improving VHS tape capture

[dzachau]

I have an ATI AIW 9600 capture card running in XP with a Pentium 4 CPU and 1.5 GIG of RAM. I am also using a dedicated HD for capture. I have discovered while viewing or capturing VHS tapes I recorded using a video camera that I have some distortion along the top 20% or so of the picture. The distortion almost looks like a tracking problem and is intermittent, but is always limited to the top of the frame. This distortion does not show up when viewing the same tape via a television set, only when viewing it on the computer. Apparently the ATI card is translating any tape errors into this distortion, which does not happen when playing the tape on a VCR and viewing through the TV. Any ideas on how to fix this problem?? Is this a problem that ATI cards are more likely to produce, or is it a common problem associated with playing/capturing VHS tapes using any capture card?? In any event, I would like to figure out the best way to fix this problem as I would like to capture home-made VHS tapes and burn them onto DVD to send to family.

Thanks for the help!

[redwudz]

It sounds like the common problem with VHS tapes. Head switching noise is one explanation I have heard. As you noticed, it is in the overscan area of a TV and doesn't usually show.

You can crop it out during encoding, just make sure your video is padded out to the DVD resolution. TMPGEnc will do this. Or if in AVI format you can do it with Virtualdub.

[thecoalman]

As you noticed, it is in the overscan area of a TV and doesn't usually show.
].

Sorry Red but it's not overscan and does show... www.nepadigital.com/mv

BTW dzachau the mods don't like double posts.....

[Capmaster]

Do not cross-post:
https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=237343