bad capturing using AIW and vhs

[chiptimmy]

Anyone have a solution to this quirky problem. I have an AIW 9800 pro. When I capture tv everything is fine. When I capture dv everything is fine. When I capture from my laser disc player everything is fine. When I try to capture from VHS the picture is all distorted and flips. I have tried it on 3 different vhs machines but it still is the same. The tapes I am trying to convert to dvd are not store bought tapes these are things I taped so there is no Macrovision protection. I sent the card to ATI for repair and they sent me a brand new one and guess what .... it does the same thing.... Am I missing something??? Please help anyone!!!

Thanks

Tim

[presto]

I have discussed this a great deal on this forum. I have an ATI AIW Radeon and and ATI AIW Radeon 7500. They both have this same problem. On SOME (usually older) vhs tapes the ATI card cannot hold the signal steady.

The solution I found is to use an external video capture box which connects to the computer using USB. It is the Dazzle 150 and it will capture those troublesome tapes of yours perfectly.

I also tried the Dazzle 80 which did a good but not perfect job on those tapes and I tried the Pinnacle Movie Box which froze when trying to capture them.

There are no doubt other ways to capture troublesome tapes but the Dazzle 150 is the one I can vouch for.

[FulciLives]

You probably need what is called a TBC or Time Base Corrector.

Unfortunately most TBC devices are rather expensive. The only two that I know of that seem to work well are both in the $250 - $300 range (that's US Dollars).

A TBC can make a VHS video look a lot better but not all tapes really require a TBC and some capture devices can capture most VHS tapes fine without a TBC although some VHS tapes are so bad that no capture device can do a good job unless a TBC is used.

If you are really serious about videotape capture and have the money to spend then you might want to consider looking into the DataVideo TBC-1000 which many consider the best for this hobby. It is around $300 US Dollars.

That may sound expensive but it's about the cheapest decent TBC you can buy. Some models go for well over a $1,000 and I've seen "broadcast quality" models around $8,000 and up!

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[presto]

Fucilives is correct that a TBC might work but I can tell you that the Dazzle 150 solved this problem for me. It costs about $150.

[ZAPPER]

Tim just for kicks do you have a camera with pass through? You said that you could capture DV so I was wondering if that means that you have a camera that puts out DV. Even if you can't do pass through maybe record to your camera and then out put to DV. I know it is an extra step and maybe a small loss if you go to cam tape but if it's free its me! keep us posted and good luck!

[thecoalman]

I had the exact same card with the same issue, IMO it's falsley detecting your home movie as being MV detected. I got rid of mine but two other people that I was in contact with purchased a data video 1000. It not only fixed the issue but they reported that there capture quality improved quite a bit. Other cheaper video enhancers may work too but I haven't tried them myself, I have found no other solution for fixing this problem. My computer vendor agreed with me and replaced the card with a better one, they were in direct contact with ATI "support" and offered no solution....By the way you'll find no mention of this on ATI's support page but will find many posts on this board about it.