Now using Canopus ADVC-300 to archive old N-th generation VHS
 

Just sharing my experience...

After trying a few capture cards and Panasonic DMR-ES25 as middleman TBC, I have come to conclusion that ADVC-300 worked the best for me for archiving. The VHS tapes I was going to digitize are not the best quality to begin with. Some of them were recorded from TV cable via RF in LP or EP mode. Others are 4th or 5th generation dubs. I am not planning to be editing footage. At best if I ever watch it, it's going to be full screen VLC player output to the flat screen TV. No further conversion to DVD or Blu-Ray will be done.

The capture cards I tried were Diamond One Touch Video Capture VC500 USB (Conexant chipset based), Diamond ATI Theater HD 750 USB, ATI USB 600 and Canopus ADVC-300.

Putting Panasonic DMR-ES25 as a middleman would trigger Macrovision on the older tapes for all the capture cards. So this was not an option.

When I was doing the direct capture, the strong wavy lines would appear on ATI USB 600 and VC500.

Diamond ATI Theater HD 750 USB and ADVC-300 would give more or less straighten image. ATI HD 750 gave image straighter than that from ADVC-300 plus it was lossless Huffyuv, but the image would jitter at times.

Then I figured that ADVC-300 would give me less headache, would be less time consuming and overall would be good enough. I'm sure if I had put more time, money and effort, I would have ended with better equipment and better quality transfers. But these VHS are not that important to me so as long as the original doesn't really visually differ from the digital copy, I am fine.

Disclaimer: I don't advertise ADVC-300 DV capture over ATI or Conexant Huffyuv capture. I'm just sharing my experience what I've decided to do with older not so important VHS cassettes that I will be throwing into garbage.

would you mind posting samples? would be very helpful to upload samples for comparison.

what did you mean by wavy lines?

I erased all the attempts I made with other capture cards. But I can try to replicate them later when I have time.

I think by what I meant by wavy lines called tearing. http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=161774

I'm actually most interested in the advc300s quality. Could you put up a small unconverted clip?

You want unconverted clip from N-th generation VHS cassette using VC500, ATI 600 USB and ATI 750 HD USB?

Just the 300, but if you have the others that's great too

Sorry, I misread your previous post as "I'm actually NOT interested in the advc300s quality." LOL

Ok, I'll post some in a few days.

thanks. with dv, do you find any macroblocking or is it only color that suffers compared to the other devices?

That's the thing is that so far I don't see any visible artifacts attributed to DV. If you point me out what in particular I should look for (both macroblocking and color), I would really appreciate it. The overall VHS bad quality is attributed to analog Nth generation or LP/EP mode coming from the recording from the TV.

I don't know why analog->DV continues to be debated after years of posts by pros and advanced users recommending otherwise. But, then, why listen to other users:


http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vide...html#post26594

If you "can't see a difference", suit yourself. DV is PC-only playback. If you want anything else, you'll have to re-encode from a lossy format to another lossy format.

I'm not advocating ADVC-300. As I said, for the not so important material and low quality to begin with and not intended to be re-encoded, it's ok for my needs.

When I capture higher quality and more important to me material, I store it in lossless Huffyuv. LaserDiscs is one example. Commercial VHS and personal Hi8 would be other examples.

And no, I personally don't see the difference. I'm not saying it doesn't exist. I'm saying that so far I don't know what precise artifacts I should look for. I see macroblocking for low bitrate encoded mpeg2 for example.

And by the way, 2 years ago I did post a DV vs Huffyuv image that I digitized from Hi8.

The reply by lordsmurf was Probably not the best comparison shot. It does largely appear identical, due to the source and the scene.

Now my source is much worse than the ones from Hi8. So if Hi8 images were almost identical due to source and scene, I would expect that it would be impossible to identify the visual difference between DV and Huffyuv given the source which is way worse than Hi8.

Additionally, 2 and a half years ago I did post a few screenshots from digitizing LaserDiscs using both ADVC-300 and Philips based capture card. The capture was done from VideoEssentials LaserDisc using both composite and S-Video. The LD player was Pioneer Elite LD-S2.

You've answered your own question, on more than one occasion, and you've seen what others have to say now and earlier. Nothing has changed.

I think its fair to revist some questions. Time and technology change. Many pieces of hardware are unavailible. I've also listened to plenty of advice here and on other forums and gotten some really great results and some really terrible ones. Many questions that have been answered lack detail, so someone looking to do a specific project benefits from revisiting certain questions.

There are a group of people that are in love with the devices. I personally capture uncompressed 720x486, but depending on what you need it for DV might be right.

486? What capture device are you using?

http://forums.creativecow.net/thread/8/1093119

Blackmagic Intensity Shuttle with Thunderbolt

Welcome back, Leonid! I'm surprised that the DMR-ES25 introduced false Macrovision detection on passthrough. Did you ever try VHS -> DMR-ES25 -> Intensity Shuttle via component?

He is using the advc300, I use a shuttle.

Hello... Thank you...

Yeah, I returned Blackmagic Intensity Shuttle with Thunderbolt.

I did a few captures from LaserDisc player Pioneer Elite LD-S2 composite to Panasonic DMR-ES25 component to Blackmagic Intensity Shuttle with Thunderbolt. The problem with Blackmagic Intensity Shuttle with Thunderbolt is that it drops frames without reporting it. I posted about it here. I do confirm that it is Black Magic which drops the frames and not Panasonic DMR-ES25.

When I finish old VHS transfers, I will resume LaserDisc transfers. I will buy Black Magic Intensity Extreme. Maybe this one will not drop the frames. Of course, I will be doing LaserDisc transfers to Huffyuv only.

By the way, ADVC-300 inserts extra frames here and there. Perhaps it is done to keep audio sync. But I don't care that much due to poor quality video source to begin with.

And by the way... to premiumcapture... I'm certain yours also drops the frames, you just don't know about it because you don't do parallel capture.

Mine is set to report dropped frames, you're saying it does it anyways?