VHS To Harddrive Via S-VHS VCR & Matrox RT.X100

[westwood]

Hey guys
I need to convert my growing number of vhs to my harddrives. I live in Pal land and most of my tapes are NTSC, so ill need to purchase a used NTSC JVC HR Model possibly the 9000 from the States on ebay or the likes.
I also have some Pal so again ill need to purchase a Pal S-VHS from my own country, again a JVC? recommendations would be great on these two models. btw none of these tapes are macro protected
I have 2 x external 500gb harddrives so Im good to go there. next thing I need is a capture card, from reading around and some recommendations I hear the Matrox RT.X100 would be the best solution to go for?
my computer only has on board graphics, would this be a problem when capturing??
any advice greatly appreciated
Thanks

[2Bdecided]

If you're going to capture lossless or very high bitrate lossy, external drives might be a problem, depending on the connection.

Some people here don't even like capturing DV to external drives, though it should work just fine (does for me).

I assume you've seen the sticky thread about VCRs in the Restoration forum?

Cheers,
David.

[westwood]

Ye seen the thread on vcrs, cheers. I have internals I can capture too and then transfer to externals for storage I meant to say. Yes I would like to capture as losseless as possible. I do like mpeg-2 so I'll have a look at that first and see what the comparison is like between that and DV...
any thoughts on the capture card? or the fact I dont have a graphics card ?
thanks

[DB83]

"Any thoughts on the capture card ?"

Total overkill for VHS to PC transfer. That is quite a high end real-time hardware based editing card with DV capture.

If you have a firewire port (and if you do not a PCI firewire card costs very little) you will get good results with the canopus ADVC range.

You will not get software of capture/editing with this but mid-range products like Ulead Video Studio, Vegas Movie Studio or Premiere Video Elements will cut it. There are even free solutions. Just read the tools section.

But if you have the internal hard disk space then capture at DV. Not all these products are that clever in editing Mpeg-2

[2Bdecided]

Lossless, and near-lossless, is better than DV - whether it's worth it is another matter.

No point capturing to MPEG-2 - unless you intend to do nothing with the video afterwards, in which case it's easier still to use an external DVD recorder.

Cheers,
David.

[westwood]

ok Cheers guys, thanks for the help. the matrox card is reletively cheap second hand on fleabay and the likes and I would love to get into the world of editing etc eventually so I Might go down that road but I will consider the canopus advc range also, cheers..

Nobody mentioned anything regarding my pc not having a graphics card, it just has the onboard graphics on the motherboard which im happy with but will there be any issues when I start capturing me wonders?

Also can someone tell me some HIGH quality S-VHS leads and audio cables from My VCR to the capture card, looking for some top end stuff?
cheers guys

[olyteddy]

"Also can someone tell me some HIGH quality S-VHS leads and audio cables from My VCR to the capture card, looking for some top end stuff?
cheers guys"...
Most cables are pretty much the same. The expensive ones (think Monster) generally aren't any better than the mid range ones (Radioshack), they just cost more. Avoid the really cheap ones (Dollar Store) and you should be okay. More than $5 and less than $20 per cable is the right price range, IMHO.

[DB83]

The computer's graphics whether it is on-board as in your case or an add-in card play no part in the capture part.

Graphics display video not capture it.

[victoriabears]

I have years of experimentation in the vhs to dvd field.

Do not presume you need any s-vhs vcr to convert to dvd, how about the vcr they were recorded on.

Also, sorry to the JVC guys, but on many of my tapes, a panasonic s-vhs does a better image.

But thats to my eyes (Which have been tested) it is so subjective.

If you;d like any more specific help, PM me, certainly a dvd recorder is easier, and contrary to what many say you can edit very successfully the mpeg2 output with TMPG mpeg editor, it is very good and a good price.

[westwood]

Thanks for everyone’s help, im good on the cables and don’t need a graphics card. only spanner in the works is the Panasonic s-vhs that’s been mentioned, which is better the 1970 or the 1980? or both equal? I was set on a JVC. I'll still need a NTSC & a PAL S-VHS VCR though?
I have thought about recording to a DVDR, but ill still need to store it in my hard drives, and have to rip from dvd etc and dvds are limited to mpeg2 and are a destructible media which could be outdated very soon as well, whereas DV or similar uncompressed should be around forever? I want the best quality so uncompressed as much as possible is the way forward and stored digitally & backed up of course