VCR capturing: PAL/NTSC, SD, DV?
 

I do abit of research there here, notice there isnt much device out there in the market for vcr capture.

I manage to find Grass Valley ADVC 110 at a very cheap deal but I don't have a FireWire port
(but I know can get the pcie card, but again this device is more on Pal?)

BUT my vhs tape is combine of NTSC & PAL version although my VCR player can play both.

I think of getting Hauppauge USB Live 2 although i personally prefer PCI-e.

1. In term of capture Card DV or SD, I not sure which is good also. Are both of them turn out to be same? As in quality?
2. Some1 mention abt whether USB-Live2 supports PAL60? What is that?
3. Will Hauppauge ImpactVCB-e PCI Express Video Capture Card work too?

It depends. What operating system are you using? There are about a dozen capture cards, new and used, recommended for XP. For Vista/Win7 you have about 3 or 4 choices worth pursuing. For Win10 you're down to two that are, well, OK.

It's good that you don't have a Firewire port and that you didn't get the Grass Valley. Pro's in analog digitization don't recommend DV cards for capturing analog sources. Pro's and advanced users don't do it that way, so neither do most members here. This forum and others advise against analog tape to DV. Besides, among Canopus cards the ADVC 110 is their worst.

The Hauppauge works with NTSC and PAL. It's on our recommended list. Why do you prefer PCIe? Wouldn't you prefer a current product that we know gives good performance for analog to PC capture? We recommend three PCI (not PCIe) capture cards: ATI TV Wonder HD 600 PCI capture card, Diamond ATI TV Wonder HD 600 PCI capture card, Diamond ATI TV Wonder HD 650 PCI capture card. Note: we do not recommend the USB version of those last three cards.

If you don't want PCI, get the Hauppauge USB Live 2 or the ATI TV Wonder HD 600 USB2 capture stick. There's no problem with capturing via USB 2.

Analog captured to DV sucks. I guess you know that "DV" and "SD" are both standard definition, right? VHS is usually captured to a PC using lossless compression in 720x576 (PAL) or 720x480 (NTSC) frames. This frame size is suitable for later encoding as DVD, BluRay, and AVCHD formats, or generic containers like mkv, MP4, etc.

Is PAL60 the way your PAL/NTSC VCR ouputs NTSC video? You haven't told us what VCR you use. But PAL60 is usually associated with game consoles, among other things. Frankly, I don't think it affects you. Google can help you find out, Try these: http://www.answers.com/Q/What_is_pal_60, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PAL#Mu...d_.22PAL_60.22 .

You want to pay for videoconferencing features? How often will you be conferencing? If you just want to capture analog video for digital conversion, any card mentioned above will do it correctly.

You didn't mention what you want for final digital output format. Have you seen the recent posts dealing with this subject? This one was posted during the past day or two: http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vide...irtualdub.html. Several other VHS capture posts and problem discussions about various methods and media have appeared during the past few days.

Have you seen the forum's capture and restoration guide? http://www.digitalfaq.com/guides/video.htm. There are other threads with updates to those guides.

Thanks for reply

MY current OS is Win 10 (if i had to downgrade to Win7), no choice i had to do it..
I using "normal" LG V9722W (VCR+DVD Combo player), it very hard to get 1 VCR player in my country (Singapore).
The reason i getting is Pci-e is, i tot it look more stable than USB?

But i think i will get Hauppauge USB Live 2
I wanted to capture into lossless encoding format (.avi) -> Edit using adobe premise pro -> MPEG-2 (.ts?) or H.264 (.mp4?) (which is the best?).

wonder my steps is correct?

Whether or not a PCIe or USB capture device is more "stable" than the other, USB 2.0 for analog to PC capture is perfectly adequate using capture apps like VirtualDub. In your case, playback stability problems will begin with your DVD/VCR combo and the fact that you don't a line-level tbc or a frame-level tbc. Unfortunately a combo unit is far from an optimal tape player. But if that's all you have available, I think you'll have to resign yourself to some rather poor quality captures. I would advise that you don't discard your most valued tapes. Once you see the results of poor playback from your combo unit to your captured files, you might realize that you'll want to get better hardware later. Regardless of the capture card used, none can correct for poor playback hardware.

I don't know what you mean by "edit", but Premiere Pro is very good for cut-and-join, adding transition effects, audio, titles, etc., has very advanced color controls, and has at least tolerable encoding. For denoising or other restoration and video repair work, it's practically useless. But I suspect that repair and restoration aren't on your agenda. I suspect you;ll have great difficulty with Premiere Pro and most of the lossless codecs, such as huffyuv. Probably the Lagarith lossless codec is best suited for your lossless captures.

From a lossless capture, which is also used for archiving, you can encode to any final format you want. DVD can be played anywhere. BluRay, AVCHD, mp4 or anything encoded with h.264 cannot be used with DVD-only players -- they require a BluRay player or external player that can recognize h.264 encoding. ".ts" elementary files and mp4 can't be used for formal BluRay or AVCHD authoring. Not all set top players will play video as a ".ts" container file.

Don;t be tempted to try to upscale your captures to HD frame sizes. You will be terrifically disappointed with the results. You can't make decent high-definition video from low-resolution sources. Let your media player or Tv do the hardware upscaling for you, which looks better.

You might want to consider a different path altogether. You can record your tapes to very high bitrate DVD (MPEG) from your combo's tape output to an external DVD recorder. If so, you might at least have a chance that the VCR-to-DVD recorder circuitry has some level of time base control. That alone would greatly improve your images. High bitrate MPEG can be copied to a computer and edited with smart-rendering editors.

Thank you for giving more details about your equipment and software.

ahha thanks.

ya not possible to get gd vcr at the moment but if it is available i re-capture again.
Mainly as for now, just to backup first 'in case' the vhs tape really die off.

I dont hav much vhs tape left, only few. OF COURSE, not to discard my most valued tapes!!

I do have another HDD DVD recorder but some ppl dont recommend it ?
But the DVD recorder wont able to set any bitrate as i tot is default setting??

Do u mean i use the VCR -> Record into HDD DVD recorder -> play it using HDD DVD recorder -> Capture it? I dont think i can copy the MPEG a computer in the DVD recorder

How do i know which VCR contain TBC?

Is usually in the Recorder description.
Older users have the whole VCR / Betamax / Video2000 / VHS time participated
and since bought divere Recorder.
Experience can not be bought

buy, repair + Maintain service recorder / Feeder.
After 2 years, you have 40 to 50 recorders and know communication
The 100 USD recorder to major broadcast cost 10'000 USD and more.

The whole thing is a year-long process.

What I do not understand ... why so many user want to digitize their films from analogue tapes himself, that gives you the pros.
The restoration then with Avisynth are still plenty of work.

Holy hell! Here I thought I was crazy, playing around with ~20 models.

And yeah, buying the equipment if you only have a "few" tapes is dumb. Especially when you don't know how to use it properly, without an additional time investment.

Find a good transfer service in Singapore. Isn't that a techy place? There must be some videophile-grade business around.

Yes, crazy is sometimes very helpful.....:D
Is 2 years course completely understated.

i dont think is there is a good transfer service here
but i doubt they will do a good job as they may just purely convert from VHS -> DVD , which anyone can do it as long u had a vcr and a dvd recorder which is not what i want.....

if want raw file, i had to diy :P

Why not? He can buy it, transfer and sell it. That's what I did in the past...

any idea where i can get the solution / liquid to clean vhs tape itself??

i had the machine to clean but it is a dry cleaner

http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/imag.../XM4IJKo-1.jpg

Beside this..
i like to ask
Here is one of vhs tht i record last time.. (many many year ago.. using old pci)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArSUzbtQDVs
U see 1:01 onward tht top side.. there was a distorted graphic, isit because no TBC? or my tape is spoilt?

Because of no line TBC. The top is not the main problem. The entire image is wavy/bent.

You don't want to be physically cleaning your tapes unless there's actually a substance like mold on them. And doing that properly is an involved process, from what I hear. Not for the novice.

The "cleaner" portion of that rewinder is a scam, basically. There is no possible way for physical tape damage to cause "blurring" of a picture like the box claims.

hahah i see.. i tot tht is NORMAL i mean the wavy / bent in vcr.. as some part have, some part dont have
hard to find a vrc with tbc in my country :/

Do this so call "tbc" works?
http://www.unterzuber.com/TBC.html

Not "normal", as iot indicates bad line timing errors as well as poor VCR alignment. It is "normal" only in the way that the signal was interpreted by the capture equipment as having many playback errors.

Do this so call "tbc" works?
http://www.unterzuber.com/TBC.html[/quote]That's difficult to say how well it works because the examples shown in that article appear to be fairly clean tapes with minor, typical problems. The tbc you refer to is a pro shop unit that would cost well over 1200 dollars SGD. At that price you could buy better players and capture gear from anywhere in the world and still be able to pay for international shipping.

I see on the internet that there are VHS transfer services in Singapore, but the 5 that I checked seem to capture only to lossy MPG or h.264. That would work, of course, but it would be an obstacle to any further restoration or cleanup that you might want to do. For simple cut and join edits you would need smart-rendering software. For better cleanup you could decode the lossy transfers (if they are encoded at high bitrates) to lossless media and use Avisynth or VirtualDub to do some cleanup, then encode to the final format of your choice. That's the long way of going about it, but if you can find decent transfer prices you would at least have workable digital versions of your tapes. You might consider trying one old tape to see how the services handle it.

Digitalfaq's services can make proper, professional lossless digital captures. But of course they're in the U.S.

Saw few post say that some DVD recorder have tbc... Maybe I should try that better? At the same time maybe can replace my old Phillip dvdr3750h

Good DVD recorders are difficult to find these days. But Panasonic makes decent DVD/BluRay recorders -- I don't know Singapore's policy toward those products.

Almost all DVD recorders have a minimal tbc that works during record. But they vary in quality and power. Newer recorders have weak tbc's. A few older DVD recorders can be used as a pass-thru device for tbc. Note that very few DVDR's can be used as pass-thru. Pass-thru means connecting the VCR to the DVDR's input, then connecting the DVDR's output directly to a capture device. In other words, the video is "played through" the DVDR. not recorded to it.

Below are links to 2 video samples about scanline errors. A VHS tape was captured with a non-tbc VCR, then captured again with the same VCR but using a DVDR as a pass-thru tbc.

- A1_Sample2_bad.mpg is the original rape played without tbc pass-thru. The lossless capture was later encoded to MPEG, with frame size slightly reduced so that TV overscan wouldn't hide some of the problems. The tape shows top-border flagging (skewing and bending), frame hopping, and other disturbances due to bad line timing within frames and poor frame-sync.
http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/atta...sample2_badmpg

- B1_Sample2_fix.mpg is the tape played with a line tbc pass-thru device (an old Toshiba R-D2 made in 2003). The "fixed" sample shown is a first-stage test repair with only mild, basic denoising. It was captured again later with a better VCR and stronger DMR-ES15 pass-thru but I didn't make a new demo before returning tapes and the converted DVD to the owner.
http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/atta...sample2_fixmpg

These examples were last posted in this forum 10 days ago.

The two legacy DVDRs that are recommended for tbc pass-thru are Panasonic DMR-ES10 and DMR-ES15. Here is a long discussion about using a DVDR for pass-thru: http://forum.videohelp.com/threads/3...hat-do-you-use.

I try to find this in Singapore.. Lol

DVD recorder is getting lesser here too..

Do you mean DVDR3570H? Try it.

The Philips DVDR3475/3575/3576 do perform passthrough line TBC. Unfortunately they suffer from the Funai Flicker if the source is "overly-bright", necessitating a separate hardware proc amp.

dvdr3750h not 3570

I can't find anything that indicates that model exists (all the Google results are random websites or forum posts that could easily be typos; no manuals or any listings on Philips' sites). Regardless, try it. Post a sample here if you can't tell whether it's working.

Sure. When I got my capture USB.. I haven't receive it yet. Will post the diff

I have the 3575, and have never seen it. :unsure:

I tested it thoroughly in 2007/2008. It's only good for recording.

Here are samples from a multi-generation VHS. Davideck and Mini-Me have talked about these machines on VH, which is why I bought one. Are we all imagining things? :)

Attachment 6190
Attachment 6191

my video dont look tht bad actually :unsure::unsure:

-- merged --

after long waiting... finally i got the USB-Live 2

is VirtualDub the only app to cap avi?

iuVCR dont look gd as i cant see any preview :(

I don't use iuVCR, but it's true that all capture software editions can't see every capture device in the world. VirtualDub capture works with the USB-Live2, assuming you have installed the Live-2's capture drivers. VirtualDub is used to capture analog source to lossless AVI using lossless compressors such as huffyuv, Lagarith, or UT Video Codec.

About 15 years ago, a few BT8x8 cards hated VirtualDub, and worked better in iuVCR. But I've never liked it, and would rather just pick a better capture card. That said, sanlyn seems to confirm that your card works with VirtualDub, so why bother with iuVCR?

Yes, I made a guide for it many moons ago. But I never liked it. (I guess I need to update that guide as well.)

i manage to setup VirtualDub
so now i try to cap using Huffyuv
i did not set any filter

this is play out by VCR itself using RCA..
later i will set and passby my dvd recorder player see if there is any improvement


1. any idea why the colour is like tht?
this is a KTV music video btw
https://youtu.be/zFQB-spBorU

2. Do i need to use S-Video -> USB Live2? or RCA? if i connect to DVD recorder out?

Use s-video out from the DVD recorder.

Can't offer any details from YouTube videos, especially if the site won't download properly. YouTube re-processes and re-encodes everything. How was the video played? How was it captured in VirtualDub (frame size, compressor)? Is the source PAL or NTSC? In the VirtualDub capture window's "Device" menu, what are the capture drivers that are listed, and which driver did you use?

ehhhhhhhhh ok than i upload the file

Source ehhhh i live in singapore... actually our vcr can support both PAL or NTSC :D
VCR, DVD could be PAL while the tape is from Taiwan so could be NTSC?

I dont have S-Video cable so i use RCA (to what i understand S-Video is had better graphic, i will get it ASAP), so let set this aside.
the dvd giving better colour and graphc but i think i need a DVD recorder with TBC?
but my VCR give lousy colour and image but dont have any wave

Below are 30sec video from same part
DVD is Phillips DVD Recorder DVDR3570H
VCR is LG V9722W\
frame size 25

vcr (huffyuv64)
https://mega.nz/#!0YR2hSZZ!ZMFqv4bV7...JIrojHca7aIq04

vcr -(Lagarith)
https://mega.nz/#!4U5BkS5S!-orq01D0W...oI8TAGMFGj5kIk

VCR -> DVD using huffyuv64
https://mega.nz/#!dFQQhBJb!q2PV1Gnae...XXSSKU9QcQiHmg

VCR -> DVD using Lagarith
https://mega.nz/#!4NxxXCzJ!A4YQVjw9-...B50XzKC5fkV0SI

Most of those player types output quasi-PAL or quasi-NTSC for use with TV. They don't work properly with capture devices.

If the tape runs at 25fps, it can't be NTSC.

Yes. If your recorder has a tbc, it isn't doing anything. The DVD pass-thru images are badly distorted.

The VCR's playback format problem was mentioned above. The "vcr" version has ragged edges and some distortion near borders.

25 is not a frame size. PAL video is 720x576. You cannot capture PAL to 720x480. You cannot capture NTSC at 25fps.

64-bit huffyuv? If you're using 64-bit VirtualDub and 64-bit Avisynth, you're going to be very disappointed when you see that less than a dozen or so 64-bit filters are available, but over 400 filters are available in 32-bit. Use 32-bit.

my setup was 720 X 480

if i use 576, there is a green screen...

most of the setting is default.. the only thing i change the 720 X 480

There are some EXTRA screen which is not on tv but on Virtualdub

Thank you for chunks of the originals. :)

Your tape player is not a true PAL/NTSC bi-player. It doesn't output "real" NTSC. Your TV can play its output because the TV is one of many European TV's that have PAL-60 interpreters. But your capture device is not a TV tuner that accepts PAL-60. As far as I know there aren't any consumer or prosumer capture devices that accept PAL-60 properly.

Earlier I was under the impression that you were working with PAL sources and capturing for PAL digital formats. Now your statements are confusing. Are you trying to capture PAL to make NTSC digital video, or are you playing NTSC tapes to create PAL digital videos? In any event, you are using the wrong player for whatever it is you're trying to do.
-- If you're trying to go from PAL to NTSC, you must play PAL as PAL, capture as lossless PAL avi media, and restore to other desired formats during post-capture processing and encoding. The best tools for PAL to NTSC conversion are Avisynth and any good encoder.
-- If you're trying to capture NTSC using PAL-60 instead of true NTSC output, it won't work.
-- If you're trying to capture NTSC to PAL, that won't work either.

[EDIT]

Another oddity I noticed with the samples is that they are progressive video with periods of 2 duplicate frames, interspersed with 3 or 4 duplicate frames. The duplication pattern tells me that the original movie was created on film and telecined for tape or tv playback, but the tape is being output (or is being captured) as decoded progressive video. Usually, telecined tape whether NTSC or PAL is played and captured with hard-telecined frames intact and appearing as interlaced frames in editor windows.

If you are playing an NTSC tape via PAL-60 it should at least be attempted to capture as 720x480 @ 29.97 fps, not 25fps. Why Virtualdub capture is defaulting to 25fps for PAL-60 is something I don't understand. PAL-60 from NTSC outputs 59.94 interlaced fields per second, not 25 or 29.97 progressive frames per second. You can try setting the frame rate in VirtualDub to 29.97 fps. But that in itself probably won't change the fact that the source is being captured as progressive, with duplicate frames as well as dropped frames.

i think the device only capture using PAL.
I did try to use the Hauppauge Capture and it cap using PAL, if i change to NTSC it dont give good graphic.

I will set it 720x480 @ 29.97 fps and try.. i manage to get a set of dvd recorder with tbc next week, hopefully it work :D

I understand the difficulties. However, the Hauppauge and many devices like it can capture PAL 720x576 at 25fps, and can capture NTSC 720x480 at 29.97 fps. But the Hauppauge and devices like it cannot capture PAL-60 input properly. If you want to capture NTSC tapes, you need an NTSC player. There are tape players that output both PAL and NTSC properly without getting into PAL-60, but they are very expensive premium units. Don't you have a PAL tape that you can use to help you learn to make workable captures?

it an old tape..
somemore we live in asia.. so it quite common to had both PAL & NTSC

seriously i dont see any issue from my eye if i cap using PAL...
hw do u see it.

None of the samples you posted are PAL format. All of them have line timing errors, dropped frames, inserted frames, choppy playback, and stutter.

If they look OK to your eye, continue as you're doing.

There is one user on VH who says the USB-Live2 can capture PAL60, but he hates VirtualDub. He uses DScaler for lossless and (old?) WinTV software otherwise.

Hopefully the DVD recorder that you bought also supports it.

I hear where some use Dscaler, but best to turn off deinterlacing, denoisers, etc. Those factors are better handled in post processing. If you have Asian VHS they use some oddball techniques to get film or other formats up to NTSC. Those faults can't be corrected with the usual deinterlace or inverse telecine capture filters. If Dscaler works, capture the tape as-is. Improper deinterlace or de-telecine or trying to correct frame or field blending during capture will ruin a video.

Thanks both. I give it a try.

Win TV can't capture as lossless file.

True. The user stated that WinTV wasn't used for lossless capture. The post refers to using DScaler as the capture software, which the user says can be set up to capture PAL-60 input as NTSC 720x480 / 29.97fps using huffyuv for a lossless avi.

http://www.videohelp.com/software/DScaler