I've been lurking here for the past few months extracting and absorbing all of the knowledge contained in this forum and I've decided that it was time for my first post. First of all, I'd like to say thank you to everyone on here, this forum has an incredible cache of information that I've found very helpful. With that said, I'm fairly pleased with my results and would like to share what I've learned and how I've applied this information to my project.
Goal: To preserve family memories stored on VHS tapes from the 80's and 90's and distribute them digitally to family members in a format widely compatible with modern technology.
Capturing: I'll start this section by saying that I've been accused of being a hoarder. Not gross like those TV show hoarders, but I tend to keep things forever.
The PC I'm using for my capture project is a rig I built new in 2005 but have "upgraded" a bit with additional hardware as recommended on this forum. It's a Pentium 4 (3.2 GHz) with 2 GB RAM, AIW 9000 AGP, Turtle Beach Santa Cruz sound card, Gigabit PCI NIC (more on that later), TI based FireWire card, and a 640 GB SATA HDD. It has a clean install of Windows XP Professional SP2 from an original disc that I bought new back in the day. The machine is isolated from the internet and no updates have been applied. The only "updates" I installed were the .NET framework and associated updates through the offline installers. Not sure if this is necessary yet since I'm not using MMC, but either way... I also built a NAS using TrueNAS Community that I have connected through a gigabit switch to my XP machine (hence the PCI NIC) as well as a Windows 11 rig that I use for encoding. The Windows 11 PC has dual network connections (no bridging) so I can be online, yet keep the network storage and XP machine isolated using static IPs. The file access between Win XP (capture) and Win 11 (encoding/distribution prep) through the NAS seems to work really well. Also, as a space-saving measure, all of these machines are connected via KVM switch so I can use the same monitor and input devices. I also built a backup PC (two is one, one is none) with an AIW 7500. The 7500 seems to work good, but I like the 9000 (Theater 200) better.
By way of software, I'm using
VirtualDub 1.9.11 with
HuffYUV capturing at 720x480, YUY2. Uncompressed PCM audio at 16-bit/48 kHz/stereo. I also installed the last version of VLC for Win XP to view/verify/whatever. It's not integral to my process, but it's nice to have. I also installed Scenalyzer 4.0 (Sclive) and WinDV to give me options for when I start getting serious about MiniDV. A topic for later.
VHS workflow includes a Mitsubishi HS-U748 SVHS passing through a DMR-ES15 via Acoustic Research Home Theater Pro Series S-Video cables to the AIW purple brick. Sound goes directly to the sound card line in via RCA to 1/8" adapter. I don't currently have a full frame TBC in the workflow since good ones are like hens teeth and/or insanely expensive in 2026. Luckily, I've only encountered 1 or 2 tapes that I think could benefit from it, but that's where I'm at. Maybe someday... Also, I realize that the Mitsu VCR isn't on "the list", but with little to compare it to, it seems steady, reliable and produces a surprisingly nice picture. It also plays EP tapes really well too. Like the TBCs, VCRs on "the list" are also a crapshoot these days without sacrificing a mortgage payment. However... I did score a very nice JVC HR-S9500U locally the other day for $100, but haven't had a chance to figure out how I want to incorporate it yet. To be honest, I'm a bit afraid of it since it seems to work perfectly, and I'd like to keep it that way (preventative maintenance suggestions would be appreciated!). That aside, my capture setup seems quite stable and works pretty good.
Post Processing: After strolling down memory lane while capturing, I open the newly created file in
VirtualDub and trim the ends off, as well as cut out the fuzz/blue transitions between scenes. I then resave the file (always keeping the original in-tact) using direct stream copy. Even though these files are huge, I don't care, storage is cheap. Once I have the raw trimmed AVI, I use Hybrid on my Win 11 machine for encoding to x264 (.mp4 container). Again, this is for maximum compatibility. Let me tell you what, Hybrid takes some learnin'! I started out with the "monkey see, monkey do" settings but ended up spending a goodly amount of time learning what all (more accurately "some") of those settings mean and do. Still have more learning to do, but so far what I have is working. I am currently deinterlacing with QTGMC via VapourSynth (Bob mode) on the "faster" setting, but am going to experiment with medium and slow to see if the quality increase is worth the time. Now...here's where my decisions negatively impact the final product, but I don't know what to do about it. Windows Media Player (or my TV via direct USB stick) does not natively decode the video encoded on High 4:2:2, 10-bit, i422 without installing additional CODECs, therefore, I'm encoding with x264 main profile, 4.1, 8-bit, i420 in order to achieve max compatibility (detecting a theme?). Encoding both ways and viewing them side by side in VLC, the difference in color and sharpness is obvious. Aside from the encoding issue, it's about as perfect as I could ask for. I also use the crop/resize function in Hybrid to cut off the head switching noise on the bottom and trim the left side a bit too. Then set the pixel ratio to square (1:1) and resize to 720x540. I found that I have to use the square pixel (1:1) PAR setting and not just custom (1:1) otherwise it doesn't work. This took a bit of discovery. Audio is set to AAC 160 kb/s, 48 kHz. The audio settings in Hybrid are kinda fiddly, but to reinforce the fact that all answers are contained in this forum, I found the step to "remove" the initial setting before adding the new one makes it work. After all the settings are good to go, I let 'er buck and start capturing another tape (or go to bed).
Distributing: For distribution I'm using USB 3.1 flash drives from Microcenter (luckily I have one locally). I format the drive using exFAT with 128 kB allocation unit size. This allows for lower overhead on the drive, large files, faster transfer, and compatibility with TVs that have USB ports for direct viewing. Pretty straightforward, but worth mentioning since it's part of my process.
Final thoughts: To restate my intro, this forum has an amazing amount of information. So much so, that even though I basically started out knowing nothing about this, I feel like I've produced a pretty good product. Even though the information here is a mix of "evergreen", conflicting, or difference of opinion, it's just a matter of sorting through it and experimenting to find what works best. Though I'm still learning and trying to produce the best quality I can while maintaining a cost/benefit balance, I wanted to share my experience and open myself up to feedback. I'd love to hear what you guys with years of experience have to say.
Post-final comment: I also have a bunch of Hi8 and MiniDV tapes that I'll be tackling as well. I'm still working through "perfecting" the capture/transfer of those, but plan to keep reading, experimenting, and learning to make sure I get what I want out of them too.
