Help with VHS Capturing Project

[jrodefeld]

Hello everyone,

I wanted to get some questions answered about an ongoing project to capture about fifty VHS home movies and transfer them to DVDs. I created a few threads a while ago, but my method and equipment has changed somewhat, so I want to see what you think of my proposed method.

First of all, I was using a Panasonic AG-1970p player as a source, but it was malfunctioning so I bought a JVC SR-V10U off ebay as a replacement. Am I correct in assuming that the JVC should provide a superior picture to the Panasonic? What is the difference is picture quality between the SR-V10U and the absolute top of the line JVC's, like the HR-S9600U or HR-S9900? I was looking at those models as well, but there is no way I could justify spending over $300.

What settings should I use on the JVC to provide the highest quality captures? Specifically regarding the TBC, Noise Reduction filters, etc.


My goal is to go from the JVC SR-V10U to the Cypress CTB-100 Time Base Corrector to the Vidicraft Vidimate VDM-300S Detailer/Proc Amp to the ATI TV Wonder 650 capture card. All connections are Monster S-Video. How does this sound?

I will capture the video with Virtualdub in Huffyuv. Then I will do the editing and filtering, then encode it to MPEG2 with MainConcept Reference at 2pass VBR.

My question is: If I use the Vidicraft Unit to process the video, correct the color, and add detail and sharpness to the image, how much software filtering do you think I would need to do? I know there is no exact answer as every tape is different, but as a rule if I am able to do as much hardware filtering as the hardware I have allows, the only major thing I can think of would be a software "de noiser". If you owned the above mentioned equipment, what software filters would you use when capturing VHS?

As for a de noiser filter, it seems as if NeatVideo is the favorite. Do you feel the need to use a denoiser on every VHS capture? Is there ever a reason to use a filer OTHER than NeatVideo?

Basically, what filters would you anticipate me having to use for a VHS capture project like this?

Thanks for any help I might receive.

[dragonkeeper]

Go over and check/post on http://www.digitalfaq.com/ the site belongs to one of our members he has a lot of information there about capturing/restoring from vhs.

[jrodefeld]

Go over and check/post on http://www.digitalfaq.com/ the site belongs to one of our members he has a lot of information there about capturing/restoring from vhs.

Thanks for the reply. I have looked through that site and there is a ton of information there but some of my questions here are ones that I could not find any answers to. I would appreciate if someone could take a minute or two to contribute to this thread to answer a few of my questions here.

Anyone care to reply to this topic? I would appreciate it.

[davexnet]

Doesn't the JVC VCR have its own TBC? Sometimes less is more when it comes to noise reduction.

I don't have the equipment you mention, but in general, I would do some test captures with and without to see
what the effect of the extra electronics are on the picture.

Perhaps you should post a small sample of your native capture so we know what you're looking at.