Problems with AVT-8710 VHS capture
 

After advice I bought an AVT-8710 TBC to get the best out of my VHS conversions.
Panasonic NV-H 800 > AV-8710 > ADVC300 > Sony Vegas capture
----->svideo --> svideo --->IEE 1394

Started to use it for first time and very strange result – which is perplexing.
VHS tape has an opening sequence of black, then some title text, after about 10 sec , a then second title screen, followed 10sec later by gradual fade in of video.
If I play the tape .. this works fine.

When I digitized it without TBC all digitized OK, however when I digitized today with the 8710 in the path, the resulting capture has the first title screens OK, but when the second screen comes in the first stays .. so ends up with a text overlay mix.

If I look at frames individually they are correct, but when I play the DV file it’s screwed ….. weird ?
The rest of the video seems to have captured OK …
Thinking it something stupid … I cleaned video heads, and ran capture again … same thing?

Is there something I need to do here …………….. could there be interaction between 8710 & ADVC300 ? or is it something else?

For starters, I'd use WinDV for capturing, not Vegas. Leave Vegas for the editing only. Trying to capture in the NLE's ("non-linear editors" like Premiere, Vegas, Final Cut, Avid) often leads to problems. So just use the capture-only DV tool WinDV. It's freeware -- http://windv.mourek.cz/

The other issue was addressed at the other AVT-8710 TBC problems thread at http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/show...nded-2011.html

Please don't take this the wrong way .. but why would ( or should) WinDV be any better ? ........ input is the same, output is the same ... is there something special within 'WINDV' ? ....... I had presumed Sony's capture in Vegas would be equally as good.

Would be good to understand why WINDV is the better option ?

I had initially looked at this .. but a combination of the author's website advising "Development of WinDV has been stopped" and some posts advising issues with VISTA ... I just went with the built in capture.

If it has tangible benefits (and it will works on VISTA 32 bit) then I'll certainly use it.

I guess I had assumed the might of SONY, it's huge R&D resource would mean a more current product.

NLE's are bloated programs that hog the computer's resources. Vegas and Premiere love to suck up vast amounts of RAM and CPU, as well as write swap files to the hard drives, and that can interrupt the sustained data flow needed for DV capture. Interruptions can reveal themselves as errors in the video.

Don't worry about the age or development status of good software. Windows XP dev is stopped, but it's a great OS. DVD Decrypter is stopped, but works great. Age has nothing to do with quality of the program.

Ignore those forum posts for now. Try it on your computer, and see how it works. As I sometimes tell people, "your computer won't catch fire if the program decides not to work". Most all XP programs work in 32-bit Vista. The only WinDV/Vista problem posts I see online are for the x64 version.

Sony is big, but their software is not without its issues. Not to mention Sony has only owned the software for about 2-3 years now, having bought out Sonic Foundry (original developers of Vegas). If anything, it became more of a resource hog in the hands of Sony. Sound Forge is the same.

DV transfer is a 10-15 year old process. There's nothing "more current" to be had from any software. Recent versions of Vegas mostly support HD video, embedded more effects and native codec support -- little to nothing will have changed for DV support or DV import.

You also didn't quote the full reason for WinDV dev being stopped. "Development of WinDV has been stopped. DV format is getting superceded by MPEG4 HD video, so further development of WinDV makes no sense for me."

Indeed, DV is as dead as VHS.

I will give WINDV a go