My captured VHS video is choppy?

[grandpa2390]

I don't have a super computer and I can't afford one, or afford to have my vhs tapes professionally done. These are home videos, and I know I need a TBC but I can't afford one at the moment.

Right now the name of my game is try and get the video off these tapes in the best quality I can before it is too late to get the video at all. In my mind, I'd rather have a decent rip than no rip at all if I can't get a "perfect" one. But I'll Hold onto them though because some day in the future I might be able to afford professional help or professional equipment that every thread on here says I need (like a TBC). if they haven't degraded to dust by that time.

I followed this guide here http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vide...-settings.html

and am finding the video to be a bit choppy still. The video isn't taking up 1GB per minute like it was before I followed that guide. So that's an improvement. But obviously my desktop is probably not powerful enough to capture lossless or something. what settings can I change to trade a bit of picture quality for the video being captured more smoothly?

To make sure I am using the right vocabulary. the video will be smooth, but every so often when someone moves the camera around, it'll skip a few times. as if pieces are missing. like it is jumping 1,2,3,4, 10, 14, 16, 20, 21, 22, etc
VirtualDub says no dropped frames... obviously I don't know much about what I'm talking about . I appreciate any help I can get. and if I have to trade picture quality to get a smoother video that my computer can handle, I'm willing to make the sacrifice.

[lordsmurf]

"choppy" = almost always dropped frames, meaning lack of TBC.

Sometimes the ES10/15 (or +DVK added) can build a TBC(ish) that will work well enough to accomplish what you need.

What capture card?

If no drops are showing in VirtualDub, but obviously happening, then it could simply fail to properly report dropped
frames.

You cannot capture non-lossless with any degree of quality. In fact, it will utterly fail more often than not. To use non-lossless or non-uncompressed, you'll need a special card to capture in that format. For example, ATI AIW (using XP only) can capture 15mbps BD-spec SD MPEG perfectly, at about half the size of lossless. DV also is the same size, but you lose about 50% of the color quality, so DV has very negative trade-offs.

Lossless is usually more "smoothly" captured, as it's not hitting resource bottlenecks, aside from HDD.

[grandpa2390]

Quote:

Originally Posted by lordsmurf

"choppy" = almost always dropped frames, meaning lack of TBC.

Sometimes the ES10/15 (or +DVK added) can build a TBC(ish) that will work well enough to accomplish what you need.

What capture card?

If no drops are showing in VirtualDub, but obviously happening, then it could simply fail to properly report dropped
frames.

You cannot capture non-lossless with any degree of quality. In fact, it will utterly fail more often than not. To use non-lossless or non-uncompressed, you'll need a special card to capture in that format. For example, ATI AIW (using XP only) can capture 15mbps BD-spec SD MPEG perfectly, at about half the size of lossless. DV also is the same size, but you lose about 50% of the color quality, so DV has very negative trade-offs.

Lossless is usually more "smoothly" captured, as it's not hitting resource bottlenecks, aside from HDD.

I got the MageWell Pro Capture HDMI Video card. What TBC? I saw TBC-1000 and AVT... something recommended everywhere on this site, but nobody sells them anymore. is there a more modern card now available, or am I too late to the game?

[lordsmurf]

Magewell is an infamous capture card for SD, not ideal, just like Blackmagic. Unreported dropped frames. What you've run into is conflicting technology. You're using HD capture gear for SD work. And it doesn't ever work correctly. The SD capture abilities in HD cards is just a poor afterthought feature by the card maker.

You need a better capture card for SD.

And then there are some TBC(ish) options available, using ES10/15+DVK combos. It's not as ideal as TBC, some drawbacks, but overall better than nothing at all, and it does work pretty well for home shot/recorded VHS.

Yes, you are a bit late to the game, as true TBCs are getting more scarce, but some do pop up (mostly from me, via my contacts to locate more).

[hodgey]

You sure about the magewell is bad like the blackmagic cards? Someone over at VH seems to have had some success with it. It supposedly even has a built in TBC(ish, not removing macrovision I guess).

[lordsmurf]

Quote:

Originally Posted by hodgey

You sure about the magewell is bad like the blackmagic cards? Someone over at VH seems to have had some success with it. It supposedly even has a built in TBC(ish, not removing macrovision I guess).

I wish I was wrong. But I've had nothing but a steady stream of complaints about this card for this past year, and seen samples of too many errors.

Remember, cards/etc are more than just the chipsets. They must also be used to their potential, and correctly. The Magewell may have an ADV7842, but it is performing far weaker than the ES10/15, and thus not TBC(ish).

vaporeon800/msgohan was all over that thread, he had very astute observations. Notable was also that the test tapes were terrible, and therefore not really test tapes at all. Just random recording, not a true experiment. When I do tests, it's very obvious, very controlled, often reproducable for confirmation.

[hodgey]

Ah, was just curious since I remembered reading that thread. By TBC I was thinking more about the fact that the ADV chip has a frame sync/buffer. Though if it's not reproducible by anyone else than the person in that thread that doesn't sound promising. Maybe it's like with the blackmagic card that one forum user here somehow has luck with but my own experience and juding by bm's own forums it's utterly crap for anything outside of HDMI capture.

[Eric-Jan]

The complains are mostly from un-experienced users not knowing about BlackmagicDesign hardware, this hardware is meant for quality source hardware, I have no problems with this hardware, there are a lot of crappy VHS vcr's, I have 2 good vcr's which even don't need a external TBC, one has even component out which just makes a real difference, because i can set it to progressive mode, which give no smear effect, like S-video or composite gives, for what i have seen.
So a good vcr is 80% work allready done..
btw.. HDMI gives other problems with capturing, if you allready have a vcr that outputs over HDMI (hdcp)
tip: a good capture device does need a good PC/OS, minimal resources is just asking for problems.

[lordsmurf]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eric-Jan

The complains are mostly from un-experienced users not knowing about BlackmagicDesign hardware, this hardware is meant for quality source hardware, I have no problems with this hardware, there are a lot of crappy VHS vcr's, I have 2 good vcr's which even don't need a external TBC, one has even component out which just makes a real difference, because i can set it to progressive mode, which give no smear effect, like S-video or composite gives, for what i have seen.
So a good vcr is 80% work allready done...

Blackmagic has themselves stated that the device was not intended for consumer sources (VHS, Hi8, Betamax, etc), and expects a high-end signal like BetacamSP or equivalent pro analog.

Yes, there are many terrible VCRs, but even good ones will choke on these boxes.

"component out" implies hat the VCR internally re-processes the video, and is therefore outputting a clean non-original signal. If the "progressive mode" is truly progressive, no interlacing, then its essentially pre-captured (A>D>A) and then captured again (A>D>A>D). TBC does similar processing, but without overly augmenting the signal.

I have no problems with that method, in theory, but you really have to watch for what the processing is actually doing. You don't want blended deinterlaced, posterization, macroblocking, and other artifacting. Unfortunately theory vs. practice shows it to more likely add issues than not, hence why catpuring with TBC is the best method. Not the only method, sometimes not the most affordable method, but still the best method.

I've never seen a VHS signal that didn't need some sort of timing correction before capture.