Hi and thanks in advance for any help.
I've got about 50 VHS tapes that I want to digitize. These are a mix of things recorded from TV (mostly home inprovment shows that are no longer avalable) and home movies from oldschool VHS camcorders. I'm in the US, so this is all NTSC.
A few years back I did copy some of them via dual deck VCR to DVD burn and also some S-Video capture from a VCR via a cheap dongle. I was actually very surprised at how good most of them turned out, and kind of thought I was done with those tapes. However, now that I'm trying to wrap this up years later, I realize that I didn't create anything except the files needed for the DVD's. No real archived master file and no MP4 file for casual viewing. So I want to go back through all of them now and capture an archive copy of each tape. From the archive capture I will then create an H.264 .MP4 copy of each tape for conveniant use, as well as create DVD's/BluRay's of some of them for older relatives. After that, the archive copies will go into offline cold storage, probably never to be used again, but who knows.
My first question is whats the best codec for the archive capture of the VHS tapes? I've read about
HuffYUV, but I've also seen things indicating that it's an older format. I've also read that H.264 has a lossless mode, but don't know anything about that. Finding a straight answer about this is tough, especially since half the threads I've read are 5+ years old. So thats the first question.
My second question is about workflow I guess. I don't need these to be perfect, but I'd like to do what I can, within reason, to make the best copies I can. With that said, the DVD transfers were really preaty good, so thats kind of the floor. I've got the following hardware to work with, and don't plan to buy a new VCR or anything. I might consider a capture card if I really need to.
Computer- Windows 11, 14th gen I-7, 32GB RAM, several drives totaling about 10TB, RTX-4060TI, Firewire 400 card installed
VCR- Panasonic DMR-EZ485V Dual drive VCR/DVD. Has S-Video and DV in. Has S-Video, Component and HDMI out.
Camcorder- Sony DCR-TRV310 Digital 8. Has S Video and Firewire in/out.
USB Capture stick- Roxio UB-315-E Ver3 has composit and S Video connections.
Firewire 400 card in the PC
Given this equipment, whats the best workflow? Whats the best way to get the signal out of the VCR? I think I see three options, but I don't know if the all actually work or which one would be best:
1. S Video out of VCR into USB Capture stick
2. S Video out of VCR, into S Video on camcorder. Firewire out of camcorder and into PC already digitized.
3. HDMI out of VCR and into computer??? Probably need an HDMI capture Card?? It seems like HDMI would be better than S Video, but I feel like this won't work for some reason.
Looking for all the advice and input I can get. Also looking for recomendations on capture, editing and transcoding software. Thanks in advance for reading and for any feedback. I'm not new to computers, but I am fairly new to this.