion is almost always obvious.

That's just not true.

Video has been my hobby, then profession, for almost 30 years now. What you're insisting simply is NOT accurate whatsoever. Otherwise we'd not have this topic covered in so many places, and with multiple sites dedicated to these topics. YOU may not care, but you're in a very small minority. There is a bias to taking on a DIY video project (ie, new video hobby), and that same bias skews heavily towards wanting quality. Otherwise, why do it at all? Many people are silent lurkers/readers, trying to learn what to do. Some still want to keep their cheapo capture card, but most do still seek out minimalist options like better VCRs and ES10/15 units (which retain value, 15 years later, do to sites like this one).

Definitely. :congrats:

Again, you're trying to speak for the majority, but you're not the majority.

Human nature, especially Western civilizations, have a drive to do better at everything. Better can range from actual better, to "keeping up the Joneses" (appearance of better), to mimicking the successes of others (and hope to replicate it for yourself).

With video, human eyes tell you something is wrong. The majority "of people" may be more accepting, but the majority of "video hobbyists (and pros)" are not. They want solutions.

Even a huge % of non-hobbyists (aka "the people", general populace) expect quality from the services where they send videos. This is why Legacybox reviews are so awful, being a transfer mill totally devoid of quality. Those people want quality, but do not desire making video a hobby (mostly due to the time element, followed by the learning curve).

You're confusing "insistence" with "disagreement". If you make shitty video, and like it, fine, I guess. But I'm not going to agree that it's satisfactory or a good effort -- AND I'll tell you why, how to do better, etc.

That's exactly what I do... :unsure:

This forum, and VideoHelp and Doom9, indeed attracts the quality-curious, the people willing to tinker a bit and go beyond what the average person does. Nevertheless, they may, like the OP, tell you that they have a very real limit to what they can afford. It's fine to encourage them to reconsider that limit, and it's fine to use hyperbole for emphasis, if that's what you're doing. But you seem to want people to believe that it is impossible to digitize video without a TBC.

The hobby of video digitizing includes everyone who digitizes video non-professionally. It is not limited to just those who seek better-than-average quality, or those who visit this forum. It is full of average people who do not use TBCs or TBC-ish devices. They buy a cheap or not-so-cheap capture device and follow the instruction manual, directly connecting it to their average-quality VCR, camcorder or game console. Despite your absolute assurance that this will "utterly fail" and what they "must" do, they've been successfully making digital video transfers for the last 20+ years with such setups.

I agree that many such people suspect or know that there are ways, with possibly not all that much more money & effort, that they could get better results, but absolutely everyone has to draw a line somewhere and make the best with what they have. We can help them without making them feel unwelcome in the hobby, or like it is not even an option for them to draw that line somewhere short of where we would prefer. We can tell them what can be improved without telling them that they cannot proceed until they get the gear we approve of.

That's where budget conversations start. ES10/15, DVK, non-TBC JVC, USB capture, etc.

Without a TBC, what you have is dropped frames, audio sync issues, and very obvious video issues (wiggly, tearing, dropouts, etc). Certain formats and sources can be more resilient to a lack of TBC (not VHS), with less issues, but still not without issues.

But again, most who DIY want quality DIY.

Yes, complete with butchered videos that nobody wants to watch. Youtube has lots of those.

No.

Yes.

Again, nobody here is doing that.

And again, that's where budget option discussions come from. But I'm not a cheerleader that glosses over flaws of budget gear. And the budget gear is mostly trying to use undocumented creative ways to accomplish the same as actual gear -- but it's not always successful. Those are things a person must consider. Do they want to continue to futz on the cheap? Or spring for the good gear, use it, then resell it?

Most of my expertise is with Hi8 capturing rather than VHS. Hi8 (and Video8 for that matter) are dropout-heavy formats. I would recommend a later Hi8 or D8 camera with S-Video out and a line TBC. I personally use a CCD-TRV85. A frame TBC to correct dropouts is an absolute must. An ES10/15 with its crude frame sync may do okay correcting them, but an actual frame TBC is best, and will be more transparent than an ES10/15.