VHS digitizing: MyCap vs. Pinnacle Dazzle pixel noise?

[Sebastian1983]

Hello,

I am having an issue with capturing footage from VHS tapes.

When using a MyCap device, the image was smooth and somewhat "soft" (soapy), but acceptable. I was using OBS Studio for the capture. However, it couldn't handle the top parts of the frame, resulting in green and yellow artifacts/reflections.

I decided to purchase a Pinnacle Dazzle. Using OBS Studio, the image quality actually improved—no more reflections across the screen—BUT the image is now heavily pixelated. I have attached two screenshots for comparison: the "normal" one and the pixelated one (MyCap vs. Pinnacle Dazzle).

The MyCap was set to a bitrate of 35,000 in MP4 format within OBS Studio.

Now with the Pinnacle Dazzle grabber, it's just "pixel city." I’ve tested several different programs:

OBS Studio: Tried MP4, MPG, and MKV formats with various bitrates; the pixelation remains unchanged.

Pinnacle 24 & Pinnacle Dazzle 23: These only allow for DV, MPG, or a "Custom" format. The custom option seems impossible to edit because there is no configuration button, so I assume it just defaults to standard MPG.

DV settings: This creates an AVI file, but the pixelation is still there, even though just a few minutes of footage takes up over 20 GB of space.

MPG settings: The pixelation is still present, just slightly more blurred when viewing on a PC via various players... it’s a disaster. When viewing the MPG on a TV, the image blurs slightly, making the pixelation less distracting, but it’s still visible.

Movavi: Only allows capturing in MKV with no configuration options; pixelation remains the same.

Is it possible that a 20 PLN MyCap outperforms a 300 PLN Pinnacle Dazzle? Is this some kind of driver-related circus? I have the latest K-Lite Codec Pack installed.

Does anyone have any suggestions? Please help... I have a lot of tapes waiting to be digitized.

Best regards,
(Attached: Side-by-side comparison of the same frame from MyCap and Pinnacle Dazzle)

[Aya_Rei]

Besides the obvious OBS bad, Dazzle bad.

I've used a Dazzle before just to try and capture VBI data so I know their quality is rather noisy, it's probably due to whatever sharpness setting it is using by default.

I think it's 2, with the max being 16, so try lowering it to 0.

[lordsmurf]

Welcome.

FYI, a Dazzle is not a Pinnacle.
Pinnacle bought Dazzle out 20 years ago, made no changes to the card. Then Avid bought Pinnacle, then Corel/Alludo. And in that time, no changes have ever been made. It's ancient tech, crap quality.

Pinnacle's own actual cards were either much better, or much worse. Very variable, somewhat like Hauppauge and ATI in the way. Certain actual Pinnacle cards truly are the pinnacle of analog SD VHS capturing. Still, do this day.

Never use OBS. It's a digital stream recorder, not analog videotapes capturing tool. The analog "capture" is screen recorded from within the display layers. It's not actually connecting to the card data, and that's a problem.

Pinnacle Studio is infamous terrible software, for 20+ years now.

Use VirtualDub 1.9.x, and with a better card. Not junk from Amazon/eBay.

"MyCap" sounds like a typical Easycap clone, the worst of the worst. Attach a photo of it.

The problem here is simply
- wrong software
- bad/cheap cards (noise, mush quality, off colors, driver issues, etc)

[KirVHS]

If you using dazzle, considering use AmaRec, bc with OBS when using older drivers you will get a lag for some frames in a frequency few seconds, with newer you will get constanly lower fps than it should be.

[lordsmurf]

Quote:

Originally Posted by KirVHS

If you using dazzle, considering use AmaRec, bc with OBS when using older drivers you will get a lag for some frames in a frequency few seconds, with newer you will get constanly lower fps than it should be.

The better solution is to not use a Dazzle, when possible.

The card is awful, especially when it comes to blowing out highlights and overly crushing/contrasting the darks.

Now, I do understand geographical availability, and I'm not sure what the capture card scene is like in Russia these days (where you are). You do what you must, and use the best available. But for most anywhere else, especially North America, Europe, Australia, there's no excuse for buying/using it.

[vwestlife]

Which model of "Pinnacle Dazzle"? They've used that name on dozens of devices over the past 20+ years.

Make sure it's capturing at 720x480 (or 720x576 for PAL). The pixellation may indicate it's set to something lower, like 352x240 (or 352x288 for PAL).

[lordsmurf]

Quote:

Originally Posted by vwestlife

Which model of "Pinnacle Dazzle"? They've used that name on dozens of devices over the past 20+ years.

That's actually not overly true. There are only 4 real cards out there, and all are terrible quality.

(1) Dazzle was a separate company in the 1990s, making terrible cheap MPEG-1 capture cards. I had one at the time, then returned it to Fry's.

(2) Dazzle then almost immediately jumped into making USB 1.1 cards (DVC 80/85), then USB 2.0 cards (DVC 90).

(3) Finally, Dazzle quickly jumped to USB 2.0, with the 1xx series cards. And they've never really changed since, not in 20+ years.

Right after the USB 2.0 jump is when Pinnacle bought Dazzle, to give themselves a low-end consumer product. To call these cards "Pinnacle" is almost a farce. There's never been anything Pinnacle about them. Dazzle is mostly still using the "original recipe" to make the cards.

Little jumps from DVC 100 to DVC 101 are minimal, changes in case color and chip revisions. It's all low-end stuff.

(4) There are/were some MPEG hardware USB 2.0 cards, but those are OS locked, you rarely see those anymore. There's zero reason to build a legacy system for a crap card, only for quality cards like AIW.

Equally, I'd say there only maybe 5 AIW cards. (128 Pro, 7x00, 8x00, 9x00, EOL xXXX[X])

[KirVHS]

Quote:

Originally Posted by lordsmurf

The better solution is to not use a Dazzle, when possible.

The card is awful, especially when it comes to blowing out highlights and overly crushing/contrasting the darks.

Now, I do understand geographical availability, and I'm not sure what the capture card scene is like in Russia these days (where you are). You do what you must, and use the best available. But for most anywhere else, especially North America, Europe, Australia, there's no excuse for buying/using it.

Yep, your right and i taken this dazzle dvc 100 for 1100 rubles (its around 13 dollars today) and it was a 100 rubles (1 dollar around) expensive than AVer Media Hybrid Volar M (Note this card is so crap due to Conexsant)

P.S: I hope when i buy Panasonic DMR my suffering with audio will disappear...

[vwestlife]

Quote:

Originally Posted by lordsmurf

Dazzle was a separate company in the 1990s, making terrible cheap MPEG-1 capture cards.

The first Dazzle model used the parallel port!

1997: How We Captured Video via Parallel Printer Port

Quote:

Dazzle then almost immediately jumped into making USB 1.1 cards (DVC 80/85), then USB 2.0 cards (DVC 90).

Models like the DCS 200 were able to deliver DVD-quality 720x480 MPEG2 video via USB 1.1:
USB video capture in 2002: Dazzle DCS 200

Quote:

Finally, Dazzle quickly jumped to USB 2.0, with the 1xx series cards. And they've never really changed since, not in 20+ years.

Even the DVC-1xx series are not all alike. The DVC-130 and DVC-170 have hardware MPEG2/MPEG4 compression and use the ADV7180 chip, which claims to have "Mini-TBC functionality".
ADV7180 Datasheet and Product Info

The rest of the DVC-1xx series use Philips SAA711x chips and provide uncompressed video.

[lordsmurf]

Quote:

Originally Posted by vwestlife

Models like the DCS 200 were able to deliver DVD-quality 720x480 MPEG2 video via USB 1.1:

Yeah, but the bitrates were capped, so "DVD quality" is a stretch. It was 720x480/576, but not 8Mbps, not even spiking to VBR.

I remember those cards quite well. There was a carton collector that I considered a "tech peer" at the time, with good knowledge of VCRs, TBCs, and capture cards. We'd discuss our "ideal capture cards", which sadly never existed, not even 25 years later.

Quote:

use the ADV7180 chip, which claims to have "Mini-TBC functionality".

This claims are bogus, relying on a loose definition of LLT. The "AD" in ADLLT is just Analog Devices. It often acts erratic. That's exactly why most manufacturers have disabled the function of the chip.

Quote:

The first Dazzle model used the parallel port!
1997: How We Captured Video via Parallel Printer Port

That looks to be a great video, I need some time to watch it.

I still have some cards that require Win98. Perhaps I will make a similar video someday. I did recently pull out some magazines from around 1994, that covered early ATI video tech, precursor to AIW.

[lordsmurf]

Non-Dazzle threadjack moved here:
https://www.digitalFAQ.com/forum/vid...y-vs-high.html