VHS signal to digital?

[Blueyosh]

So I'll start out by apologizing if there's a very clear answer o this somewhere that I missed but after researching and failing to find an answer for days I feel even more lost and confused than when I started.

I have a Blackmagic Decklink Studio 4K that I've been trying to figure out how to properly capture a video signal to. Everything I try has failed to give the desired result. I've been using this sample as a reference.

https://archive.org/details/cc_sample

One thing I've been trying to get to work is the line 21 closed captioning which I can see very clearly in VLC for the sample. Another thing I've noticed is VLC Media Player can turn on and off de-interlacing on the sample but is unable to in any of the things I've captured giving me the feeling I'm still doing something wrong. I've seen all sorts of conflicting information on what hardware or software will get this to work correctly but I'm at such a loss at this point.

Other information: I have been using a Sylvania DV220SL8 but also have access to a Sony SLV-D300P, I would just need to retrieve it.

I also have a lot of 8mm cassettes I need to digitize as well but I assume most of the details would be the same as VHS, only asterisk there is some are in Digital8 format and the Sony TRV-110 they were recorded on is refusing to play anything in playback mode. Camera mode does display properly in both it's output and built in screen.

All of this to say, any help that could be provided would be greatly appreciated as I've been running in circles with this for a while now. Thanks in advance!

[aramkolt]

Blackmagic products require a very stable signal, so you'll definitely need a good frame TBC, or at least a VCR with built in line TBC to be able to capture with one for most types of tape sources. Usually it's easier to avoid those altogether.

Only thing I'd really potentially recommend using them for is SDI capture if you've got a TBC that outputs SDI. At that point, it's just lightly compressing an already digital signal though.

[Blueyosh]

Well the Blackmagic is all I have outside of an old USB Dazzle device. But I'm still at a loss for what I'm doing wrong. Conflicting comments about TBC devices are also among the information I kept running into and like I said I'm very unsure on what's the best course of action. I also found a lot of conflicting information on what program to use, between Blackmagic Media Express, DaVinci Resolve, Adobe Primer, etc. Again none of the thing I've tried seemed to give me the expected result so I'm very confused on what I should be doing.

[lordsmurf]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blueyosh

All of this to say, any help that could be provided would be greatly appreciated as I've been running in circles with this for a while now. Thanks in advance!

Welcome.

Quote:

I have a Blackmagic Decklink Studio 4K

That's the entire problem. BM cards are known to have issues with SD analog signals. BM are HD cards that "also do SD", and quite poorly. No mystery to be had. You just need a better card, and done. (NOTE: If a Mac user, you'll have nothing but problems, or you'll have to trade down to DV. Mac is not, and never was, a good OS for video capture.)

Quote:

Another thing I've noticed is VLC Media Player can turn on and off de-interlacing on the sample but is unable to in any of the things I've captured

It's a terrible capture software. Excellent player, which is what it was designed for. Using VLC to capture video is like using a weedeater/trimmer to give yourself a haircut.

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Other information: I have been using a Sylvania DV220SL8 but also have access to a Sony SLV-D300P

Those are very low-end VHS VCRs, making use of the Blackmagic cards all the more hopeless.

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I also have a lot of 8mm cassettes I need to digitize as well but I assume most of the details would be the same as VHS,

Hi8 or Video8? V8 is similar to VHS (and I find it is sometimes a bit worse). Hi8 is the gold standard of analog camcorders, quality.

Quote:

only asterisk there is some are in Digital8 format and the Sony TRV-110 they were recorded on is refusing to play anything in playback mode. Camera mode does display properly in both it's output and built in screen.

V8/Hi8/D8 cameras are all relatively cheap, under $200, so just get another one. eBay is a terrible place to get most video gear, but quality 8mm cameras can still be located. Look for complete units, ideally from individuals (original owners!) and not camera resellers. The reseller units tend to be lesser quality in condition.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blueyosh

I've seen all sorts of conflicting information on what hardware or software will get this to work correctly but I'm at such a loss at this point.
...
But I'm still at a loss for what I'm doing wrong. Conflicting comments about TBC devices are also among the information I kept running into and like I said I'm very unsure on what's the best course of action.

You need to start vetting the advice you're reading. You'll quickly find that most of these people are fellow newbies, and don't really know much more than you do.

For example, I've been working with video for 30+ years (as hobby), 20+ professionally. My specialty is digital capture/ingest of consumer analog sources, and I worked for studios in the 00s/10s (until health forced me to quit).

There are a lot of "experts" online that bought random stuff from Amazon/eBay, and got a "Google degree" in video. You need to be careful of those people. They lead you astray, and your video quality/experience suffers as a result.

Quote:

Originally Posted by aramkolt

Blackmagic products require a very stable signal, so you'll definitely need a good frame TBC, or at least a VCR with built in line TBC to be able to capture with one for most types of tape sources. Usually it's easier to avoid those altogether.

Mere line TBC is rarely enough for BM cards, or any other cards. Some sort of frame sync is required, be it a non-TBC frame sync (quality loss happens), or ideally a frame TBC.

Quote:

Only thing I'd really potentially recommend using them for is SDI capture if you've got a TBC that outputs SDI. At that point, it's just lightly compressing an already digital signal though.

That advice is flawed, because SDI is just a carrier, not the determiner of signal, processing or quality.

It's also more complex -- probably too complex for somebody trying to learn basic skills of "which VCR", "which capture card", "do I need TBC", etc. SDI gear is 5K marathon (which he may never need to run), while he's still learning to walk without falling down.

[Blueyosh]

Quote:

Originally Posted by lordsmurf

That's the entire problem. BM cards are known to have issues with SD analog signals. BM are HD cards that "also do SD", and quite poorly. No mystery to be had. You just need a better card, and done. (NOTE: If a Mac user, you'll have nothing but problems, or you'll have to trade down to DV. Mac is not, and never was, a good OS for video capture.)

Win 11, not Mac. What would you recommend then or will I be able to pull much of anything out of this card? Most of my other readily available options are ether much cheaper or designed for HDMI input.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lordsmurf

It's a terrible capture software. Excellent player, which is what it was designed for. Using VLC to capture video is like using a weedeater/trimmer to give yourself a haircut.

To clarify I was using it as a reference for what a "good" capture would look like and comparing to what I've been getting out of the Blackmagic card and software. I've been toying around with Blackmagic Media Express and DaVinci Resolve to try to match the output with no luck. Is there another software I should be using instead?

Quote:

Originally Posted by lordsmurf

Those are very low-end VHS VCRs, making use of the Blackmagic cards all the more hopeless.

Was sort of afraid of that, I'll have to look to see if I have any other devices that might be better but I feel like the Sony is the nicest one that I know where to locate currently.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lordsmurf

Hi8 or Video8? V8 is similar to VHS (and I find it is sometimes a bit worse). Hi8 is the gold standard of analog camcorders, quality.
....
V8/Hi8/D8 cameras are all relatively cheap, under $200, so just get another one. eBay is a terrible place to get most video gear, but quality 8mm cameras can still be located. Look for complete units, ideally from individuals (original owners!) and not camera resellers. The reseller units tend to be lesser quality in condition.

Unclear, the only ones I know for sure are the Digital8 tapes. Everything else was recorded on various devices dating back to the 80's if I'm not mistaken.

I'll look into picking up a replacement then, hopefully I can find something functional. Is the Sony TRV-110 a decent unit? I figured it might be one to search out as the Digital8 tapes were filmed on one.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lordsmurf

You need to start vetting the advice you're reading. You'll quickly find that most of these people are fellow newbies, and don't really know much more than you do.

Which is what led me here in the first place. I can see that there's a lot of information here so I figured it'd be the best place to just ask. The level of expertise is reassuring.

[Tea Monster]

I've been doing this for about two years. I uncovered some tapes from video projects we did back in the 1980s and it fell to me to archive them. I've got a technical background, but it's in PC tech support. I know very little about video encoding technology.

I initially paid a conversion service to do the master tape of one of our productions. I was underwhelmed by the quality. It was extremely fuzzy and dark. I decided to try this myself. I bought a camera and USB encoding device off of a guy on facebook marketplace. I encoded through OBS as instructed by the Good People of YouTube*. Around that time I uncovered some clips I'd tried to encode in 2010 using a store-bought consumer capture card. The quality of this was, by comparison, amazing. That started me off lookling to find something that could do a similar job.

This was a long and bumpy road. Through trial, and a lot of error, I learned how to get better results. I had to set up machines with Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows 7 for various devices. I tried USB capture dongles, PCI cards and even game console upscalers. Nothing even approached the quality of a card I walked into Maplins and bought off the shelf in 2010. Some devices only worked with archaic software that was made for watching TV, not capturing video. Finding drivers was an adventure. I've eventually, after years of searching and dead ends, found a device that doesn't completely suck at digitising.

Back in 2000, there was a huge industry to make it possible for people to turn their VHS tapes to computer files. That time has passed and you are now scratting amongst what is left lying around in the wake of that era. VHS players are hard to find and a lot of the equipment is dead or dying. The actual VHS tapes are reaching the end of their lives. People are selling cards on Ebay without drivers or custom peripherals like cables. Misinformation is rampant. It's a complete minefield.

EDIT: * This is sarcasm. Don't use OBS!

-- merged --

This is my workflow. It's not amazing and people who really know what they are doing will probably be horrified, but this is how I do it. I haven't spent thousands on a real time base corrector or a super VHS player. My setup is extremely basic.

1. A decent VHS player. At least a 4 head. Preferably a SVHS machine. The better the quality of picture you get off the deck, the better capture you'll have. I use a Panasonic model. Beware with VHS players. I was loaned one by a friend and it was belt driven. The belt had melted through age into black sticky slime that refused to submit to most cleaning methods.

2. Time Based Corrector (TBC) - this covers a multitude of different devices which either are or are not actual TBCs. I use a Panasonic DVD recorder that I pass the signal from the VHS player through and it stabilises the picture. Some SVHS players have a TBC built into them. You can use a domestic camcorder sometimes.

3. Capture device - I used a Dazzle for ages as it worked. That the Dazzle is viewed as a baseline shows how far things have fallen. You can do so much better. The Dazzle is reliable, but that's about it. The picture quality is sub-par. I'm using a Tevion USB device, but Lord Smurf has better devices for sale with even better picture quality.

4. Capture machine - I'm using an old Dell Core 2 Duo machine with Windows XP. That is because most of the devices I use top out on driver support for that era. I use VirtualDub 1 for capture to Avi format with Lagarith compression. I've tried cards that record to MPEG and I could see compression artifacts on the recorded signal. So for me it's Avi to start with.

5. Post Processing - I take the files to my editing machine, which is a modern machine running Windows 11. It's got plenty of RAM and a decent processor for churning through digital manipulation and encoding. I use AviSynth and VirtualDub 2 to process the video with QTGMC to de-interlace the video and double the frame rate. You can use something simpler like Yadif directly in VirtualDub as AviSynth/QTGMC is complicated if you aren't technical. QTGMC gives me a much better picture. You can also use colour correction and warp sharpening at this point to tweak your picture as required. My Tevion card tends to record a dark picture so I deliberately tweak the gamma to lighten the image. There are a multitude of filters available in VirtualDub.

It is also possible at this stage of the game to use AviSynth and VirtualDub to fix problems with your footage. That is a whole different area of expertise and way out of my wheelhouse. I managed to coral a wayward chroma signal that was trying to escape stage left.

6. Delivery - I use Blender for editing video, but you can use whatever you are most comfortable with. Resolve is free and very capable. At this point I do final colour tweaks, edit out glitches and do some sound processing. Audacity is great for upgrading sound and is free. I output from Blender as a high quality MP4 which is great for phones, PCs, etc. etc

[Blueyosh]

Ok so after reading a lot more and fighting with the equipment I have, I'm trying to figure out if what understood things as was correct--

Using Virtualdub record to HuffYUV format
Input that into Avidemux to convert it to an MPEG format (Unclear on which? Have been trying with MPEG-4 ASP)

Is that even remotely correct? Also Avidemux and VLC have no idea what to do with the HuffYUV codec for some reason I'm unsure if that's something I'm doing wrong or not.

I still feel like I'm doing everything wrong and really feel like I'm flying blind. Sorry for the trouble, I just feel very lost.

[vwestlife]

On the Handycam, did you try using a head cleaning tape? Also try manually switching it into analog Video8 / Hi8 mode, rather than having it auto-switch between Digital8 and analog mode. Sometimes if there is a gap between recordings it'll switch to digital mode, and then take a few seconds to switch back to analog when the next recording begins, causing you to miss a bit of the footage.

[Gary34]

Quote:

One thing I've been trying to get to work is the line 21 closed captioning

Why worry about closed captions right now? This link might will help with information about closed captions.
https://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vid...zle-model.html

Quote:

I use AviSynth and VirtualDub 2 to process the video with QTGMC to de-interlace the video and double the frame rate. You can use something simpler like Yadif directly in VirtualDub as AviSynth/QTGMC is complicated if you aren't technical.

Selur’s Hybrid is a lot easier. You can save a Wave audio file in Vdub then edit the uncompressed Wave in Audacity and plug that into Hybrid. Hybrid has all of the popular scripts and it’s a lot easier than manual scripting in Vdub2 or Pmod using Avisynth. If you just make sure and have a dedicated SSD for scratch files then the preview is pretty responsive too. It’s great software especially for free. It’s free but I’m sure Selur appreciates donations for all of his hard work.

Quote:

Using Virtualdub record to HuffYUV format
Input that into Avidemux to convert it to an MPEG format (Unclear on which? Have been trying with MPEG-4 ASP)

https://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vid...vs-hybrid.html

Quote:

I have a Blackmagic Decklink Studio 4K

Sell it on eBay and get a Pinnacle. I’ve been there done that. I wouldn’t buy a pinnacle off of eBay either because there are different generations and the chances of getting the right generation of that card in eBay are about 1 in 4. I bought one off of eBay then the marketplace here. The Pinnacle cards will capture in Windows 10 and 11. They are really good cards.

Here’s the easiest way to get the original Huffy installed
https://github.com/hofmand/video-codec-installers

[aramkolt]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gary34

Sell it on eBay and get a Pinnacle. I’ve been there done that. I wouldn’t buy a pinnacle off of eBay either because there are different generations and the chances of getting the right generation of that card in eBay are about 1 in 4. I bought one off of eBay then the marketplace here. The Pinnacle cards will capture in Windows 10 and 11. They are really good cards.

Was your ebay one bad? I'm not sure I've seen a comparison of how a "bad" one captures vs a "good" one.

[lordsmurf]

Quote:

Originally Posted by aramkolt

Was your ebay one bad? I'm not sure I've seen a comparison of how a "bad" one captures vs a "good" one.

Primarily:
- noise patterning
- various usability issues, distinct from user/PEBKAC errors

Pinnacle cards (THESE ARE NOT DAZZLES!) were made to function with Pinnacle Studio, one of the worst capture softwares ever created. For that reason, lots of Pinnacle card issues were apparently overlooked due to all the Pinnacle Studio issues covering them up.

Finding a good unit among the bad units is not easy. And that's expected when you have a long-lived card that was produced for at least a decade, where it saw multiple production changes in that time.

Sometimes, even after cracking open a unit, nothing visually gives cues on quality. Thorough testing is required.

This also explains why reviews on these cards vary so much. Most of the "reviewers" are completely unaware of facts -- especially the Youtube "experts"

It's a great card, one of the best, which is why I seek and refurb them for our users. There's a reason I only have 2-3 max at any given time. (Refurb on this unit is generally full dismantle, thorough cleaning inside and out, some board checks, new USB cable, and the burn-in testing. Not much to it, but it does take several hours per card.)

And my pricing isn't really too different from the original card MSRP, ~$175 range. Totally worth it for most. This is something I'd buy, if I wasn't the one doing it.

Way better user experience than any Blackmagic card.

[Gary34]

Quote:

Was your ebay one bad? I'm not sure I've seen a comparison of how a "bad" one captures vs a "good" one.

I have no clue. I ordered a boxed Pinnacle 710 from eBay. With mine I wanted to do a clean install of windows 10 and get everything off of that PC for Selur’s Hybrid. Hybrid did work a lot better once the clean install was done. After that my Pinnacle wouldn’t work on my Windows 10 computer so I got a windows 7 computer. It wouldn’t work on my windows 7 computer also. Then I ordered a Pinnacle 510 from LS and I had some trouble with it but then I used the Pinnacle studio install cd software that came with my boxed eBay 710 on my windows 7 computer and both cards connected to that software but then once I got them to connect to Pinnacle studio software both cards would connect to crossbar again and I could use them in Virtualdub.

The thing for me was with the one I ordered one off of eBay It was always an unknown variable in trouble shooting. If I had trouble with something I thought okay it’s the card. The money goes to the site anyways and the card is worth the price. It’s hard to really judge if you have a good card when that’s the only good card you have had.

Some of the wrong cards will marry Pinnacle studios software and won’t work with anything else. There are other people that buy one off of eBay when the marketplace on this site. It’s better just to skip the hassle and buy from here.

I did compare both cards once I got them both working but the comparison doesn’t matter because I might have two good cards or I might not. I don’t care now I just use the 510.

Regardless when people buy that card randomly off of eBay a lot of them run into issues and you are on your own once you do that. It’s not worth the trouble in my opinion.

[Tea Monster]

I bought a Pinnacle 500 PCI off of eBay. Here are some comparison pics with a Tevion 2800D and a Dazzle 101.
I found the Pinnacle 500 produced a good picture. It probably could be sharper and the colour was boosted a bit. It's much better than a dazzle though.
Captured on Windows XP in VirtualDub 1.9

Can I ask a question? Which Tevion is a copy of the "Magic Wand" ATI device? There are at least 3 or 4 on eBay.

[lordsmurf]

Those old PCI Pinnacles are lousy. Those are based on BT8x8 chipsets, which are notorious. BT8x8 was essentially the PCI version of the Easycaps. Or the "PCI Easycap" of the 00s.

BT8x8 PCI cards are ubiquitous, released by so many different brands. Aver was the worst of the worst.

In the 00s, when anybody asked a question on BT8x8, the advice was always to get a better card (usually AIW).

[Tea Monster]

Not just picture issues. I had one Philips BT878 card that would skip every seventh frame. Probably a driver issue. There is a "You just need this one generic driver for whatever BT8X8 card" attitude on the web which can lead to all sorts of problems and might be part of the issue with these cards now.

[lordsmurf]

BT8x8 cards were very generic on drivers, not too different from eMPIA USB. Most 3rd-party drivers were just software rebadged generics.

[dpalomaki]

Quote:

I had one Philips BT878 card that would skip every seventh frame.

Almost sounds like a poor mans conversion of NTSC to PAL; dropping every 7th frame of 30 FPS nets 25.7 FPS