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Originally Posted by BatteryNone
Hello,
I know threads like this have been discussed multiple times on numerous forums,
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Yep.
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but every time a different community takes the lead in responding, so it's more like an advertisement for one product.
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I don't follow.
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My main source of information was mainly from articles from linuxtv.org or this thread from EEVblog:
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- LinuxTV is focused on PVR, not the needs of analog tape conversion. Some useful info, most not.
- That person at that generic electronics community has zero standards. Easycap is infamous, and "Easycrap" is a deserved nickname. Same for the "grabbers". And DV is a lossy 1990s tech, never intended for analog conversion work.
So that's been your source so far.
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Here's a list of all the capture devices I have considered:
EasyCap like capture card (bought one 2 years ago, complete trash)
Digital8 camcorder with analog input (I don't know if they are available in PAL regions)
Canopus ADVC-XXX
AV to HDMI + HDMI capture card (my favourite)
ATI TV Wonder 600
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- No to Easycrap, as already mentioned above.
- Digital8 is DV, and not inteded for any sort of conversion use. Most cannot whatsoever. Use it as a camera to transfer Digital8 tapes, the end.
- ADVC is another DV box. For PAL, DV isn't terrible, about like DVD MPEG. Not great, but not as awful as NTSC.
- That HDMI adapter method is vastly destructive in multiple ways to video quality. It's a video meat grinder.
- ATI 600 USB is fine, but XP/7 required, will not work in Win10. Win10 is a terrible capture OS anyway, do not use. Be aware that the card must be complete, both OEM wires.
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From examples I've seen, I'm not very fond of firewire-based devices (Digital8 camcorder, Canopus devices) mainly because of typical DV artifacts (mainly rainbowing and interlacing).
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Correct. Not great. Ancient format, blocks and chroma/color loss, other quality-degrading issues.
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The option that seemed like the best to me was AV to HDMI + HDMI capture card, but that proved hard when searching for a good quality AV to HDMI converter. Those cheap are no good - they force upscaling and they crop the image. I've looked into retro gaming upscalers, because I heard they're good at their job, but I've read they're only good at converting video console's image and they don't have TBC.
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Correct, HDMI is a mess for analog formats, as HDMI was never made for it. Wrong tool.
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Note that I'm located in Central Europe, former Eastern Bloc, so I have no access to american devices and eBay and all of my VHS and Video8 are in PAL (576i)
I would like to know your opinion on options on the list, what would you choose and why, what have you tried, etc.
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Which country? I've successfully shipped gear to Europe many times.
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Originally Posted by hodgey
If you don't plan on digitizing commercial tapes with copy protection (most PAL tapes don't have it but e.g some disney ones do.) the best budget option IMO is using a mid range or better USB capture dongle of some sort that provides lossless passing the video a dvd recorder for stabilization.
Either a panasonic (since it's PAL nearly all panasonics dvd-recorders are usable) or a newer pioneer/sony model. The panas can blow out whites a bit without manually lowering the video level while the pioneer/sonys are a bit more prone to inserting frames on very bad input.
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This would be considered a minimally-passable setup, with issues, errors, workarounds needed. But better than nothing, which you already know.
You also need to be careful about saying "a DVD recorder" or even "most Panasonics", so as not to mislead readers. Neither line TBC nor passthrough was a general feature of DVD recorders, and was curtailed to a small number of models. Yes, most of those were Panasonics. But there were lots of Panasonic models, and most didn't have this ability, or at least a usable quality version of it.
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Originally Posted by BatteryNone
Well, I'm planning on digitizing my family's camcorder footage. I'm looking for quality, that's at least good as on my TV (Samsung Series 7 from about 2009). I'm trying to get the best quality (as anybody else) to preserve those tapes before they degrade or we don't have any functioning VCR to play them.
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VHS then? I didn't see that mentioned above. Step 1 is then to acquire the quality JVC/Panasonic PAL S-VHS VCR. Use VCRshop, and tell him digitalFAQ sent you.
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Originally Posted by themaster1
Sony rdr hxd 890 dvd recorder (hdmi out 480/576 i)+ cheap 30 $ hdmi pcie capture card work just fine for me, maybe even better than my older analog pci capture card ( terratec 250 pci)
Some cropping observed (very slight) no upscaling though
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I wouldn't suggest that at all.
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Originally Posted by latreche34
That's if he just wants a quick way to view his tapes in a digital format and save the tapes for later to get done the right way, I wouldn't take a kid in his parents basement advice as a capturing advice (No offence if it is you), HDMI and OBS should never be recommended for analog tape sources, How much that kid knows about rec.601? Probably none.
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FYI, assuming this is the same "themaster1" from Videohelp, and I think it is, then he's been a members of VH for longer (2006) than that kid has been alive. And from Europe, France, not native English speaker, not some squeaky kid that speaks so fast that he mumbles.
I don't take advice from kids. Call it ageism, or whatever you want, but it's always insanely easy to get a "deer in headlights" moment. They don't know what they don't know.
OBS kiddies/fanboys don't realize that OBS is screen recording, not capturing, from within one of the display layers. That has consequences, and is not capturing.
latreche34, I know you're also into stocks. When there are conversations about stocks worth buying, for long-term portfolio, some kiddie investor always pops in with "buy GameStop/GME" or "buy Tesla/TSLA", which is of course insane. When you state how insane it is, and point to the crazy P/E ratio, the response is "what's a P/E ratio?" Deer in headlights. Doesn't know what he doesn't know. And he'll learn it the hard way, when his "investment" deflates to nothing (and we're already seeing it now). Smart money traded it (you, me), suckers bought it to hold.
All of it is the same thought process, one that doesn't do any due diligence, no research, no vetting, no verification, nothing. That seat-of-your-pants "YOLO" mentality that doesn't care if the outcome is a nightmare. Lost videos, lost money, lost whatever. "Oh well, hahaha!" WTF?
So be careful you who listen to. They don't have your best interest in mind, and sadly not even their own.