Video 8 to PC Capture Device

[Genius]

I have a bunch of old Video 8 cassettes and an old Sharp Video 8 camera. I want to digitize the old tapes and save on a hard drive and stream to tv. I don't plan to turn them into DVD or Blu-Ray at this time. I purchased an inexpensive Easycap USB capture device. It seems to work fine when used with the included capture software. I've captured video using the included software and then rendered the video to 720p in Vegas. The video quality is fine but not great. I realize that the Video 8 cameras were not meant to be shown on the big digital screens of tv's today but I'm wondering if I am capturing at the highest quality possible. Are there better USB devices for capturing video? Is there better software for capturing (not editing)? Does the capture device or capture software make much of a difference? I can't use Vegas to capture through USB. Would it be better to try and pass through a miniDV camcorder and plug into pc with firewire and capture? Worth the effort? Thanks for taking the time to read all my questions.

I appreciate any help or point in the right direction you can offer. Thanks

[KarMa]

Could start by not upscaling to 720p, but leaving it at what ever it was captured at (maybe 720x480). This also lets you maintain the interlacing.

I use Virtualdub to capture losslessly or with a bit of loss from x264 if I want to go that route. miniDV is probably more convenient but not the best one for quality.

[JVRaines]

If your TV does good scaling and deinterlacing with its own built-in ware, then you want to capture in a lossless codec like HuffYUV, Lagarith, or UT Video and be done with it. Or further process with Avisynth to obtain better results than your TV could achieve at the expense of a learning curve and processing time. In either case, you won't get any big gains by switching to another USB converter when you're starting with Video8.

[Genius]

Thanks for the information. If I load the Lagarith codec how is it used? Does the codec run whenever I select the original video settings or do I need to do something to enable the codec? Sorry to seem so clueless but I've never used a lossless client before. Thanks again.

[Genius]

I've done some reading and it looks like I use the lossless codec "with" Virtualdub... is that correct?

[JVRaines]

You need a capture application that lets you choose from the codecs installed on your computer. (Most bundled capture apps don't.) VirtualDub is one such application. It gives me headaches with audio sync, though, so I use AmaRecTV instead.

[Genius]

I captured lossless video using VirtualDub and Lagarith. AVI files stream to my TV's and FireTV without problem. Files are huge. I'm saving old home movies so I will invest in a large drive and save losslessly. Thanks for the info. I appreciate it.