Capture VHS to lossless, ATI AIW 8500 with laptop?
 

Hi there, everybody! Lordsmurf, please, please help me out! I need to capture about 40 vhs tapes, if possible in a lossless way (my mother passed away recently, I want to preserve those tapes showing her from the evils of time passing by, and some tapes are already pretty old) or anything very near (and IF I could IMPROVE the video quality, man, that would be TOTALLY awesome!!!!) if possible recording everything in Blu ray format. I'm a completely NOOB on capturing. I have and old ATI AIW 8500 dv, but not a compatible computer to connect it. All I have now is a I3 4gb ram Hdd 2tb notebook and two vcr's, a s-vhs philips and a quasimode jvc model. Please, I know nothing, a step by step guidance would be so appreciated!!! Thank you SO much in advance, and God bless us all!!! All the best!

You'll need an external TBC, regardless of what you do. (BTW: I have 2 for sale in the marketplace forum.)
Which Phillips S-VHS VCR?

For capture, 3 options:

1. Build an AGP desktop for this. You already have the ATI AIW card (hardest and most expensive part), so all you really need is the main guts of a system: motherboard, CPU, RAM, power supply, SATA/IDE HDD, audio card. eBay is your friend, and will probably be reasonable. Even local thrift stores can be great places for older AGP systems.

2. Send them here, let us do it. It's only 40 tapes. Contact us.

3. Try to use a USB capture setup with a laptop. Given that you use an i3, I'd don't have much faith this will work out well for you. Dropped frames will probably be an issue. The i3 CPU can be too stripped down, and not suited to handle video functions. ATI 600 USB is best case here. Some other cards do alright, but be very sure to avoid EZcap (ezcrap) cards.

Welcome to the forum.

BluRay is not lossless. It's a final delivery format, not designed for edits or modification. If you want to improve VHS captures, your best bet is to capture to lossless video with lossless codecs such as huffyuv, Lagarith, or UT Video Codec. BluRay and DVD both can be encoded after restoration for standard definition final formats. Don't make the typical mistake of trying to capture old VHS tapes to high definition. High definition is based on source resolution, not on frame size. VHS is low resolution, but can be made to look much better when cleaned up using lossless media. Use standard definition if you want BluRay or DVD.

Personally most advanced hobbyists and videophiles would rather walk on hot coals than use an i3 laptop for capture and restoration. It can be done, but restoration of VHS originals with a laptop is extremely difficult, especially for newcomers.

Your AIW 8500 can be used for analog to lossless capture, but we recommend that you don't use it for DV capture. DV is VHS un-friendly. The 8500 isn't recommended for DV transfer anyway. For lossless capture, yes.

Lordsmurf and others need more information. What model laptop? What operating system? What are the models of your VCRs? Realize that the 8500 requires an XP computer with an AGP graphics mount. It cannot be used with a laptop. You can capture with a laptop, but you're limited to later USB capture devices from ATi and others. If a laptop is your only choice, check into alternative capture devices for USB: http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vide...ti-wonder.html. But with that i3 laptop, as lordsmurf noted, you're likely in for a rough haul.

If you're just starting out, a step-by-step guide would consume several dozen web pages. The guides that most of us started with are here: http://www.digitalfaq.com/guides/video.htm. For a brief look at something of what's required, here is a recent post of setup suggestions for VirtualDub capture with AGP and/or USB capture devices: http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vide...-settings.html.

Consult the suggested guides. You have to start somewhere.

Or, as was suggested, it's probably faster and more cost effective to have someone like lordsmurf create lossless captures for you that you can tweak at your own pace.
:)

Hi there, dear friends, i'm terrible sorry about the delay. The Philips s-vhs vcr model is "VR 999/78"(the JVC is HR-J683-M). The notebook OS is Windows 10. 4 GB DDR3 RAM. Thank you so much for your attention and precious tips and guidance. I'll compare the prices for building a PC to connect my AIW R8500 vs the price of a ATI 600 USB (and the price of the TBC on the marketplace) this weekend (I'll also check the tapes with greater capturing and restoration priority, and PM you Dear Lordsmurf, to check all about sending to you some material). Dear friends, once again, thank you so much.