Advice/suggestions regarding capture,cleanup of mid 80's home VHS
 

Hmmm,

Couldn't find an "Edit" option so I could amend my post above, so I'll just reply to it with some additional info....


I've read here that the preferred capture device would be the older ATI AIW cards. All my current machines are are AGP'less, except one. It's an older P4 (3Ghz) with 2Gb of DDR2 running Win7. I have an ATI All-in-Wonder X800XT 256MB card laying around.

Would this combo (3Ghz P4/2Gb DDR2/X800XT) make better captures than one of my other, more modern machines with the AVerMedia MTVHDDVRR (or something else recommended by this forum??):

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16815100049

Again, I have not purchased the above capture card, simply looking for one at the moment.....



LOL --> This post has an "Edit" button, but my original above does not. Odd.

Edit is limited to 1 hour after the post is made. :)

Will look this over, have some answers for you soon. Thanks.

If you have some time right now, see if you can get that ATI AIW AGP card installed on the Windows 7 box. See if the drivers for video capturing will work or not. The suggested OS for video capturing is WinXP, because Vista and 7 crapped up a lot of the multimedia functionality, making it hit-or-miss with older high-quality hardware.

Be a guinea. :)

And then use XP if the Win7 attempt fails.

You'll probably find the ATI site near-useless. Ever since AMB bought out ATI, the quality of their online support has been awful. A lot of older (AND BETTER!) files are now MIA, save for a few saved on sites here and there. For example: http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/show...onder-392.html

I'd try to use whatever came on a disc with your card, if available.

The best ATI MMC to use was 8.7, 8.8, 8.9 or 9.02 -- nothing before or after that range. Your card may be forced to use 9.x series, so stick to 9.02 if you can. ATI really just made the software worse after 9.02 (buggy, less features, etc)

I really don't know what a ATI All-in-Wonder X800XT 256MB card prefers/needs to use. I believe it's an extension of the 9800 cards (or the 2006 edition cards). Use whatever drivers you can find on a disc or online, but try to use ATI MMC 8.7 and not the "Catalyst MMC" or whatever they called that last-edition monstrosity.

Catalyst is only good on the new HD cards.

Catalyst the software that replaced MMC ... not to be confused with the Catalyst name of drivers for many years now.

Drivers were often card-model specific, while ATI MMC was not. So you can't just download any old drivers from any ATI AIW Radeon card, and expect it to work -- it's unlikely. I have the CD for the 9600XT card, if you want to try that. I can attempt to upload it, but it'll be a couple of days. Something online from ATI may be faster.

rms8, what can you tell me about that model VCR you have?
Does the PV-S7670 have a TBC?
Or any other filters similar to the NTSC AG-1980P a.k.a. FS-200 in PAL?

Update: Nevermind, found the manual at the Panasonic support site: http://service.us.panasonic.com/oper...?model=PVS7670
For convenience, I've attached the manual PDF to this post.

It appears to just be a basic VCR, almost like a consumer VHS VCR, but with added s-video and S-VHS recording/play ability.

RMS8, I've copied/pasted this from the other thread: http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/show...69.html?t=2069
Two Robs/Roberts within moments of one another. Easy mistake. This is a Q&A from your apparent pre-forum email...


Good, glad you found me and this site. Tell others about it. :)

Softness is often a VCR issue, combined with modern HD displays for TV and computer both. The video didn't "get soft". It just doesn't really degrade in that manner.

Yep. The most important part is hardware filtering, in the VCR, and between the VCR and the capture device. By the time it gets to a digital file version, many corrections are impossible, or at least very difficult to fix. Few errors require software, but many errors require hardware to do a good job.

From the PM, it appears you already know some of this, based on devices you're looking to buy or already have.

Guess it won't allow you to edit 5 minutes after you post :

"1. The administrator has specified that you can only edit messages for 5 minutes after you have posted. This limit has expired, so you must contact the administrator to make alterations on your message."

Anyway, I wanted to add that this is where I was trying to get my drivers from : http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownloa...eonaiw_xp.aspx

Yeah, I don't remember it being pricey by any stretch.

I would stick with the ATI AIW card, if that's still an option.

Where are we at right now -- what are you now doing, where are you stuck (if at all).

Those ATI cards require several things to function:

• graphics drivers
• video capture drivers (Catalyst)
• misc ATI stuff (MDAO, WME, etc), later merged into Catalyst
• and finally, the capturing program itself, ATI Multimedia Center (aka "ATI MMC")

You're always welcome to try the "Swiss knife" of ATI drivers, version 6168. It's on the same downloads page at http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/show...onder-392.html --- but I don't know if it will work with that exact card, I've never tried.

Do you not have any kind of install CD from ATI (sorry if this has been asked/answered already -- just want to cover all my bases).

Didn't mean to let this stay idle for the past week -- just now noticed that you may have been waiting for more replies. Doh!

No Problem at all. I actually took a break due to frustration.

I don't have any discs for the card, nor the Vaio since they were all acquired when building a newer PC for someone. But it's not a big deal since drivers abound on the web.

The problem I kept running into when trying to use this card was that what every program I tried to use to capture would say "No capture device found".

I tried several different drivers packages from ATI starting with older versions and progressively moving to newer ones thinking it may be that. The last version I tried was :

10-2_legacy_xp32-64_dd_ccc

I would then install the "mmc-8-7-0-0.exe" from this web site. Each time netted the same results. No capture device found.

The card says it's an "AIW 2006 AGP" w/256Mb of memory (PN 102A2250901).

I'm going to give it another shot this weekend. I'll do a fresh install (again) of XP (Win7 didn't like MMC) with a different video card (Nvidia 7600GT) and use the onboard sound. This should ensure that Device Manager is clear of any issues. It currently has two. One I assume is the capture device and the other I believe is due to the antiquated Hercules sound card. I have a Sound Blaster which I'll install once I get everything cleared up.

My hope is that once everything is greened up, I'll uninstall the Nvidia and install the AIW 2006. I'll try the 6168 drivers first and see how it goes.

I have a question:

Shouldn't the Capture device work if I simply install the driver packages (6168 or 10-2_legacy_xp32-64_dd_ccc) only? Meaning I don't install MMC yet.

Thanks for all your advice!

You need to load the graphics drivers first, then the video capture drivers, then the ATI MMC last. I think the biggest issue is getting yourself the correct drivers to work with.

I loaded the "official" ATI package and no dice. I also loaded 6168 in the order it's listed and still no dice.

I think I need to just give up on this card. I'm investing too much time to simply get the capture function to work. I've tried 6 different ATI loads from their website and nothing.

I've eve tried loading the individual graphics drivers by themselves from ATI....

SO, Does anyone have any alternatives for a suitable capture device?

What about : http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16815100049 - AVerMedia AVerTV HD DVR MTVHDDVRR

Anyone have any experience/knowledge on the above product?

.