I don't think that's the case here. At most, misguided.

But even if it were trolling -- which I don't think it is -- giving benefit of the doubt is the defense. I plan to give the feedback he wants, within the confines he has requested. In this sort of situation, if it really were an attempt to troll, all you'd do is make the troll look like an ass. But again, I don't see that here.

I have a busy night ahead of me, but I'll look at the blog more closely in a few days. :)

You’re right. I’ll chill. :cool:

I'll go with: Yes. This might have been a mistake.

You have described that you are not at all interested in the technical discussion, but rather an evaluation/review of your actual blog post about it. Having read the posts here as thoroughly as you mention, did it really not cross your mind that the first question would probably not be about your prose, but about your workflow? Especially considering that in what seems like a weird attempt at being 'fair', you include a link to a discussion that basically describes a Reddit poster's rather negative view of this forum's host?

I'm not trying to be a jerk or combative, but - how did you think this was going to go?

As for the blog post itself, the very first image is frustrating. Snow? Mushy snow? Mushy upscaled snow? Is this an advertisement for how capture can go badly?

Then your very first paragraph is also frustrating. It sounds like you are blaming VHS itself for mold problems. VHS tapes don't grow mold all by themselves, storage conditions are incredibly important - which is why they put those cute little pictures on the VHS label sheets back in the day showing the various conditions that are bad for your tapes. Not the tape's fault, just as is not Super8 film's fault if the reels were stored in a humid environment and grew cooties.

After that, it's a typical traditional blog post, itemizing places you've visited and your thoughts on them. Useful, but the overall message here seems to be "do your own research" - not what worked for you, or didn't work for you, or why - except some probably needless nose-thumbing at 'perfectionists'. There's another image that you want no comments on, which is great, because it is cropped and upscaled and indicative of not much at all, really.

Therefore to me the post amounts to "I did this thing!" and not much more, which I guess brings me right back to: you brought this to a very technical forum asking for input, but you don't want to hear about the technical parts - yeah, that might not have been the best strategy.

Again, I'm not appreciative of the hostility. It mainly makes me want to go back and warn future readers of my post that despite the informative value of this site, it is potentially a homogeneous, fragile, "large-ego'd", close-minded echo chamber. Seemingly unwelcoming to beginners. Is it illegal to have negative perception here? I obliged in the swapping of the link, even apologized, but I am not seeing much grace in turn. Makes me question how rare such aggressive culture is here... I'm sorry I wasn't explicitly clear I wasn't asking for technical feedback, but I also did not explicitly ask for it either before it was thrust upon me. And, like I said, I also attempted to place this thread in the least-technical section of the forum.

Your feelings regarding my opening paragraph also potentially paint an uncompassionate picture. My father made a mistake, everyone does. But, yes, I also DO question the viability of a medium where certain climates make it very difficult to ideally store it. Whether I blame that on VHS itself, the history leading up to it, the creators, it makes no difference, it's just a shame. But your inconsiderate, potentially callous, lack of sympathy for my father's loss says plenty on its own, I think.

Thank you for the laugh.
I think Gary was actually right about this one.
Have a terrific day.

I like people being more blunt with me. The close minded comment is a little strange since your not wanting any input about anything to do with capture.

I think you’re talking about me. If you think I was a jerk then that’s me. Not the whole group. There really not unwelcoming to beginners. The people that I know know more than me are the ones that help. I thought about sending you some links to answer your question about clipping. Then I thought he doesn’t really want the answers to any of that. He could look at post #11 and see what I’m talking about or he could look it up with the search bar but he said he’s not really interested in discussing anything about capture. Any information about his workflow is off limits and he’s fine with his video dropping or inserting frames and that’s not something he’s looking for advice on. Then I thought well I don’t really have anything to talk to him about. There’s elephants in the room you don’t want addressed and they aren’t perfectionist stuff. It’s basic things.

Anyways it’s good that you found advice here that helped you even though idk what advise you followed. A lot of people wouldn’t be happy with the drops and inserts especially if they see what it looks like once you get a good capture and edit in hybrid. It’s good to tell the whole story and tell about your dropped and inserted frames.

Here’s another video on clipping. You have to go to 5:30 https://youtu.be/KiLOTF9dN9Y?si=wX8Ga6-5khfHj4Sa. Not meaning to be hostile it’s just a very narrow thing you wanna talk about. If you’re wondering about any questions to do with capture feel free to ask someone. Good luck with your captures.

I'll still be getting back to the OP in coming days, when time permits. And apparently reading posts here, as I can only skim right now.

Some quick points:

- There should be no hostility at this site. It's not Reddit or Twitter.

- Sometimes bluntness is misread as hostility. Bluntness is often given to not allow any misunderstanding, and is without malice. So "it sucks" rather than "it's not the best quality". But it's not some sort of personal attack, but rather discussing in no uncertain terms. In general, if bluntness is marked as "I'm intentionally being blunt here" or some such, then we know the intent is helpful and good-hearted, even if rough/blunt/honest, and such comments may be allowed. (Note that "blunt" posters need to be that way in moderation. We don't need members with bad attitudes crapping on the forum.)

- To a degree, proper care of VHS tapes had a luck factor.

- Having a conversation (a review, feedback, whatever) -- free of the technicals -- will be an interesting conversation, and one I'll be happy to have with you. Perhaps this site needs more "success stories" like this. More about content, less about tech. Obviously we will point out the technical flaws, discuss how it could have been done better. And yet, a good conversation can be had by all.

Back soon. :)

I think the regrettable fact is that the vendor, who, working in the business should have known better, gave your father poor advice re his mould affected tapes. Audio and video tapes can often be expertly treated for mould contamination even after flooding, and partially or fully transferred.

Sadly it's probably a bit late now but here is the name of a well respected US business specialising in tape remediation and disaster recovery, with an impressive track record and clientele: http://www.specsbros.com/

Some people can be just mean. Instead of admitting to a customer that something like tape mould remediation is beyond their skills and equipment and refer the customer on to someone else who can deal with the mould problem that they themselves cannot, they can bluff their way through, claiming or implying that nobody can fix the problem. And so tragically the customer ditches their valuable recordings believing all is lost.

Some businesses advertise the boast that they never farm out work to another company or specialist, implying that they can do it all inhouse and at a very high level, which often is not true. A company of integrity would place in a prominent place on their website the names of other vendors and agencies who can do the specialist work that they cannot do themselves. In the end that is a win for everyone IMO.

I get busy, I get sidetracked -- mostly with family, my health, and family health. But I do always try to circle back to conversations where my input is sought. You took time to write that, then ask for feedback here. So I'll take the time to read it, and give the feedback requested. But this wasn't an urgent matter, so it's been in an open tab for these past few months, hence the delay.

What I'll do here is quote your piece, and reply in-line as I read it (again).

I don't know about suffereing. More like "VHS is Hardly Simple". It's just a task that takes time, reading, patience, and tools. In other words, not much different from anything else worth doing. The problem is that everything thinks they know everything about videotapes (or cars, or cooking, or whatever), and botch it all in the process. So you get the attitude of "Ugh, I gotta read? I gotta buy stuff? The horrors!"

That person was an idiot. No need to dress that in soft language. Moron, dumbass, clueless, a sorry excuse for a "repair shop" if ever there was one.

:laugh: :laugh: :laugh: Yes, yes, yes. Love it. I need to put that on a T-shirt.

Yep. "Blah blah, videotapes ... and now a word from our sponsor!!!" :screwy:

Furthermore, "Technology Connections" on Youtube is a complete numbnuts when it comes to video. He's proclaimed himself an expert at everything technology, but anybody that knows anything about what he covers knows that he's a fraud. He makes clickbait ********* nothing more.

He's good --- but that's because he clearly learned video from this site.

I'm humbled, thank you. :salute:

I don't really see that as necessary. For example, I never say "__ is my favorite MLB team ... but other people hate them for this reason" (with links to people saying my team sucks). That seems odd to me. Reddit especially tends to get as toxic as Twitter at times, and I generally don't link to either one of them for that reason.

Nah, that's not really complicated.

The only real complex aspect is/was the "capitalistic greed", due to devices not performing as claimed. To some degree, you have to already know about video and the devices to know when those companies were full of BS. But with VHS ingest/capture, it's almost entirely in the rearview. Many of the companies don't even exist anymore. At this late date, the 2020s, many of us (the video community) know which companies were lying, or which made great hardware/software (including freeware, not just payware). But, of course, to know the score, you'll have to read up, find those communities, connect with those people.

But then the next problem is
(1) people not verifying sources, then reading/comprehending those sources
(2) other people who say stuff, but in actuality know nothing, and should keep their yap shut, in order to not confuse the newbies --- aka all the "content creators" on Youtube.

I'm not as concerned about "convenience" (nice way of saying "lazy"), the older tech, or the importance of the memories. All of that stuff just is what it is.

That's it. Those hucksters pre-date digital.

This is excellent advice, and what I've said for many years now. -- although I do somewhat instill some sense of urgency when it comes to late 70s and early 80s tapes, because those are legit failing now en masse. Not mold, which is correctable(ish), but outright oxide shedding (total loss).

The problem here is that some people refer to basic quality as "perfection". It's too often used as an excuse to accept crap conversion work.

A true perfectionist sits in Avisynth, DaVinci, Premiere, and others, in order to tweak every pixel. That's insane -- unless I'm getting paid $$$,$$$ by a movie studio, in order to show it on a 100' movie screen.

No, what I advocate is simply clean video, as it exists on the tape. Not butchered due to cheap/garbage equipment, lazy methods, etc. Don't show me some wiggly video, distorted aspect ratio, the image overexposed, and out of sync. Too often, over the decades, people use the total BS term "VHS quality" in reference to their own poor work. That's not VHS, that's them sucking at capturing VHS.

To acquire the clean video, you need basic video tools. Not "basic" to the understanding of somebody that knows nothing about video. But rather "basic" in the video world.
That means
- TBCs in use,
- a capture card that doesn't crush/compress the signal,
- and a VCR that faithfully(ish) plays the audio/video.

That's NOT a big ask. It's not perfection in any way.

Perfection is
- the nuance between JVC and Panasonic brand S-VHS VCRs
- the nuance between DataVideo, Cypress, and other known-good TBCs
- the nuance between lossless capturing codecs, or even MPEG capturing at post-DVD bitrates

I gladly discuss nuance, but even some of the "perfectionist" topics bores me. For example, Avisynth'ing everything pixel on every frame, tweaking sharpening, upscaling, etc. It's great to have a place for those discussions, but it's not the bread-and-butter of the capture task at hand (or even the post-processing).

Yep. :congrats:

Yep, and still a lot of tape collectors out there, for this reason! Nostalgia is eternal, but "our" nostalgia will die when we do. Just imagine the younger generations that will cherish pre-AI internet searching, or perhaps even the quaintness of holding a phone to talk to somebody elsewhere in the world.

Nah, $1k is a good budget. When you're done, just resell it. That $1k investment could turn into only a few hundred lost, or break-even, or even a profit (that you can use to take your parents out for a nice steak dinner!)

- VCR is good
- XP box was probably fine.
- GV-USB2 not the best, but you can easily do worse, and maybe a half-dozen better choices

What you lack is frame TBC, and that can present in ugly ways, especially for audio sync. To use a crass analogy, not having TBCs is like barebacking with a hooker. You risk STDs, or even crotch goblins. TBCs are protection from bad things that can happen when working with videotapes. The 7500U should have a line TBC, so you did have some protection, but it wasn't 99-100%, more like 50%. You took risks, not sure if it worked (having not seen the end results).

Overall, I think you blog entry was quite good.
I laughed, I nodded, I cocked my head.
I appreciated the quality of the writing -- the use of bold, punctuation, metaphor, the thesaurus. :)

Kudos. :tiphat:

That was worth my time. :congrats:

Audiophiles are nuts, and believe in the craziest stuff. I put audiophiles in the same box with anti-vaxxers and anarchists. Hmmm.... funny how those all start with "A". :hmm:

That really distills video capture to a phrase. It's just a task, and you need proper tools.

People that whine about it are the same people who wall-mount without a stud finder (tool), then get all mad that their TV fell on the floor and smashed to pieces. They tend to be lazy, uneducated, and proud of it. They'd rather watch TikTok, or play a video game, instead of learning stuff.

Skepticism is a fine line between wisdom and stupidity. Proceed with caution.

Again, good blog, I approve. :)