Any issues with workflow for VHS transfer?
 

Hi Everyone,

I'd appreciate your thoughts on my intended workflow to transfer VHS to PC.

Overview: PC (Vista) to Pinnacle 710 USB to ES-15 to S-VHS

1) VCR: I have access to a JVC HR-S3900U as well as a Panasonic SA-HT800V. Which VCR do you think would be the better choice here? I realize neither have TBC, thus the ES-15. I also have a Panasonic DMR-EZ48V, but I don't see why it would be needed - am I correct there?

2) Panasonic ES-15: As a pass through, is an S-video cable used as the go-between for both the VCR to ES-15, & the ES-15 to the Pinnacle USB?

3) Pinnacle 710 USB: A USB A/B cable is used for output during transfer, correct? My older Inspiron recognized it immediately.

4) PC: I found my old Dell Inspiron 1720 in storage. When I saw it had Windows Vista and the 1394 Legacy marking above a female 4-pin on the side, I figured it might be a better fit than a newer Dell Latitude with WIN10 that I had planned to use. Do you think the Inspiron 1720 can handle the job?

5) Software: I installed VirtualDub1.9.11, the HuffYUV INF file, and the Crossbar Thing.

I'd appreciate any and all thoughts, including VCR options, and the few questions above. Thank you for reading...

Sure. :)

Replying as a I read...

Use this.

No, worthless.

Correct.

Correct, not needed.

Correct.

Maybe? There are versions. The wrong version adds noise, off values. (Note that a lot of newbies insist bad versions are "fine" until shown the problems. Then it's too late, re-capture or screwed.)

USB 2.0 A/B-type. Auto-seeing the card is not good. Manually install correct drivers, and there are definitely wrong driver versions for this. (New is not good for x86, problems, removes options/settings.)

Specs?
Google says...
Glossy screens really screw with your ability to see accurate exposure, brightness, contrast, colors, etc. You really can't see noise either. Almost nothing. As an analogy, you'd be far-sighted, with your eyes dilated. You can't see anything close, and it is far too bright even when squinting.

Storage maybe be a problem. Specs?

Good.

Decent budget setup, with caveats:
- VCR working properly, clean? Inspect it first!
- Good or bad 710?
- Laptop is weakest link, several fail points.

I'd never bother attempting capture on a shiny screen laptop, especially not the 2000s crap we had. I hated those, and I'm glad most are now gone. Stupid fad. I had to pay some serious $$$$ to get non-shiny back then. Now a good non-shiny Win11 is $300 at Walmart.

If you also have the 48V, I'd probably try that as well and maybe post short captures from both that alone and the 3900U plus ES15 on the same source material. My understanding is that the 48V does similar processing to the ES15 internally, but that might only apply to the HDMI output - maybe. Eventually I'll do similar comparisons, but I'm curious if the results will be consistent/repeatable, so trying to establish some expectations based on other comparisons first.

Thank you, both. Today is the first day I have all parts of the workflow (minus one - I need to get a second set of RCA Audio cables (I believe), as I need to run audio from the JVC to the ES15, and ES15 to the Pinnacle USB. Really appreciate the input on everything, lordsmurf - and will do my best to update you on the 48V, aramkolt.

I've got at least one issue going on as I've tried to get this going today - I think I'm supposed to post issues like this on the 'Capture' sub-forum, so will do that now. I've followed all the threads with suggested settings (which are a Godsend...) - but for some reason in VirtualDub 1.9.11 when in capture mode, under Video > Video Source, I only see 'No Video Sources' greyed out. I've fiddled around and can't find the issue. I'm wondering if Huffy wasn't installed correctly, would that be the issue? (I don't think so...). Thank you all for being here, can't say that enough...

With installing Huffy use Hoffmand’s installer. https://github.com/hofmand/video-codec-installers

I recently reinstalled everything because my computer was just too cluttered with stuff I didn’t need and I had messed up my initial install of Avisynth and QTGMC so I just reinstalled windows 10 and got rid of everything. I’m just installing 64 bit plus Avisynth and Pmod. I’ll mess with the original 32 but if I need 32 but filters later. I have Hybrid working good. The filters take a second but my CPU is the bottleneck. It works well but I wanna be able to mask not crop.

I took some pictures of my Huffy install because some times people have problems with that.

Crossbar Thing missing?
Maybe wrong drivers?
See https://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vid...html#post71898

... or wrong version of card, I've seen that happen. Those "not good versions" of the Pinnacles vary from noise injection, to incompatible with drivers, to just flaky operation. This is why I provide cards in the marketplace forum here, to make this step easy, not add more confusion and problems. Video capture is hard enough without the capture card not working as needed.

Look under Video > Compression to see if Huffyuv is present, and selected for use.

Thank you, Gary34 and lordsmurf. I am soooo close. Here's my update, which now I'm not sure if this belongs in one of the two 'Encode' forums.

I decided to try installing all the drivers and software needed on a Win10 Dell Latitude 5400 I have, and to my surprise, I was able to see and capture a test video on VirtualDub! I'm almost there (I think), but I realized that HuffYUV is not showing up as a compression option. I've tried lordsmurf's "How to Install Huffyuv 32-bit in Windows 64-bit" guide, as well as other suggestions in that thread and others (such as extracting in System32 rather than SysWOW64 which worked for another user here). Still, no luck. I'm a native Mac user so I'm trying my best to follow the guides to a T - but something isn't working right. I'm attaching a picture of my command prompts hoping someone can tell me if I'm doing this step correctly? I've done this both for the 32-bit and 64-bit Huffy files. Any advice would be very much appreciated. Thank you all!

Win10 probably needs the hofmand Huffyuv 32-bit driver install, and from the command line (CLI) not Windows GUI.

Hi lordsmurf, I extracted the 32-bit Huffy as well using the image attached in my previous reply. Isn't that image using CLI? Would you mind if the text in the command prompt looks correct? Appreciate any and all help

Your text was a manual install.

Download the hofmand installer MSI file.
https://github.com/hofmand/video-codec-installers

Go to Run as Administrator, then type the name of the MSI in the download location. In the GUI, you get error messages. In the CLI, it works, if using with Admin rights.

I'm not where I can show specific, just describe it to you.

Thank you for the quick reply! I understand now, reply back shortly with result. Many thanks!

-- merged --

Installed Successfully - using the 32-bit msi file. I really appreciate your help, lordsmurf...

-- merged --

One more question (for now) - as I go through and setup VirtualDub settings for a second time now using this Dell Latitude and I start with 'Set Capture File' to designate a location, the dialogue box that says 'Select Striping System for Internal Capture" has the 'Save as Type' being "AVI Stripe System (*.stripe)". I have no other options, but I just wanted to confirm this is correct? I thought the file would end in .avi but I'm a Windows novice...Thank you in advance.

*I'm an idiot - nevermind, my mouse was just too quick and I was on a different tab. My apologies....

-- merged --

The feeling of a successful capture after having no knowledge of this awesome process as of a month ago and having started with no parts to my workflow to begin with, is quite something...

The setup fixed heavy stuttering/tearing on the first go, the capture went smoothly with 0 dropped frames.

You all are the reason, without these threads and users sharing their vast knowledge time after time, I'd be tossing stuttering VHS tapes left and right.

Special thanks to lordsmurf, he helped me tremendously via pm and through his countless thread responses.

Onto tape #2. I'll look into when I should give the machines a break, I've got stacks of tapes...
Hoping the good fortune continues.

Thanks all...

What you've accomplished here remind me of parkour, with a lot of luck as a tailwind. :eek:

You managed to successfully assemble a budget workflow quickly from random eBay/friends/etc sources (not an easy feat), partially using your own extant gear, and your tapes have (so far, in testing, at least) not balked at the shoestring setup. To come this far in a month is somewhat uncanny.

For comparison, the reason I have full workflows in the marketplace, or the pieces to bolster partial setups, is to quickly get a person capturing in quality. And it does take some Q&A on my part (but the better the gear purchased, the easier it is on them). That crash course can get a person capturing within weeks. Sometimes, they don't quite grasp everything, or life happens, so it can take longer, depending on the person.

You've done quite well young Skywalker. :P

I like reading these success stories. :congrats: