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  1. Member boko's Avatar
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    so, i have been reading the forum since October and i guess it's time to post a newbie post
    currently i have been playing around with a Hauppage HVR-3000 (defective 2nd hand) and a new Avermedia EZMaker7 usb capturing mainly in VirtualDub, or VirtualVCR with Huffyuv and a Sony SLV-SE610 vcr (rca) or my Sony analog handycam(s-video), and i guess i should go around buying some new stuff:

    my goal is to achieve high-amateur , mid-low pro captures. The composite captures i'm achieving right now is far from that (lots of combing, lack of TBC i guess is resulting in hue changes-dot distortions) and i am wondering which if all should be the rank of importance in improving my set up.

    1.i was thinking of getting a Blackmagic Intensity Pro, but i see it has issues with capturing vhs? is my EZmaker any close to ok for lossless? (thought it might be somewhat close to the ATI 600-650 i've been reading about)

    2.i'm also thinking of buying a Panasonic NV-HS1000 (i guess no more TBC should be needed after this?) if i'm lucky for it to be in a good condition. If not do you know how easy it will be to have it serviced?Also buying the vcr will a usb like the EZmaker will be enough for capturing?

    i would like to hear from any of you, if you have any proposals
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  2. Member boko's Avatar
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    also if anyone has any knowledge on this http://support.linksys.com/en-eu/support/video/KISS%20DP-558
    Linksys DP558-160 for capturing on board and then burning on the pc
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    Your Linksys recorder doesn't burn discs? In any case, it won't give you "high-amateur , mid-low pro captures". Recording VHS to lossy formats is a lower quality process.
    Last edited by sanlyn; 19th Mar 2014 at 08:25.
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  4. Member boko's Avatar
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    i don't own it, i just saw the Linksys in a special offer and thought it would be handy for the tapes that i don't intend on editing, just dvd-transferring. It simply has an internal hard disk and ethernet connection to the pc. So here's a question: is there any difference in 1. capturing straight to dvd, than 2. capturing lossless and then again mpeg-2 dvd? I mean if you are going mpeg2, is it better to go straight there? (when you don't care for having a file on your computer)
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    Originally Posted by boko View Post
    i don't own it, i just saw the Linksys in a special offer and thought it would be handy for the tapes that i don't intend on editing, just dvd-transferring. It simply has an internal hard disk and ethernet connection to the pc.
    It is certainly more convenient, but why do you need an ethenet connection to your PC, other than for making a backup archive of the recording itself? WOuld probably be handy for that, I suppose.

    Originally Posted by boko View Post
    So here's a question: is there any difference in 1. capturing straight to dvd, than 2. capturing lossless and then again mpeg-2 dvd? I mean if you are going mpeg2, is it better to go straight there? (when you don't care for having a file on your computer)
    The reason one captures VHS to lossless media (I'm not sure you understand what "lossy" and "lossless" mean) is to have an unaltered same-as capture of the source. You would clean up that source, do some cutting/joining, color correction, denoising, frame repair, etc., whatever is necessary for a clean version to send to your encoding and authoring apps. You don't "re-capture" that finished version; you encode, author (if you want menus, chapters, etc.) and burn it to DVD disc. Or you can save it as MPEG for PC playback or copy MPEG to a hard drive and play it thru a set top player that can play MPEG from a hard drive or other storage media.

    What happens if you simply record VHS directly to DVD? VHS is dirty, noisy, crappy media with a ton of problems: chroma nosie, chroma shift, chroma bleed, dropouts, comets, rainbows, halos, DCT ringing and ghosting, tape noise, rips and ripples, line timing errors, horrible and unpredictable color changes from moment to moment, bad frames, interlace errors, combing artifacts, telecine, invalid luma and chroma levels, crushed darks, blown out highlights, and a lot of other junk you'll see in many threads in this forum. If you record all that garbage directly to DVD, you'll enshrine all that junk as digital artifacts for posterity, forever. If you try to clean up lossy media you'll encounter severe difficulty, and many of the problems won't be fixable. Why? Not only do digital encoders not expect noise, they don't like it. Encoders are extremely noise-unfriendly. They require higher bitrates to handle it. Cleaning up lossy encodes entails more data loss and more compression artifacts. The result of recording directly to DVD is that the result will never look better than the source. It will usually look worse. DVD/MPEg itself not an "editable" format. Unless you use smart-rendering editors, the entire video gets re-encoded. Cleanup of lossless media in the typical consumer editor entails multiple re-encodes and severe quality loss.

    Lossless captures do entail more time and effort. There's no doubt about it. The major advantage is the leeway to do some cleanup and get a better encode where data bits can contribute to detail and clarity rather than get wasted on noise. Another advantage is that losssless media can be encoded to any of several delivery formats: DVD, standard definition AVCHD and BluRay, Xvid, or deinterlaced for web display, all without altering the lossless media. AS technology improves, old archived lossles captures can be further enhanced.
    Last edited by sanlyn; 19th Mar 2014 at 08:25.
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  6. Member boko's Avatar
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    first of all thanks for your time. I didn't make myself clear, i meant for the few cases where i will not be doing any filtering or cleaning to the tapes , just copying it to a dvd (to be honest that's gonna be the case for my uncle's tapes ) you don't really need to go pc-lossless and then down to shitty mpeg2 right? that's the reason i'm thinking about the Linksys one, to save some time from the pc. For the majority of my captures i want to go lossless editing and archiving to external hard disks and making x264 smaller copies to have for viewing. The problem is that my budget is a bit limited (or better my financial state bad) so i'm trying to make the best in my ranking. Get a MiniDV instead of a capture card? Currently i'm doing quite ok captures via s-video with the Avermedia EZmaker usb, and my hi8 handycam, but having issues with it's composite in and my vcrs (looks like TBC errors i guess). It's the change of hue/color (ex red turning to chessboard-orange) that is happening, but on the Hauppauge 3000 it does not happen , so i can't blame my vcrs or cables only. In the attached example you can see the pattern happening at the top as green squares
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    Originally Posted by boko View Post
    you don't really need to go pc-lossless and then down to shitty mpeg2 right?
    It's the source that's shitty, not MPEG2. IF MPEG is good enough for Hollywood, commercial DVD, and cable broadcasting, it stands pretty well with the pros.

    Originally Posted by boko View Post
    For the majority of my captures i want to go lossless editing and archiving to external hard disks and making x264 smaller copies to have for viewing.
    A worthy goal shared by many. Just a small correction, though: "x264" is an encoding engine. The codec is "h264". X264 isn't the only h264 encoder.

    The green disturbance you mention occurs with many capture devices. Likely it's the Avermedia, which stands kinda low on the capture totem pole. A hi8 handycam is often used for capture, but usually they capture to DV-AVI, which is not lossless and isn't friendly with the way VHS color is stored on tape. DV fans are fond of it, especially those who've never worked with VHS lossless capture. Don't get me started.

    If there is supposed to be a tbc somewhere in the capture circuit for your example AVI, it doesn't appear to be helping. Also, unless your AVI was captured in RGB (usually it's captured as YUY2), it has been converted to RGB32.
    Last edited by sanlyn; 19th Mar 2014 at 08:25.
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  8. Member boko's Avatar
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    indeed. the fact that mpeg2 is getting old doesn't quite make it shitty at once

    Originally Posted by sanlyn View Post
    If there is supposed to be a tbc somewhere in the capture circuit for your example AVI, it doesn't appear to be helping. Also, unless your AVI was captured in RGB (usually it's captured as YUY2), it has been converted to RGB32.
    it might actually be in rgb by mistake. There isn't any TBC present, i meant if the error occurs because of the lack of one. the thing that happens is this: i did a test, outputting 2 rca's one in the EZmaker and the other in the Hauppage 3000. And had both "cards" capturing. Hauppage didn't have this pattern and also when i press Pause, or do Fast Forward in the Hauppage i have a steady image (in pause) or simply running (in FFW) BUT in the case of the EZmaker during pause the static image would shake/bounce from left to right, while in FFW it would reveale chroma shifting let's say. That's why i was thinking about the need? of a TBC (couldn't find if the Hauppagge actually has something like that on board). I think you get the picture without any attachment. I know it's try and error that's why i got the Hauppage 2nd hand to start and play with (but has issues), i thought the EZmaker would be discent enough since i don't care for any hardware encoding (and was hard to find any without actually). So now i had my eye on a blackmagic intensity pro but i have been reading it's not really ok for vhs, and a canopus advc55. Plus a Panasonic NV-HS1000. I don't know if you had any other suggestions or favorites between these
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