Trouble converting home videos from VHS to DVD

[uppitycracker2]

I am having a problem converting certain VHS home video tapes to DVD. I have a ATI AIW 9600 capture card.

The video looks fine on the TV for several of my tapes (and stable), but when I look in the capturing window the top of the screen is unstable (white in color usually) and it pulls to the side. Almost like just the very top were a scrambled cable channel. I am using composite input because I do not have S-Video output on my VCR. This effects about 1/10 of the screen I would say.

Also, the video will occasionally jump and then go back to just the white at the top. I tried to take several screen captures to post on here, but it doesn't show up on the screen captures at all. However, when I put it on a DVD to try it, it looks better but it still shows up and the video jumps every few seconds. I have an Apex DVD player and the video slows down every once and awhile like it is behind and slow-mo, so there is definitely something going on with the capture.

I also tried different capture software such as WinDVR, Ulead, Pinnacle, and of course ATI. They all show this problem in the capture window. I would like to use ATI to capture this if at all possible.

I have tried everything to aleviate this problem, but nothing has worked thus far.

Thank you very much,

BJ

[TheFamilyMan]

Since the TV playback of the original looks fine, it looks like you need to use a TBC (time base corrector) between your VCR and your capture card. Check out digitalFAQ.com (lord smurf's excellent digital video site) for tons on information about this topic. I had simular problems with some of my home movies. They were solved by using a JVC sr-v10u VCR; it has a build in TBC and digital video noise reduction.

As an aside, IMHO some sort of video noise reduction is a must to obtain top quality MPEG2 conversions from VHS source.

[uppitycracker2]

Thank you so much for your help. I was worried that the answer to this problem was going to be hard on the wallet.

The disappointing this is that I have a JVC VCR but it is an older 4-Head and the only extra option it has is the Video Stabilizer function and not TBC. This option helps the transfer but doesn't get rid of the problem. I wish that you could get a decent TBC for <$100. If anybody knows of any, let me know.

BJ

[FulciLives]

There are really only 2 cheap TBC devices out there.

The AVT-8710 which is about $200

The DataVideo TBC-1000 which is about $300

Anything more "professional" than those two and you are looking at $1,000 + dollars.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman