(Slightliy OT) Transferring VHS Video to PC

On Wed, 2 Jul 2014 17:55:26 +0100
Ian Jackson wrote:

Some of the USB 'video grabbers' are very poor - especially the
really cheap ones). Also, it seems that there a various fakes of
certain models (Easycap being one), and some of these don't seem to
work at all (I certainly could get no sense out of mine).

Yes. The Easycap is a cheap copy of the EZCap, which works fine, in my
experience. Happaugge also do USB devices which are both tuners and
grabbers. I have a collection of NTSC tapes, recorded in EP mode, so
the original quality is pretty low, but with a suitable VCR and the
EZCap, I can make perfectly watchable DVDs.

--
Davey.

On 02/07/2014 17:55, Ian Jackson wrote:


Some of the USB 'video grabbers' are very poor - especially the really
cheap ones). Also, it seems that there a various fakes of certain models
(Easycap being one), and some of these don't seem to work at all (I
certainly could get no sense out of mine).

Mine is the Honestech one. A bit dearer than some but it does a decent
job, and it is bright enough to know that if I only connect one sound
channel (my video camera has a mono sound output) then it needs to
replicate that across both right and left channels.

Jim

On 02/07/2014 18:14, Brian Gaff wrote:
I wonder would the macrovision anti copy on pre recorded videos upset such a
system?

It does and it doesn't. The USB grabber transfers it to the PC and the
PC will play the recorded file, but if you write the recorded file to
DVD then a lot of DVD players don't like it.

Jim

In message , Indy Jess John
writes
On 02/07/2014 17:55, Ian Jackson wrote:


Some of the USB 'video grabbers' are very poor - especially the really
cheap ones). Also, it seems that there a various fakes of certain models
(Easycap being one), and some of these don't seem to work at all (I
certainly could get no sense out of mine).

Mine is the Honestech one. A bit dearer than some but it does a decent
job, and it is bright enough to know that if I only connect one sound
channel (my video camera has a mono sound output) then it needs to
replicate that across both right and left channels.

I've found mine. It's a 'Video-2-PC'.
www.video-2-pc.co.uk/?gclid=CI3ax4uyp78CFa_KtAodTSgAVA
et al. It's about £34.

IIRC, the software lets you blank out the head-switching lines at the
bottom of the picture - and I think you can also do a real NTSC to PAL
standards conversion (and even NTSC-4.43 to PAL).
--
Ian

Ian Jackson wrote:

Some of the USB 'video grabbers' are very poor - especially the
really cheap ones). Also, it seems that there a various fakes of
certain models (Easycap being one), and some of these don't seem to
work at all (I certainly could get no sense out of mine)

I don't have any experience with USB and don't doubt that some are better.

One thing to consider though is that the device is only one part of the
process and the software that is doing the encoding also plays a part in
what you see.

Several years ago I used a PCI card to digitise old Hi 8 tapes. Using
the windows software that came with it I was not very impressed with the
quality of the result. I had chosen highest and it produced 6mbit dvd
mppeg2.

The reason for the poor quality was that my test was quite complax and
it was then just not possible for the mpeg encoder to work real time on
a 2GHz single core PC and produce good results.

Of course PCs are faster now - but the software may still be low quality
and have to be compatible with lower spec equipment.

The solution for me was to use Linux, which let me get at the raw yuv
output from the card. Too much for didk space/speed at the time so I
ended up using an intermediate format for the rip (50 mbit dv via
mencoder/ffmpeg) then did a proper hq slow (like 1fps) encode for the
final dvd.

On Wed, 02 Jul 2014 16:44:44 +0100, Andy Burns
wrote:

Mark wrote:

I don't know whether this VCR would have RGB. Did you look up the
specs

I didn't, but having glanced at the schematic, it seems to only have RGB
passthrough from AV1 to AV2

To the OP: Try the composite and see what results you get. IMHO an
USB 'stick' may not yield great results.

Is the quality on the tapes great to start with?

Maybe not. Which is why you may need good kit to prevent degredation
making the end result unwatchable.

I have used a TV card, a Pinnacle DC10+, and a passthrough on a DV
camcorder to digitise videos. I've not tried a USB device. Both the
DC10 and camercorder gave good results but the TV card was useless.

Do the initial capture in the highest possible quaility (although you
may not have much choice on a USB device). Use a good encoder to
compress the video (because the captured data will probably be too
big).

If these a prerecorded tapes then it's better to strip out the
Macrovision if you can.

HTH.
--
(\__/) M.
(='.'=) If a man stands in a forest and no woman is around
(")_(") is he still wrong?

On 02/07/2014 13:05, Eddie King wrote:
Hi all,

hopefully this is not too OT (judging by some of the topics appearing on
here recently I doubt it will be :-) )

I have loads of VHS tapes and a still functioning Videorecorder. Before
these become obsolete I would like to transfer some Video onto my PC's HDD.

Videorecorder:
AIWA FX5850
Outputs - 2x cinch for audio + only SCART (no composite etc.)

I have just got hold of a video-grabber, only to discover the lack of a
suitable CVBS output on my VCR.

I'd be gratedul for any suggestions. Thanks in advance

Eddie King

@ Woody - I haven't been away - just lurking - nice to know someone
missed me :-) :-)

--
remove xxx before replying by EMail

I am thinking of doing the same as you and would be interested to know
what video grabber you are using?

On 09/07/2014 10:57, Rob wrote:
On 02/07/2014 13:05, Eddie King wrote:
Hi all,

hopefully this is not too OT (judging by some of the topics appearing on
here recently I doubt it will be :-) )

I have loads of VHS tapes and a still functioning Videorecorder. Before
these become obsolete I would like to transfer some Video onto my
PC's HDD.

Videorecorder:
AIWA FX5850
Outputs - 2x cinch for audio + only SCART (no composite etc.)

I have just got hold of a video-grabber, only to discover the lack of a
suitable CVBS output on my VCR.

I'd be gratedul for any suggestions. Thanks in advance

Eddie King

@ Woody - I haven't been away - just lurking - nice to know someone
missed me :-) :-)

--
remove xxx before replying by EMail

I am thinking of doing the same as you and would be interested to know
what video grabber you are using?


My experience is that it is better to use a simple DVD standalone
recorder. Good ones like the Panasonic s have a lot of processing to
clean up the picture and it works well. My main point is that it is a
one job thing. A DVD recorder will copy in real time, clean and
stabilise the picture. the result burnt to disk can then be tweaked in a
PC otherwise the job on a PC is really time consuming and takes approx 4
times as long.

Just my experience.

On Wed, 09 Jul 2014 22:01:12 +0100, Gary
wrote:

On 09/07/2014 10:57, Rob wrote:
On 02/07/2014 13:05, Eddie King wrote:
Hi all,

hopefully this is not too OT (judging by some of the topics appearing on
here recently I doubt it will be :-) )

I have loads of VHS tapes and a still functioning Videorecorder. Before
these become obsolete I would like to transfer some Video onto my
PC's HDD.

Videorecorder:
AIWA FX5850
Outputs - 2x cinch for audio + only SCART (no composite etc.)

I have just got hold of a video-grabber, only to discover the lack of a
suitable CVBS output on my VCR.

I'd be gratedul for any suggestions. Thanks in advance

Eddie King

@ Woody - I haven't been away - just lurking - nice to know someone
missed me :-) :-)

--
remove xxx before replying by EMail

I am thinking of doing the same as you and would be interested to know
what video grabber you are using?


My experience is that it is better to use a simple DVD standalone
recorder. Good ones like the Panasonic s have a lot of processing to
clean up the picture and it works well. My main point is that it is a
one job thing. A DVD recorder will copy in real time, clean and
stabilise the picture. the result burnt to disk can then be tweaked in a
PC otherwise the job on a PC is really time consuming and takes approx 4
times as long.

A DVD recorder will be a convenient way of digitizing videos. However
the output will be heavily compressed MPEG2 and hence is not ideal for
further processing. I'm not saying this is a bad solution; just be
aware of the downsides.
--
(\__/) M.
(='.'=) If a man stands in a forest and no woman is around
(")_(") is he still wrong?

"Andy Burns" wrote in message
...
R. Mark Clayton wrote:

"Andy Burns" wrote:

R. Mark Clayton wrote:

signal transmission quality
UHF composite S-Video component digital

or with bean-counters
digital UHF composite S-Video component

and your point is?

That 'digital' is often confused with 'better'.


As delivered in the UK it is.