Sony SLV-SE600 VCR with DigitNow capture card works?
 

Hi, I'm new to the forum and the world of VHS capturing, so I may be asking a simple questions.

I would like to digitize 40-50 VHS tapes that were recorded between the mid '80s and early '00s. Most of them were recorded using cheap cameras (to my knowledge). I presume that all the casettes are PAL, given that they were recorded in Italy by italians.

I want to do this on the cheap, and I don't need to squeeze every bit of information out of the VHS tape. I however want to have audio and video sinchronyzed.

After some searching I found this capture card which has a ton of good reviews and some bad ones. I plan to use a Sony slv-se600 VCR because again, I want to do it on the cheap and this is what I have.

I read that the cheap capture cards often have problems with the timing signals which can lead to the audio being offset due to dropped frames and some artifacts in the video. Given that the tapes are old and were recorded with cheap cameras, is there a high possibility for these issues?

The Sony SLV-SE600 is a generic low-end consumer VHS VCR, nothing remarkable about it. Quality will be subpar.

VCR > capture card does NOT work as a workflow. Some sort of TBC is required. Preferably, an actual TBC. (Don't let TBC costs scare you: buy it, use it, resell it.) At very minimum, you must use an ES10/15. It's a TBC(ish)/TBC-like, with a crippled line TBC (which will correct the image quality here) with a basic frame sync (not framesync TBC, aka an actual TBC) that may help. There will be a fail rate, but the fail rate for VCR > capture card can be 100%. Not that a TBC(ish) has side effects, quality hits, not transparent -- but also far superior to NOT having any form of TBC whatsoever.

That capture card is a generic Chinese "grabber", and is terrible quality (unstable, washed out images, lost colors). You really want something known for quality, like the ATI 600 USB (see marketplace subforum). When your VCR is already not ideal, and you're using a TBC(ish), capture card matters even more.

Most reviews do not speak to a product, but the knowledge (or lack thereof) of the reviewer. Same for the quality of an item. Some people are satisfied with any image, even if blurry and unstable, with audio that hard to hear/understand (5 out of 5 stars!!!") A person is smart, people are stupid. Aggregated Amazon reviews mean nearly nothing, aside from how many are sold (FYI: cheap stuff sells more).

What you've read about sync, cheap cards, dropped frames, etc -- that's accurate. Heed the warnings.

Thank you for the information. Unfortunately now I can’t invest that kind of money even if I resell it later, but thank you for directing me to good products.
Just to be sure, if I get an ATI 600 USB then do I still need a TBC or an ES10/15 to get a decent quality and no sync issues? If I don’t need one, then maybe I can afford an ATI 600.

At least if you start with a good capture card you can sort out the remaining problems later, But having a crappy VCR with a crappy capture card you don't know what piece is causing what. Building a capture rig doesn't have to be overnight, take your time and get the pieces one at a time as you can afford them, Today a good capture card, next a good VCR and so on and so forth.

Thank you latreche34. At this point I think that I will be waiting another couple of years. I'm not in a hurry. I have space for the tapes so my only concern is the degradation of the tape, but I don't know if it is a valid concern or not. I'm 23 so I don't have much experience with analog media.

You would want at least an ES10/ES15 or similar Panasonic DVR for stabilization yeah (newer pioneer/sony and some toshiba dvd-recorders can also work to an extent in a pinch).

I think the Sony is probably a bit above average as far as non-SVHS consumer decks go, I actually use some similar Sonys a fair bit. It's from one of the last lineups Sony seems to have designed themselves (most newer ones are basically samsung decks) so the mechanism is sturdy and build quality is pretty good. They even have an an edit mode that turns off filtering like many SVHS decks did. One annoying bit about them though blue background when there is no tape signal, and a play symbol that can't be turned off when starting playback (though it doesn't appear when starting from pause).

Yes, there are worse VCRs. Sony can be fine. Not always, but often enough. Not without quirks and annoyances.

Sony VCR > ATI 600 USB ... that won't work. You must have some sort of TBC.

Sony VCR > ES10/15 > grabber USB card ... the VCR signal will be corrected some, hopefully, and stable enough to capture, hopefully. But then the capture card will molest it, crummy capture that looks worse than the signal it was given. But still more feasible than a no-TBC setup.

Sony VCR > ES10/15 > ATI 600 USB .... realize this is a minimalist budget setup. VCR is not great, but ES10/15 can help with that. Hopefully ES10/15 also allows it to be captured without dropped frames or audio sync issues. Cross your fingers, pray. The ATI card will faithfully capture the quality signal it was given.