VHS To Hard Drive

westwood · Member Joined: 27 Feb 2008 Location: Ireland

hello all, just signed up to rack everyones brains in a final push to help me purchase the best equipment for my process of converting vhs to my harddrive.
my tapes are commercial promotional music video vhs, both in PAL & NTSC and its imperative I get the best transfer possible in this day and age as these videos mean the world to me so my thoughts are..
playback using an s-vhs vcr & record using a top end dvd recorder and transfer them onto my harddrive via dvc-ram discs. Is this the best process that will yield the best results in this day and age? I know all about video capture cards etc, but its the playback thats important as we all know and the actual process is pretty irrelevant
many thanks for better suggestions
regards

guns1inger · So Very Tired Joined: 01 Apr 2004 Location: Miskatonic U

If they are commercial tapes they are most likely copy protected (macrovision) so you will need something between the player and the recorder to strip this out. These range from cheap and cheerful boxes from ebay, to full blown timebase correctors. I have suspicions about the quality of image that might emerge from some of the cheaper copy protection removal tools.

DVD-RAM will not provide you with a better image than DVD-RW. Personally, if you want the highest quality and you need to edit them (and I assume you are looking to do some editing if you need to get them onto your PC) then I would capture directly to the PC using a lossless codec, do whatever needs to be done, encode with a good quality encoder, then author and burn.
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westwood · Member Joined: 27 Feb 2008 Location: Ireland

hi thanks for the reply, the commercial tapes in question are not copyright protected as they were never sold in shops.
im getting pretty pissed off now the last few days in relation to this process, Im looking for the best mult-system S-VHS VCR to playback both pal & ntsc, any suggestions? i live in the uk and alot of tapes are from the states.

I really didn't think this process would be that complicated, I need the very best conversion possible as the tapes will be sold afterwards, so please id love some sound advice and some equipment recommendations from you knowledgeable folk
many thanks

themaster1 · Member Joined: 16 Nov 2006 Location: France

You need a pal s-vhs/(or D-vhs) vcr with ntsc playback capability and you need the same card's model i have (discontinued i think but ebay and the like might be the solution) (because i know it works flowlessly with secam/ pal/pal 60(ntsc) and no problem with macrovision aswell)

You also need a good HDD (200Gb or above) because if you wanna get the finest result you're about to experience the joy of large files stored within the depths of your HDD

You also need a stable OS (XP sp2 works just fine with me), forget Vista

a link for the card here
a link for a s-vhs vcr here

DB83 · Member Joined: 26 Jul 2007 Location: United Kingdom

The other option, if you can find one, is a multi-standard VCR which will provide a pure PAL or pure NTSC signal.

As has been said, most UK VCRs output what is known as PAL60. Do a search in the forum for suitable capture cards which usually rely on BT878 chips (like the older Hauppauge ones)

The better transfer units are those such as Canopus ADVC 100/110 or if you can afford it the ADVC 300. These import your analogue signal and convert it to digital DV avi through a firewire connection on your PC.

westwood · Member Joined: 27 Feb 2008 Location: Ireland

hello
thanks for the suggestions guys, the link you gave themaster1 for the JVC HR-S9500U is NTSC playback only?
I found a JVC HR-S9500U in Germany which is pal record and play and ntsc play only?
would I need a dedicated PAL S-VHS VCR like the JVC SR-V10E or the Panasonic AG-7350E?? any others?
the capture card you recommend the TerraTec Cinergy 250 PCI, would this be the best or a ADVC 300?
or would I be better using a dvd recorder? WHICH WILL YIELD THE BEST RESULTS??
my face is starting to melt......
thanks guys

DB83 · Member Joined: 26 Jul 2007 Location: United Kingdom

Any VCR that says PAL record anf NTSC play will undoubtably output PAL60 which is not true NTSC.

The Canopus will work in pass-through mode into a capture card such as the Cinergy and others supporting PAL60 or a fully mult-standard VCR.

A dvd recorder will not work for NTSC tapes as it cannot record a PAL60 signal. Also most recorders only accept one tv standard. I believe that mult-standard dvd recorders do exist but you will need a multi-standard VCR as well.

There is one other option. You can get a digital mult-standards converter PAL60 > PAL (careful here as not all will do this - most just do NTSC > PAL) and then you can use any capture device or even a standard dvd recorder connected to a NTSC playback VCR.

Like this one

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/DIGITAL-NTSC-TO-PAL-CONVERTER-EVEN-NTSC-PLA ... dZViewItem

A final solution, which could be the cheapest depending on just how many NTSC videos you have would be to have them converted to PAL.

themaster1 · Member Joined: 16 Nov 2006 Location: France

westwood · Member Joined: 27 Feb 2008 Location: Ireland

thanks for the tips guys
I know i could spend a small fortune on a good setup, and I am willing to do so if needs be, as quality is imperative to me and I do want the best, so suggestions on good quality equipment is fine

whats peoples thoughts on the Blackmagic Decklink capture card? it seems top of the range, any good?

would a D-VHS Deck give better results playing back VHS or a S-VHS Deck?