Tips on Blackmagic Video Recorder USB? Dropped frames?
 

Hello everybody,

I bought a device called Blackmagic Video Recorder USB. It's an USB capture device with a simple interface. It was discontinued by Blackmagic 2 years ago.

It seems to work fine. But I have a question:

When I capture the VHS tapes, the image result is totally interlaced. There's an option called "remove fields" that makes the interlacing go away but the image becomes awfull.

Should I leave the video interlaced??? But it looks terrible to watch...

This device supports composite, s-video and component. Will it help if I plug my composite VHS into a DVD recorder that can output component, and then plug into the capture card? Or is better to plug the vHs directly on the card?

Thanks.

Wasn't this issue discussed earlier? http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vide...-recorder.html

VHS is interlaced. So is DVD. So are many formats of BluRay/AVCHD. Removing fields as a deinterlace method loses half the original resolution and results in poor motion rendering. Add the generally poor quality capture and encoding from the USB device, and you should not be surprised at the result.

Changing connections won't improve anything.

[EDIT] Looks like a codec problem.

Can you post a sample?

The thing is... I've captured a 2 hour tape with this device, and the final file is only 1:47 minutes...

And in the end, the audio is out of sync... Damn! Why is this so hard?

What does this problems mean?

Can you upload the video?

It means it's dropping LOTS of frames.

I've never heard of one behave this badly, losing about 12% of frames (:eek:).

As other member here have reported, the problem with the Blackmagic devices is that is does not report frame drops. And any capture cards that fails to report (or ignores) dropped frames is useless. It should not be used.

I bought three different versions of the Intensity Pro line and each had a different problem. My experience has been that Blackmagic sells what appear to be broadcast-grade devices at relatively cheap prices, but you get what you pay for. When my Intensity Pro worked, it was the best, but it was very hit or miss.

I recommend the link below over that:
http://www.amazon.com/Hauppauge-610-...ct_top?ie=UTF8

The included software isn't terrible but it works well with VirtualDub as well. I own the Diamond VC500 as well and would prefer the Hauppauge by a small margin, but both do what they need to.

I have found that the biggest cause of my dropped frames has been disk speed. Even with a newer computer, a slow disk will cause dropped frames no matter what.

Added here: http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vide...ti-wonder.html
If you have more input, post it there.

A full list of reason is here: http://www.digitalFAQ.com/guides/vid...ped-frames.htm

But in the case of the Blackmagic card, it just has a fatal flaw. The card is 100% unreliable. :unsure: