Looking for the best easy capture workflow?

[zaerdy]

It all started when I just wanted to digitize a couple VHS and fell down this very deep rabbit hole. I' starting to lose my mind and need help finding an easy and "good enough" solution here.

Project objectives:

• Digitizing family home movie VHS for archiving.
• Edit and share to family (just cut-and-join to make something watchable)
• Maybe (MAYBE) edit the sound to get rid of tape noise.

What I have:

• VCR: Hitachi FX6510
• EasyCap transfer thing

I know a lot of quality could come from having a S-VHS of some sort and a PCI card but I can't spare the money to change those 2 pieces of hardware.

What I would like:
A workflow to capture without too much of hassle while getting some quality. Ideally I would capture with something I won't need to transcode afterward (unless I need to edit), be lossless or not. Disk space is not really a problem but still, I don't want to end up with ridiculously big files.

What do you suggest?

[Formica]

If you're aiming for "good enough", what don't you like about the results you're getting now?

[dpalomaki]

Some additional questions include:
- How much money are you willing to spend up front (some can be recovered by reselling any additional gear you buy).
- How much time are you willing to invest in the project?
- How many tapes do you have? (If it is a small number consider hiring it out to a known quality producer.)
- What distribution format/media do you inntend to use for the final product?
- Do you have any additional gear/software, including computers and operating systems?
- What sort of flaws do you encounter with what you are capturing now?

The simplest work flow for reasonable quality (but not for restoration would be):
- A S-VHS VCR (with internal line TBC)
- An external full frame TBC (will be needed for stable, reliable playback some tapes)
- A DVD recorder to dump the playback to a video DVD.

The record pause feature of the DVD recorder could be used to do simple cuts editing.
[I've used this method to do simple VHS dump-to-DVD for unsophisticated (from a video quality standpoint) friends and they have been happy with the result - it met their needs. Their focus was on content, not image beauty.]

The audio could be fed through a graphic equalizer to filter out some tape hiss, line frequency hum, and low frequency wind/HVAC noise.

[zaerdy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Formica

If you're aiming for "good enough", what don't you like about the results you're getting now?

It's not THAT bad but I feel like I could get better quality from the same hardware. When I watch the captured video in VLC, pause it and skip frame by frame, the image turns all pixel-scrambled. Don't know if it has anything to do with interlacing or not. MediaInfo tell me that mpeg2 file is progressive.

Quote:

Originally Posted by dpalomaki

Some additional questions include:
- How much money are you willing to spend up front (some can be recovered by reselling any additional gear you buy).

Not much more. At least for the moment.

Quote:

- How much time are you willing to invest in the project?

I don't mind about time here

Quote:

- How many tapes do you have? (If it is a small number consider hiring it out to a known quality producer.)

For the moment I'm looking at something between 20-40 tapes.

Quote:

- What distribution format/media do you inntend to use for the final product?

Archive them and then share them with family, probalby thru youtube.

Quote:

- Do you have any additional gear/software, including computers and operating systems?

have two PC on Win10 at the moment. I'll get the sofwares I'll need.

Quote:

- What sort of flaws do you encounter with what you are capturing now?

See my answer to Formica

[lordsmurf]

Quote:

Originally Posted by zaerdy

It all started when I just wanted to digitize a couple VHS and fell down this very deep rabbit hole.

Video is never as easy as you think, or some want to make you think (usually because they want to sell you some junk).

Quote:

I' starting to lose my mind and need help finding an easy and "good enough" solution here.

Quality video required quality setup. Even any video can require a minimally decent setup.

Quote:

Project objectives:
Digitizing family home movie VHS for archiving.
Edit and share to family (just cut-and-join to make something watchable)
Maybe (MAYBE) edit the sound to get rid of tape noise.

Not a lofty goal, not too difficult with the right hardware, right software.
Tip: Don't be lazy and cheap, your family will not be forgiving (even if they're at first nice, later it'll bite you in the ass for doing a shoddy job. So don't do a shoddy job!

Quote:

VCR: Hitachi FX6510

Not great, but we'll table this for now.

Quote:

EasyCap transfer thing

The nickname "Easycrap" is deserved. At minimum, you need another capture card, paired with the ES10/15.

Quote:

I know a lot of quality could come from having a S-VHS of some sort and a PCI card but I can't spare the money to change those 2 pieces of hardware.

Eh ... yes and no. If you want to take a deep dive into corner cutting, the essentials will be the ES10/15 unit, paired with a decent capture card. There are even some cheap options, not great, yet vastly better than the Easycrap.

Quote:

What I would like:
A workflow to capture without too much of hassle while getting some quality.

Realize that cutting corners is what creates difficulty and hassle.

Quote:

Ideally I would capture with something I won't need to transcode afterward (unless I need to edit), be lossless or not. Disk space is not really a problem but still, I don't want to end up with ridiculously big files.

That's not going to happen. If you try, your videos will look like garbage. Capture lossless, to the "big" files. (Seriously 35gb/hour in the era of 16TB drives?) Carefully encode down with Hybrid. Then, if you want, you can dump the large lossless capture files.

Quote:

What do you suggest?

- ES10/15 for under $150.
- The cheapest not-junk card you can get is a Dazzle DVC-100. Not greatest quality, it may be fussy, but it's an upgrade for you. Well under $50.
- REMEMBER: Buy it, use it, resell it. You'll most of the costs back, especially for the ES10/15. Avoid eBay fees, sell it here in the marketplace.
- If you don't want to cheap out on the capture card, get something better -- and again, buy it, use it, resell it -- then see the marketplace forum here. Good cards can be had for at/under $150. That's really not a big expense, either.
- Learn Hybrid, ask questions here. You can QTGMC, mask/crop, 4:2:2 H.264 encode all in one nice app.

[timtape]

Quote:

Originally Posted by zaerdy

It's not THAT bad but I feel like I could get better quality from the same hardware. When I watch the captured video in VLC, pause it and skip frame by frame, the image turns all pixel-scrambled. Don't know if it has anything to do with interlacing or not. MediaInfo tell me that mpeg2 file is progressive...

Interlaced looks fine in motion but it was never designed for true still frames. It's not possible to turn interlaced into true progressive. The video would have to have been recorded to progressive. Hope this helps.

[Hushpower]

Quote:

...What do you suggest?...

Quote:

- ES10/15 for under $150.
- The cheapest not-junk card you can get is a Dazzle DVC-100. Not greatest quality, it may be fussy, but it's an upgrade for you. Well under $50.
- REMEMBER: Buy it, use it, resell it. You'll most of the costs back, especially for the ES10/15. Avoid eBay fees, sell it here in the marketplace.
- If you don't want to cheap out on the capture card, get something better -- and again, buy it, use it, resell it -- then see the marketplace forum here. Good cards can be had for at/under $150. That's really not a big expense, either.
- Learn Hybrid, ask questions here. You can QTGMC, mask/crop, 4:2:2 H.264 encode all in one nice app.

Great post, LS! That's what the newbys want; succinct and to the point.

Those Dazzle-100s are pretty cheap! My 200 had better be good!

[zaerdy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by lordsmurf

- ES10/15 for under $150.
- The cheapest not-junk card you can get is a Dazzle DVC-100. Not greatest quality, it may be fussy, but it's an upgrade for you. Well under $50.
- REMEMBER: Buy it, use it, resell it. You'll most of the costs back, especially for the ES10/15. Avoid eBay fees, sell it here in the marketplace.
- If you don't want to cheap out on the capture card, get something better -- and again, buy it, use it, resell it -- then see the marketplace forum here. Good cards can be had for at/under $150. That's really not a big expense, either.
- Learn Hybrid, ask questions here. You can QTGMC, mask/crop, 4:2:2 H.264 encode all in one nice app.

That seems like solid advice. I'll look into hardware upgrade and then start the project. Thanks

Edit: Is there a place here I could see some videos of the kind of result I could achieve?

[lordsmurf]

Quote:

Originally Posted by zaerdy

That seems like solid advice. I'll look into hardware upgrade and then start the project. Thanks
Edit: Is there a place here I could see some videos of the kind of result I could achieve?

What exactly do you want to see? I can maybe take a few sample clips.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hushpower

Great post, LS! That's what the newbys want; succinct and to the point.
Those Dazzle-100s are pretty cheap! M

But I want to reiterate that those are not suggested cards. Those are "least worst" cards, for the people who insist on scraping by with penny investments in this hobby. (And yes, when you DIY, it's a hobby, whether you admit it or not.)

These cards have the same low-end eMPIA video+audio+bridge as the Easycraps, but contain an authentic SAA7113 chip. The Easycaps all use reverse-engineered knockoff (KO) SAA7113 chips, which makes it that much worse.

Think like this: What do you want for dinner?
- turd = Easycap
- cricket = Dazzle
- hash/spam (canned meat) = ATI 600 USB, clone
- hamburger = certain Pinnacle cards
- steak = ATI AIW

I like a good steak, gladly eat hamburger, and even hash makes a good easy/cheap meal sometimes.
But I'd have to desperate to eat a cricket.
No way I'm eating a turd/feces.

[zaerdy]

Lol! You sure have a descriptive visual way to put it. Can't be clearer.

And yes I'd be very interested to look at the menu in term of clips sample, if it's not too much trouble. Apart from the crap which I think I've tasted already