Capturing Video8 from a Sharp VL-E680?
 

I have about 9 family videos stored on Video8 VHS tapes (NTSC-M) that I am trying to capture. These tapes are regular Video8 (not Hi8 or Digital8) and were recorded using a Sharp VL-E680 that I still have in my possession.

The VL-E680 does not have S-Video out, and only has a 3.5mm to component output (mono).

Recently I have tried to capture video from the E680 using a cheap 9 dollar USB capture stick which proved to be the worse quality I have ever seen. MJPEG encoded source aside, it seemed to do some shotty de-interlacing on the fly before I would even get the signal.

Finally after accepting that the quality was too bad to continue, I obtained a Pinnacle 710-USB.

I am able to capture the pixelstream in yuy422 format using virtualdub, and going frame-by-frame with VLC shows beautiful interlacing that I could never get with my cheap 9 dollar no-name capture stick.

But now I am left asking, what else am I missing?

I've been doing some research on TBCs, camcorder playback vs deck playback, etc. which has left me with some questions...

1. Is the Sharp VL-E680 the ideal playback device? Would a different camcorder fair any better or produce any higher quality?

2. Would an inline TBC like a Panasonic ES10 improve signal quality? In a short 15 second capture test, I do not see any dropped frames, or anything obviously erroneous...

3. Is there anything else I'm missing that I have yet to even think of?

I'm hoping someone can point me in the right direction, or perhaps share their workflow for this media type.

Wait, back up...
- Video8 is a format, small tapes from Sony.
- VHS is a format, large tapes from JVC (and other brands).
- There is no "Video8 VHS"

So which is it? :)

Reading through the rest of the post, I could guess this is Video8, not VHS. But you never know what people have done to the source. It may be VHS re-recorded onto Video8, I need to check. That would add an nth gen aspect to the conversation, and change parts of the conversation.

Garbage, non-starter.

Does it have line TBC? Probably not. More ideal = Hi8 deck with line TBC.

Maybe, probably, but it's not the straight forward. ES10/15 type recorders add issues too, and these are best used for net gains only. Video8 and Hi8 are drop happy formats, and ES10/15 just internally dupes/drops when needed. Line TBC only, with non-TBC frame sync.

Not that I see.
camera > TBCs > capture card

ES10/15 is not a TBC, nor TBC replacement. It's part of certain workflow, not an item to replace others. You still lack any sort of frame TBC, and odds are you'll have issues as a result. What you're doing now is walking a fine line, as that Pinnacle tends to be a tiny bit more forgiving to bad signals, but it only goes so far.

If you're capturing "bare back", no TBCs, there will be issues. You're just not seeing it yet. Yet.

My workflow =
Hi8 camera with line TBC > DataVideo/Cypress type frame TBC > quality capture card

This is probably "composite" video output, not component. Component would have three plugs, usually red blue and green. Composite is often one (typically yellow RCA) for video and one white for audio (and a red as well if stereo). Ignoring individual camcorder aging and physical condition, a Hi8 machine should provide better output quality and s-video connections a better capture.

Video8 was developed by Kodak but popularized mainly by Sony and to a lesser extent Canon. Camcorders were also marketed under the Nikon, Richo, Sharpe and other brand names. In theory Viddeo8 provided slightly higher quality than VHS but in reality the physically smaller tape negate the other advantages. Some will play most reliably in the machine used to record them.

Nine is not very many tapes. You might find it more convenient to hire it out to a reputable transfer service than to gear up and do the learning curve to DIY (unless of course you want to get into DIY, it can be an enjoyable hobby). Finding a quality transfer service can be a challenge as discussed in other threads. In the final analysis it will depend on your ultimate goal for the video transfer including end viewer expectations and distribution methods, and you budget in time and money to get it done.

You got me, I may have been using the term VHS a bit broadly. Admittedly I have only been researching this topic for about a week so far. In this case I can assure you it is Video8. :)

It's one of those things where you don't know how bad it is until you have something else to compare it to. After the first 10 minutes with the pinnacle, the garbage easycap clone is sitting on a shelf, likely to never be used again.

Is there any way to tell? I scoured the manual and tried to research this, but it seems like nothing mentions the term "TBC". All I could gather from the manual was that it is NTSC video format.

So an ES10/15 can introduce issues of their own? You mention a "line tbc" with "non-tbc frame sync". In basic terms, does that mean a Hi8 cam feeding S-Video directly to the pinnacle?

Today I learned the difference between component and composite, thanks for that. :) It's definitely composite.

I've considered it, really, I have. But my paranoia gets the better of me, and I start to question who to trust for the best quality. It's hard to see on the surface who has a good setup, and who is just using an easycap dongle off Amazon and charging for it. If I could find someone who could show me their impressive setup of converters and TBCs I would pay for their service. But the proverb sticks in my head "if you want something done right, do it yourself", and I'm a stickler for that sort of thing.