what quality is possible w/ a laptop? (newbie)

[danjohnson10]

So I've done some research on different external capturing devices and am disappointed with what I've been able to come up with. Most devices are cheap and have too many negatives, either with audio lagging or w/ limited resolution capabilities to mention a couple. I want to convert old VHS tapes so I need something that easily handles at least 333X480 resolution (apparently something like easycap begins to falter above 320X240).

One promising device is ADVC110 but I don't have firewire on my laptop, so first question: If I get a firewire to USB converter will that work to connect the capture device to my laptop or is USB a sort of bottleneck that just defeats the purpose?

I guess what I'm asking is, given the constraints of USB and a laptop is there a proven device with no lag issues that can support resolutions higher than 320X240?

[redwudz]

Maybe something like this: http://www.hauppauge.com/site/products/data_usblive2.html About $50US. You should be able to capture at 720 X 480.

But there are some requirements for laptops with this device. Either a single core CPU running about 2.8Ghz or a dual core CPU running at 1.8Ghz. And USB 2.0.

The ADVC may work, but running it through a USB conversion may present problems. And you will end up with DV AVI video if it works. About 13GB per hour. You may need a lot of hard drive space. Secondly, most laptops have a single hard drive and the OS needs to access it fairly often. That can cause dropped frames during a capture. USB can have similar problems if other USB devices use the bus at the same time. These aren't usually a big problem with DV as it doesn't need a lot of HDD speed for capture.

Converting old VHS tapes presents a bunch of other problems. If they are commercial VHS tapes, they probably have Macrovision copy protection on them. That can cause varying brightness levels and sync problems. If they are home tapes, the VCR they were recorded on may not have been calibrated properly and that can cause problems with playback on a different VHS player.

Most times you need a TBC (Time Base Corrector) for VHS captures, a fairly expensive piece of hardware that cleans up VHS sync problems. You may be able to do without it, depends on your setup.

VHS tapes are naturally a bit noisy and sync and speed may drift around, making it harder to capture a clean video.

I don't want to discourage you, but capturing older VHS tapes and getting decent video from them is not so easy most of the time.

And welcome to our forums.

[danjohnson10]

I didn't realize converting VHS could be so problematic. I've had experience in the past with VHS to DVD but that was direct to a standalone recorder. There were no problems with quality or syncronicity then, so hopefully there will be no problems using a computer instead. The only reason I stopped using the recorder was because although they are all personal VHS tapes (recorded by camcorder) some of them lose tracking a bit and would fool the recorder into thinking they were copyright protected, at which point the recording would stop. But based on what you said it sounds like problems with tracking may not be so easy to overcome. Also, it sounds like I may have to forget about using a laptop based on performance requirements and inputs. My ultimate goal is to put all the home videos on several blu ray discs, but I don't even have a blu ray recorder yet so I'm a long way off. Anyways, thanks for the advice.

[Moontrash]

most of these USB to dvd capture devices have that direct to MPEG2. So unless u happen to find one that does AVI thru USB, you should be safe using the device mentioned above. An hours worth of vhs direct to MPEG2 will be about 2 gb's...your HD shouldn't take much of a hit... It would if it were converting to AVI...way huge file size