I just picked up a HS-HD2000U in order to digitize VHS tapes of various holidays and birthdays. I've looked at the recommended capture card list, but am wondering how current it is, and if there are any newer devices that are on par with what's currently on the list. I'm not having any luck finding a ATI TV Wonder HD 600 USB. So that leaves me with the only other affordable and available option, the Hauppauge 610 USB2 capture stick. Despite this being recommended, I can see a ton of bad reviews for it (and yes i did read the note on the post about dumb reviewers) but it makes me apprehensive. Do you guys vouch for this device still? Are there any revisions I should avoid?

Thanks, and it feels good to be a member of the forum now. :salute:

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Just got this Pinnacle Dazzle usb capture device for about $10.
The picture quality is pretty good, however the capture is choppy, as in it will hang on a frame every few seconds. I'm using the 64-bit driver and it does it in both virtualdub and OBS. Any ideas?

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After installing Pinnacle studio, the Dazzle began working in Virtualdub, but if i turn the audio on the FPS drops like the capture card cant handle it or something.

The capture preview window looks better than the uncompressed AVI that im capturing and outputting. You can notice the loss of sharpness in the WWF logo in the bottom left. also the output video seems to be more saturated or something.

One would think that what you see in the preview is what you'll get if capturing losslessly. Am i doing something wrong?

edit: tried to attach a png but it got converted to a tiny jpeg so i cant show you what im talking about. Not sure whats up with that.

vdub cannot capture properly with audio preview on, this has been like this for ages.

Which software should I use to capture? What is the workflow for VHS capturing with the equipment I have? I'd really appreciate any help. Thank you

-- merged --

Pinnacle studio for Dazzle software seems to work excellently. Aspect ratio is correct, video is crisp and clear. I've gotten to the point that my capture looks better than the one I paid walmart $75 to do, which makes me seriously happy. For some reason the Virtual dub avi's dont look nearly as sharp. while playing the tape and looking at the preview pane in vdub, it looks great. but when i capture it to avi it just doesnt look the same. its blurrier and the colors are off. I'd love to know why that is.

-- merged --

Hopefully you can see this image.
On the left is the capture of a homemade SLP recording captured over svideo with the Dazzle and Pinnacle software on Windows 10.
On the right is the Walmart digitization.

I'd say mine is a lot better.. They seem to have washed out all of the detail to give it a smooth glass look.
Their aspect ratio is off too.

-- merged --

Heres another screenshot. Mine on the left and Walmart on the right.
I am loving this Pinnacle Dazzle!

VHS capture is a legacy task. Nothing is new, likely never will be. The best capture cards were made in the 2000s. Don't confuse that to mean all 2000s capture cards are good, false assumption. Almost everything made in the 2010s and 2020s is Chinese junk cards, and HD cards that do a pitiful with SD sources.

Not suggested. Too many variables, long lived devices, lots of changes. For some, the card is "fine" (either actually fine, or just a blind user). For others, it's a problem, legit issues like aggressive AGC. Therefore, not suggested for newbies (they don't know enough to see the flaws yet), and it can be a time waster for the experienced.

It's worth $10 at most. It's a really crummy card, image is often blurry, colors can go off, the luma is often wrong (too bright, too dark). It's not as bad as an Easycap (Easycrap), but not at all a good card. Just not worst.

Yep. As mentioned, card is lossy in hardware.

It can, sometimes, some cards, right settings. But "no audio" is safer.

Never OBS.
Almost always VirtualDub.
Amarectv can work at times, but it's so finicky.

It's terrible capture software. No dropped frames reporting. Do not use.

"Walmart quality" is an oxymoron. Not hard to do better.

As mentioned, it's that card doing this. Known issue. You have some ugly crushing from the Dazzle shown here.

off-topic:

Is that WWF Smackdown! Just Bring It for PS2?

To this day, the next game a year later, WWE Smackdown! Shut Your Mouth is probably my favorite wrestling game. A pair of friends and myself would get together every Friday night after work, and play this into the wee hours. But we rarely used stock characters, we had custom characters on it, such as Superman and Johnny Bravo. I still have it, but not played in many years, hope the memory card held up. It was never fun to play alone, so our weekends ended when I moved away. Good memories. Miss those days.

I digitized my High School Graduation last night, which was recorded in SP, with Dazzle and Pinnacle software and when I checked the finished capture I noticed video stutter, mostly when the camera pans left or right. Kinda looks like the video is being slowed down too at some points. its not really noticeable until there's movement, but yeah it looks like frames were lost or something, not sure. This is really the only thing I can see wrong with the capture and I had to look pretty closely to see it. With the SLP recording of the wrestling stuff, I dont notice any stutter. Is SP more finicky to capture?

The game in the capture photos I posted is WWF Attitude on PSX. My friend and I used to let the computer play the matches while we overlaid funny commentary. We did this with other Wrestling games like Revenge and No Mercy on N64, I just have to go through these unnamed tapes to find them.

Yes, the brightness/contrast levels in the Wal-Mart transfer seem to be set better, but I think their compression or maybe a noise filter is erasing the texture in the floor. Also there's some red/green chroma banding in both captures.

Yeah, the texture of the wrestling ring, and also the floor mats outside, is completely gone on the Walmart transfer.
In my transfer you can actually see the muscle definition on Stone Cold Steve Austin :laugh:
My capture also is showing more on top and bottom of the screen, without the garbage. You can see Shawn Michaels tip of his head under the bottom rope in my capture, but not walmarts. Those lines are gone. I also have more lines on top.

Well, I felt like I was finally getting somewhere but I feel like I'm back to square one.
Capturing with vdub seems to insert frames like every 5 seconds while capturing. I don't think that's good.

This has been a frustrating experience due to all the bad advice and videos ive followed elsewhere.
The chinese hdmi cap card I was using at first was clearly awful, i could tell right away.
This Pinnacle Dazzle is leaps and bounds better than that thing, but still not good enough i guess due to the stuttering.

ive got moving boxes full to the brim with VHS tapes waiting on me to figure out wtf im doing.

There is a ton of information to take in with regards to capturing video as well as tweaking it for the best results. There is a lot of garbage info out there as well, but when it comes down to it there are very few components which are actually recommended for quality results.

If you want to go the capture card route, there are only a few recommended models, and you'll need to build an older XP type computer to use them (I may be wrong here, but the good cards I'm aware of require old computer builds).

If you don't want to or can't go that route, then the next best option is one of the good DVD recorders which will give decent results depending on how obsessed you are with quality. Tweaking is also a factor here, as you won't be able to capture losslessly for editing the recording. But if you get one of the higher quality DVD recorders, you can do some pretty decent transfers as long as you have a good VCR and a good signal.

I have a Magnavox ZV427MG9. it has HDMI out and can record to DVD-r. I have not tried recording to DVD with it, but the HDMI out looks so bad i haven't even bothered to give it a shot.

-- merged --

Just for giggles here's some caps of my buddy's and I's announce table for the WWF stuff. When I was a kid i had no manual or internet so I couldn't figure out how to remove the text overlay. To be fair it was like a two button combo you had to hit to make it disappear. Also, this was recorded on a Mitsubishi HS-710ur boombox style VCR. I had a camera that attached to the camera port and I could even do stop motion animation with it. I wish i could find a camera that works with it, because id buy another HS-710ur just to play with.

-- merged --

I'm wondering if the Dazzle will perform better running under windows 7. The stuttering I'm experiencing could be some windows 10 anomaly. The Dazzle delivers excellent color and contrast using their software as compared to a secondary monitor. I'm going to try and install windows xp or 7 somewhere and give it a shot. If there were no pauses (dropped frames?) the dazzle seems to do an exceptional job. Im sure this thing wasn't cheap when it was released and it probably just needs to be run on the correct OS. If it still drops/inserts frames, then they should have been sued before they made a dime.

Yes, when people just "chat" and do not provide evidences, i.e. real capture samples.

This is simply not true. While an old AIW card (and then Windows XP enviroment) provides excellent results, there are other possibilities, providing equivalent or better quality. Just few mention:

• USB capture devices such as IOData GV-USB2 and Hauppauge USB-Live 2 provide excellent results and work flawless with Windows 10. Same for Diamond VC500 when not affected by AGC issue.
  For the first look at captures from knowledgeable user hodgey https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXK...Xi_KguJUCQ8Psw (youtube compression degradation included), for the second here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMs...h1MmNAs7I8nu4g (youtube compression degradation included), for the third look to sanlyn captures in the forum
  
  
• usage of a specific DVD-R recorded playing the role of the capture card via its hdmi output, and then a dump of the digital stream through a USB path https://gleitz.info/forum/index.php?...en-und-andere/ ; posts from knowledgeable user Bogilein have some samples
  
  
• a SDI capture architecture, look to posts from knowledgeable user latreche34

In AviSynth postprocessing you may have good results using InpaintDelogo filter https://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=176860, although difficult to use and somehow distructive.

If it used a standard 10-pin camera connector you can still find a lot of these old video cameras floating around on the net for not too much, e.g search rca/hitachi/panasonic/etc color video camera or similar on ebay. (Some of the sony ones used a different connector which was mainly found on betamax gear). I have a nearly mint Sony HVC trinicon tube camera sitting here which is really cool but haven't gotten around to playing with it.

As noted in the video descriptions, I only used the I-O data for one of those (the diana's stigar hunting one). I tend to capture from HDMI out of a Panasonic DMR-EH57 as it's very god at stabilization/tbc and with the hdmi out rather than s-video as I avoid the extra digital->analog->digital step and get the full width frame. Not sure if that's as viable in NTSC land as most of the later panasonic dvd-recorders with HDMI released in the US were quite different and not very good, and I think many of the US dvd-recorders don't output native 480i over hdmi/component either.

On that specific video the brightness levels were very all over the place and I was a bit unsure if I the EH57 would clip blacks too much (normally not an issue but this tape had levels all over the place and possibly video content which went lower than normal) so I used the pioneer dvr-440 dvd-recorder -> io-data approach instead. The pioneer (and related sony models) isn't as robust and good at stabilizing on very bad tapes as the panasonic ones, but on good tapes like this there is hardly any difference.

Yes, I should also mention your captures for point number 2 in my list. ;)

Thanks for all your effort and for sharing your results!

Yes like I said in my original reply, "I may be wrong here" - thanks for providing some models that do work under modern setups, I will note them down.

As for decent DVD Recorders for actually recording to DVD, there are only a few really good models I know of which would be JVC DR-M10, DR-M100 (same model, M100 is updated version of M10. DR-MV100B is *not* the same and isn't recommended). JVC DR-MV1, DR-MV5 - DVD recorder sider only, VCR side isn't good. JVC DR-M30H. Toshiba RDR-XS34, RDR-XS35.

Out of the above I've only actually been able to find the JVC DR-M10 to purchase personally, not sure how often the other models pop up on used market.

IMO, there is not a single reason today to capture analog to realtime mpeg2 DVD, exept if you already own (a good) one and do not wish to purchase a capture card, and have no planning for restoration.

Really? I mean I can think of several, mainly all to do with the necessary signal chain to get a good quality capture to PC. You need either a high quality SVHS VCR w/ built in TBC, an actual TBC, or a DVD recorder to act as TBC in passthrough. All have different quality results, and all can be difficult/expensive to obtain - particularly for different people located in different areas of the world.

That's the analog source. The same apply to whatever format you capture (lossless, dv, mpeg2, ...)

As far as I've understood, all DVD recorders contain image stabilization built in but only a couple stabilize the image in passthrough. Hence, you can record to a dvd recorder using a non-TBC VCR without a TBC in the chain, and still get a stable image if the tape is decent. The same isn't true for sending a non-TBC signal to a capture device. I've seen this with my own eyes using an AIW capture card/XP to try and capture from VHS without TBC producing unstable image, but it recorded fine on dvd recorder

That's dropped frames. And it's always extremely noticeable.

If anything, SP is often more cooperative. But there are more variables than just recording mode.

Oh hey, that sounds funny. :laugh:

We'll get you sorted. You're in the right place now. :)

Almost everything was made during the XP, Vista, 7 years. But Vista is awful to work with, buggy for AV. So it's really an XP/7 world for capture. But I'd disagree on those being "old" in any way, but rather legacy. Why legacy? Because it's still in current use. "Old" would be something you trash or recycle, and never need again.

Mostly LSI based recorders, few other choice models. These are becoming as hard to find as TBCs now, however. Though less costly than TBCs. Of course, you also need a TBC for capture, be it card or DVD recorder.

That may be a fine model for recording off-air TV, but it's craptastic for videotapes.

No.

Yes and no.
With this Dazzle, probably not.
Regardless of OS, you need TBC.
Win10 issues are more with drivers, audio -- not as often dropped frames. Noting that Win10 often means SSD, and fragmented nature of SSD is not good for capturing, dropped frames happen too often.

Contrast is almost never a good thing. You want accuracy, not pumped values.

It's mostly true.
- specific models needed, not just any random card
- WinXP/7 is best, other OS fight you, bugs, problems

Evey rule has exceptions, but general rules exist due to generally being true/accurate. You just happen to know of some exceptions, as expected, since you do this seriously. As do I.

Trying to remove a logo is too often like unringing a bell. Doesn't work. It's often better to crop and move on, when possible. But that is a new filter, maybe worth trying? I see StainlessS is in that thread, always somebody good to read and listen to.

Nope. NTSC HDMI tends to screw everything up massively, for whatever dumb reason. It didn't have to be that way. Usually forced deinterlace, etc. PAL always had interesting settings, x288 interlaced always comes to mind.

Nah, not wrong. You just didn't have a list of the exceptions to the general rule. But you also have to be careful of production changes, a problem with too many cards, and certain brands (Pinnacle, Hauppauge, etc).

There are also some more. MV30,40,45,50,55. Noting those tend to be abused models. (You can't insert TBC between VCR>DVD, a problem trying to use as more than just VCR, or just DVD.) Then the HDD model 600 and 700.

You must be careful of the Toshiab, IRE can be really off. Most DVD recorders are off, 3-5 or so, but many Toshiba and especially oldest Panasonics can be like +10 total washouts.

Ehh ... maybe. I do it for my toons hobby, everything is S-VHS, often SP. No need to restore, all looks great through VCR, TBC, proc amp. I'd only suggest DVD method in certain cases like mine. We do have some other TV hobbyists on here, but I don't think they have higher end sources like I do.

Note that only certain records have that TBC(ish) quality, never the same as actual TBC, mostly certain Panasonic models. Very few others. All have caveats, quirks, quality hits, not TBCs. But budget, when a little money matters more than the quality. Better than nothing.

Not sure. On the other hand, I trust your experiment for your specific model.

Useless: only few capture devices have lineTBC correction, which is mandatory, inside, such as the Canopus NX.

Too many exceptions around! Simply, as I said, the initial statement is not true ;)

VoodooFX is the author, he showed some good results in doom9's and videohelp forum. But it is a difficult task, really source dependent.
StainlessS is a great resource for all the community!

Not even mask the head switching noise? You watch the captures only on a TV hiding the overscan then, but that's not so common nowadays

There's not really that many exceptions, If that was the case, the general rule would reflect it. Because, again, general rules (generalities) exist because generally true.

Nope. Not for this certain hobby task.

That's not correct. :no2:

All DVD recorders must contain a mere basic non-TBC frame sync. It locks input. That input can be crappy, drop frames before the frame sync.

non-TBC VCR to non-TBC DVD recorder is just a non-TBC'd mess of video. That's the norm. And why VHS conversions off DVD recorders all generally look beyond terrible, even worse than an Easycap at times. At least the Easycap cards (Easycrap) allow lossless. non-TBC'd DVD recorder video is just ruined.

The general rule is your rule; it will reflect what you think/believe. For me it is not a rule :)

I dunno, that doesn't seem to be my experience. While I'm not saying there aren't usually some issues with DVD Recorded video, its far from a beyond terrible mess of video - and I've done a lot of work with avisynth fixing all kinds of problems and am familiar with what I'm looking at.

But perhaps its because I'm only really capturing commercial VHS tapes - rare movies that were never released beyond VHS - instead of more problematic tapes.

No, not just me.

But how many recorders have you tried? And what were the trial criteria, sources, etc?
It's too easy for understanding to be skewed from minimal experiences.

Try to fix a 6-hour mode DVD. Deinterlaced, no TBC, mess. The blocks and chroma bleeding along, even SP sources, throw off the encoding to blocks. Lack of TBC, and lack of NR on the TBCs, makes unviewable DVDs more than not. Still dropped frames, not just visual flaws. DVD recorders are just integrated capture cards, and have all the same failing. Nothing special there.

Those sources have issues, but less obvious. Still not good, and quite obvious when viewed at a standard HDTV size these days (45"+). Main problem is anti-copy.

I have a JVC DR-M100, Panasonic ES-10, Magnavox ZC352MW8 (I don't use this one but have done comparison testing against the other units), and in the past I have had ES15 and several other units as well. There are obvious quality differences but I've never had problems the way I have trying to record to the AIW card w/o TBC.

Anyway I think the big differences between our experiences are probably due to usage cases - I am not trying to deal with more problematic sources as stated, and I only use 2 hour mode for anything. I guess I should keep in mind that most people are not going to be recording the kinds of tapes I am.

Anyway, my current go to recorder is the JVC DR-M100 but would using the ES10 as passthrough be good enough to use one of those 2 exceptional capture devices posted earlier? Because I'd prefer to capture losslessly for avisynth processing, but do not have an XP build to use my AIW card currently and those devices are pretty decently priced

The VCR is the most important element. If you have one of the recommended model without lineTBC you can use the ES10 in passtrough and, for instance, the GV-USB2 as capture card, not expensive and worth a try for sure. Capture to lossless (HuffYUV or similar). Post the results here once done! ;)

Is the IO-Data GV USB2 more recommended than the Hauppauge USB-Live 2? Both are priced about the same but looks like the GV USB2 is only available via sellers in Japan and would require an international order, whereas the Hauppauge is available in the US (where I am located)

They are equivalent.

Thanks, I will probably give the Hauppauge USB-Live 2 a try. If I get one and its working properly, I'll post some capture results

Then, if on Windows 10, use AmarecTV 3.10 for capturing.

Thanks!

Thanks for pointing that out - looks like you saved me some headaches trying to use VirtualDub for this device. Grabbed the v3.10 download from videohelp

I'm confused... don't you recommend the " Hauppauge 610 USB2 capture stick (aka 01341 USB Live-) ~$75" in another post...? Or has that been deprecated and not updated?

I've been looking through some of the bad & good reviews of the Hauppauge 610 Live2 and from what I can see, it looks like it may be a combination of factors resulting in bad experiences.... the main one being using the proper software to capture, but it also looks like Hauppauge may have updated to better drivers in recent years (maybe) resulting in better results for more people. Then there is the factor of inexperienced people not understanding the basics of video transfer and leaving negative reviews

But I'm wondering if there has been a lot of bad experiences from knowledgeable users, who are also using the best compatible software? Because it seems to not work very well with VirtualDub, but reportedly performs flawlessly with other programs like Amarec

The 2 more recent feedback I remember:

https://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=183936

https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/...vice-requested

The issue is that the Live2 is variable. Hauppauge too often makes internal changes, chip changes. There are valid reports, verifiable, of issues with that model. It's because the model number of reused for actually different cards. The advice from 10+ years ago no longer applies for this exact card, because it's no the same card anymore.

Some good info in that doom9 thread, thanks. Ordered the Live2 USB device, looking forward to some lossless captures finally

Would you say this to mean the older models are better or worse? In the linked doom9 thread from last month, it is posted several times by "Sharc" that he bought the card 10 years ago and is still using it without any problems.

And I'm still wondering about the verified problems - are the problems related to using Virtualdub since it seems to have issues with VDub? Also seems to be some possible issues with USB 2.0/3.0 ports, which have maybe been addressed in driver updates

No. The internal hardware is always the same, at least the video chip CX23102. I know people working with cards purchased in the last few months without issues.

On the other hand we never know what a company can do, especially video card manufacturer outsourcing everything. But this is true for almost anything.

Remember also to feed the card with a Y/C signal, because its comb filter is poor!

I use the GV-USB2 without issue with Win 10 64bit and VDub 1.9.11 (not any later versions) for capture. It is absolutely bulletproof. I prefer VDub over AmarecTV because you can use the VDub histogram to accurately set the brightness and contrast in real time, while capturing, using Graphstudio (easy to set up and use).

With AmarecTV you can use GraphStudio as well: https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/...-for-Amarec-TV (your post, in fact :))

I didn't actually "progress that to it's conclusion", Lollo. :wink2:

I find the VDub histogram easier to set up.

I've got the Hauppauge Live2 USB in now and have done the convoluted install of huffyuv2 for Windows 10 to get it to show up in available video codecs. Everything appears to be setup now. Going to try to do some captures tomorrow if I can get some free time in.... If there are any particular settings I should be aware of, would really appreciate the tip offs. Thanks

AmarecTV 3.10 Settings