VHS to digital PC build with ATI AIW?
 

Hello all, I have been lurking as a guest for sometime and would like some advice on moving forward please. I have a few commercial VHS tapes I want to transfer to digital media. All are music videos that I own. I have recently picked up a JVC HR-S5100U for a decent price and plan to use it to do my transfers. I am "considering" building a PC so I can use an ATI AIW card to assist with the transfer. Could someone recommend a parts list for this build please? I know it will need to be an older WIN XP box to use the ATI. I have access to old dell machines but am unsure of the models best suited for the build. If this is not the best route to take then please advise. I don't want to say money is not an issue but with only a dozen or so tapes to transfer I don't want to go crazy either.

Thanks for the help,
Jimmie

-- merged --

Christmas Eve bump..:)

That's not a great VCR. Very old, early 1990s. Before JVC was really great at making feature-rich S-VHS decks as exist today. That was essentially a plain VCR that also recorded S-VHS. Nothing more.

What model Dell is it? The problem with a Dell is they cut corners everywhere: low RAM, slow drive, lesser CPU, proprietary motherboards and power supplies (underpowered). But not all were like that. So again, which Dell model?

An ATI AIW AGP system is ideal, yes.

Don't bump after just one day, especially during weekend/holidays.

Well, I only paid a few bucks for it and I was hoping since my tapes were commercially made, I would not need anything too fancy.

I have no idea, there is a room full of them. If you could give me an optimal build spec, I could either piece one together from existing machines or source parts from elsewhere and build one.

Great, that was what I gathered from other posts/threads here.

Fair enough, thanks for the help.

Dell PCs have a model designation on the front panel and a label on the rear or on one side panel. The label includes an express service code that can be used at the dell support site to look up original equipment installed on the machine. The preferred AIW capture cards have AGP graphics mounts -- the later X-series of AIW's could use PCIe slots, but they're problematic, many users complain about them, and they still require XP. All AIW cards are 32-bit, which in no way affects their capture features. AGP's were designed to capture well for single-core PC's with 1,5GB RAM, CPU speeds down to 1.8 GHz. Currently one of my capture PC's uses a budget Biostar AMD mATX motherboard with 2GB RAM, an AMD dual-core 2.4GHz CPU, and a 9600XT AIW AGP. I captured over 200 hours of tape using VirtualDub with that setup. Newer SATA drives are not required; both of my ATI/XP capture PCs use older IDE drives.

The power supplies in DELL consumer PC's were standard ATX units that can be replaced with other compatible ATX units. The only problem one might have would be an older Dell PC using certain Pentium CPU's that required a special "AUX" 8-pin power connection for the Intel chip. Most Intel chips for later models were more compatible using typical ATX power connections. Using the service code on DELL PCs at their support site allows you to lookup the CPU installed. DELL PCs with AMD motherboards are not a compatibility problem with standard ATX PSU's. The PSU requirement for ATI AIW cards from the 8000 series through the 9800 series is 300 watts. Earlier AIW's like the 7500 series can work with 250 watts.

The slow, cheap hard drives in Dell machines can be replaced with faster Western Digital or Hitachi drives. There is space in most older DELL PC cabinets for two hard drives. A second hard drive is required because using the operating system drive for capture involves i/o bottlenecks. The biggest complaint with replacing non-DELL motherboards is Dell's power-switch configuration. The front panel power switch connects to the motherboard with a 16-pin cable that is not compatible with standard motherboards. The 16-pin connector controls power on/off as well as reboot, drive activity lights, back panel diagnostics LED's, and other power-on functions. If that front panel button breaks, your only recourse with a DELL motherboard is to cannibalize a similar button and cable rig from another DELL PC.

It's probably built better than the plastic disasters that appeared in the late 1990's but it's really not a very good choice, even for retail tapes. Its biggest problem is lack of a line-level tbc essential for analog tape captures. Panasonic made better choices in that era, especially they're 1995-1996 S-VHS models with Dynamorphous metal heads (the V-S4570 and V-S4670 series, not too easy to find but they do show up now and then at not-cheap prices). Those players also lack line-level tbc's, but you can add that functionality to any VCR by using recommended legacy pass-thru units such as DMR-ES10 or DMR-ES15 recorders. You feed the VCR signal through the pass-thru unit and directly into your capture device (https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/...hat-do-you-use). Pass-thru provides line-tbc and a nominal frame sync, but note that it won't defeat copy protection.

When it comes to acquiring any of these recommended players and cards, keep in mind that it's been 10 years since the VHS-to-digital peak played out and manufacturers stopped making these devices. With today's technology, 10 years is an eternity. Top-end VCR's have been recycled through multiple owners and are mostly burned out from use. Anything in good condition exceeds the $500 uSD price point, especially after being professionally rebuilt by someone the likes of TGrant's pro shop (https://www.tgrantphoto.com/sales/in...timonials-2-52), which rebuilds Pannies and a few JVC's. AIW cards sold through auction sites usually work well but they almost always are missing the required input dongles, and most ATI models use different connection dongles. Often the dongles sell separately for more than the cards. Digitalfaq's marketplace forum has many working items for sale. Buy them, use them, resell them.

Today's USB devices have drivers for Windows XP thru 7, some have drivers for Win8 thru 10. Among the USB devices discussed here recently are the ATI USB 600, The Hauppauge USB-Live2, and the Diamond Vc500. No, they ain't the purity and performance of the AIW's for losssless capture, but you'll have to work hard to spot the differences. They're superior to the EZCrap and cheap copies of same. After the usual post-processing cleanup and decent encoding, the results will look pretty good without spending another three grand for something only nominally better. And I've seen lots of skillful processing that beats the pants off pricey setups.

Thank you for the great feed back and advice. I realized this weekend that you were both correct in that the JVC was not up to the challenge of providing adequate picture quality.

Luckily, I was able to snag a reasonably priced (untested) Panasonic 5710 for less than $100. I am hopeful that it is in a state where I can do some minor repair and have a decent unit when I am done. I am fairly skilled with a soldering iron so if the unit actually plays a tape and goes through the basic functions, I will re-cap it an hopefully end up with a solid piece.

If you have any advice of how to put it through some tests to verify functionality, please let me know.

Also,
Regardless of how this shakes out, I would like to upgrade the caps in this unit. Is there a parts list for upgrade. I did a few searches but the info seems scattered and incomplete.

Thanks,
Jimmie

Good luck with the 5710. At that price, all bets are off as to how fixable it will be. Remember, it's not just caps, but heads, gear, belts, etc. And these decks are honestly repair-prone these days.

As far as a parts list, I'd assume one is in the service manual. And I'm think it should be identical, or close, to the AG1980.

See: http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vcr-...r-manuals.html