Is this an acceptable capture?
 

It's hard to know if this is a decent capture or not, really have nothing to compare it to as this is my first project. This was a video from 1997. Seems to have some horizontal distortion but don't know if that's normal or not from a video this old. Have some good equipment purchased from @lordsmurf so just trying to make sure my computer or something else isn't a problem if this isn't a good capture. Thank you

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1sWj...ew?usp=sharing

Capture seems all fine to me, I would suggest to turn off the On Screen Display so that it doesn't get in the way of the footage.

Can't seem to figure out what you mean horizontal distortion, you mean tearing/flagging that happens on the top section of the screen? Don't see any of that on this sample. I have dealt with it before, but it has really only appeared on VHS tapes that were 100% second gen copies

Thank you for your response, will turn that off for sure. I was referring to some horizontal lines that looked a little "fuzzy" but I guess that is expected with older video. I have many tapes to capture so just trying to nail down a good workflow and result before diving in. Just don't know what to expect. If I have an older TV I guess I can play the tape directly to it and compare what I see to what was captured? Assuming that is the best way?

I agree the picture looks OK but is this the raw capture? It looks to have been zoomed in at some stage to make it a widescreen picture. The top and the bottom of the picture may have been cut off. If so you will probably find shots in your videos where peoples' heads or other important details have been chopped off. We always try to capture the full picture from the tape with no alterations so nothing is missed out.

Possibly it is like that on the tape in which case no problem.

Yes that was a raw capture, just bad camera work I think

I dont think you understand. I'm not talking about anything the camera operator did with the zoom control.

A home video from 1997 was likely shot in 4 (wide) by 3 (high), like the almost squarish shape of the old TV screens and many older movies. Whereas your uploaded video is wider and shorter than that.

Oh I get what your saying now but I have no idea why. This was captured right from the source tape with the output to 720x480 using the Vdub guide in the forum. What would cause that?

Are you 100% sure you don't have any cropping? I've read here that if you set cropping in VirtualDub (before capture to check histogram levels) that you must go in and remove any numbers in there to get back to uncropped 720x480 (for proper capture). I see vertical blanking at the bottom (as expected without cropping) but the top has no junk at all like it's cropped (maybe possible with a camcorder, not my specialty). The file is definitely 720x480 (used Gspot to check) so if you did crop you'd also have to add a border back to 720x480 (VirtualDub filter or Avisynth script). Seems unlikely but check anyway? Finally, get an old 4:3 TV and see how it looks there. Thanks for the mystery and a good work day distraction.

I've never messed with the cropping section, this is how it came up (attached pic). I will get an old TV and check it out, thank you for your help.

Of course a TV does some masking of it's own. But maybe that will show something, maybe not.

Turn off CALIBRATION
Turn off SUPERIMPOSE (or OVERLAY)

Overall, seems fine. But I didn't look too deep. It's not the best clip to show errors, it moves too much.

I do wonder about the audio. Remind me, what capture card is that?

Good to hear from you, this was the pinnacle 510. I'll have to find a remote control to get these settings changed, not sure I can do it without a remote

Then audio should be fine here.

(NOTE: For readers, this is a specific version of 510, not any random 510. There's a difference. This was a long-lived model with production changes over time. Essentially multiple different cards, but same model number.)

Actually the capture does look to be in 4:3, looks like when viewing it in Google Drive the file is displayed with it's default aspect ratio of 3:2, which is incorrect as the aspect ratio needs to set to 4:3 manually in this case

Here's a screencap of it displayed with an aspect ratio of 4:3. All I did was crop 8 pixels off from the left and right

Attachment 18977