Capturing VHS with Canopus ADVC100

[efiste2]

Im having to dust off my trusty CANOPUS ADVC100 again to convert a couple of VHS wedding videos, However its been such a while since I did a conversion I was wondering whats the best software to use to CAPTURE the file. Im playing the video through a standard VHS player via a scart/phono into the CANOPUS the via a firewire link to the PC itself. I used to use WinDV which served me well, and then conversion using TMPGENC Plus.
So my questions to you learned chaps are.....Is WinDV still the best one to use, and is doing this conversion myself as good if not better than giving it to a Pro/retailer to convert.
The reason I ask the latter is that using TMPGENc I can control quailty/colour/filter options and make the aging VHS look as best as it can......

[redwudz]

I still use WinDV for my VHS>DV conversions with my ADVC100. Since it's just a file transfer to the PC, not much difference what you use. Remember to set up WinDV so that it captures the whole file. Discontinuity, I think. Most of my conversions I edited and filtered in VDub if needed and saved out with the Cedocida DV codec, then encoded to MKV H.264. But TMPGENc is still a good choice for DVDs.

I decided to just get a used VHS deck and convert the last of my old VHS movies. A lot of B&W from TV caps. I figured if it didn't work, no loss as I was needing to dump the tapes anyway. The MKV videos came out OK, considering what they were.

[efiste2]

Way before the DVD releases. Using my trusty canopus I captured/converted and authoured all 147 episodes of The Dukes of Hazzard, with the TMPGENC conversion taking upto 17 hours per episode. and one episode per disc!!! so my formula works well, the only thing I have forgotten is what CODEC i used.

[PuzZLeR]

Is WinDV still the best one to use, and is doing this conversion myself as good if not better than giving it to a Pro/retailer to convert.

WinDV is as good as any for DV capture. It captures it faithfully, in full quality in the transfer (like redwudz mentioned), and wraps it in an AVI container (and is also free).

the only thing I have forgotten is what CODEC i used

Doesn't TMPGEnc Plus (free or full version) use only MPEG? So, the "codec" used would be Pegasys'es implementation of the MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 standard.

You can use MediaInfo (also free) to find out what your encoded files were.