Need advice on capturing from a VCR

[joeAgain------]

Hi,
I'm an admitted newby, but really wanting to learn. Because we have a family of young kids and our VHS movies are wearing out.

We have years of family VHS videos that I want to transfer to my computer and burn onto CDs(I know DVDs hold more, but only have a CD burner)to keep and send to relatives.

I just received a PYRO (Digital Video 1394DV)capture card and software from DELL, but was unhappy to learn it seems to only work straight from a digital camcorder(which we have also, but only a few hours of movies with it so far) and doesn't say it works from a VCR.

First, Is that right? There is no way that it will capture from our VCR?

and Second, I'm looking on the DELL website and see a BELKIN USB VideoBus II for sale with software. It is only a cable and it says it doesn't use a capture card, but hooks into a serial post on my computer and appears to transfer straight from a VCR to ac CD-R/W or Hard drive.

Can that be right?

Please help me on those 2 questions, please?

Thank you,
Joe

[crudux-cruo]

So long as your capture card (which I'm not familiar with) has an input for a composite source (ie: ye olde RCA Jack), and your VCR has an RCA jack (for video out), you should be able to with no problem. As far as sound goes, again using 2 cables (providing it's a stereo VCR, 1 if mono) with RCA jacks, I bought an adapter at Radioshack is a small little plastic thing with 2 female RCA adapters on one end (left channel/right channel audio) and at the other end is a 3.5mm male plug which would go into your audio input on your card provided it has one. Atleast that's how my set-up works.

Good luck

[dgsmith]

I have converted several vcr tapes to vcd and the video results are the same as the vcr tape. Of course, it will never look any better than the source, but at least it doesn't look any worse!

1st, check and see if your camcorder will enable you to hook up an s-video or composite source to it. If it does, it might do "signal convert function" or "passthrough" etc. This will enable you go to vcr -> camcorder -> firewire card -> pc -> capture app. Then you can conver to vcd.

If not, you will need a bridge or a capture card of some sort. A bridge will probably have a firewire port and s-video / composite port on it. You can signal convert thru that into the pc and capture. Then you can convert to vcd.

You can get a cheap pci encoder card (I had a BT878 based one, works great for vcd). Capture thru it and then convert and make vcd.

I looked at the Belkin thing a little. Apparently it has some sort of jpeg encoder in it. Problem with that is that it may or may not produce good quality. For $90, it may not. It connects to USB port, not RS232 serial.

Also also, you can get a standalone vcd recorder that is mentioned on this site. Direct from vcr to vcd with no capture / conversion required.

[joeAgain------]

Crudux,
The PYRO PCI capture card comes with a cable with a regular looking USB connection on the card end, and similarly thick(about 1/8th inch), but wider(about 3/8th inch)connector at the digital camera end that fits into a matching slot on a camera.

Is there an adapter at Radio Shack, etc. that would adapt to that(1/8"x3/8")end and have RCA connectors for my VCR? Bypassing any camera and feeding right from the VCR.

Would that work? Is the VHS VCR analog and would not transfer movies to digital card?

Would that work? My old RCA VHS video camcorder is shot!

And dgsmith, when you say "not good quality", if this is my only other affordable option, how bad of quality do you think? Why would they sell it if it gives terrible quality?
(the VCD Recorders are all just over about 10 times what the card or BELKIN setup would cost....WAY more than I've got to spend)

joe
.....your thought?

[crudux-cruo]

Sorry,

But from the small picture and description I saw on Pyro's page, my system won't work for you. My capture card is a PCI where as yours is firewire. Your lucky to find a RCA-to-S-video cable let alone a cable that would suit your needs. They don't even make them.

sorry couldn't help

[Mirror_Image]

You're lucky to find a RCA-to-S-video cable let alone a cable that would suit your needs. They don't even make them.

Is this what you mean?

http://www.svideotorca.com/svideorca.html

[holistic]

Hey JOE ..........

You have lots of VHS - You have a Firewire card

Save yourself some grief and get the Canopus AVDC-100

http://www.canopuscorp.com/ppm_advc100.htm

I looked into getting this product do exactly the same as you. Old VHS/Hi8 to MPEG2. I settled on the Canon ZR40 MiniDV camcorder (it has an A/D pass through) My Sony Hi8 was getting on in years and the extra few $$$ between it and the AVDC seems a better value.

I have since made some MiniDVD*for my archives (using 1/2 DVD spec) 352*480 and a CQ bitrate of 4500ish will give you 20 minutes per 700MB CD of family vewing pleasure. Am still tweaking the numbers (ie some color filters, sharpners .. but am satasfied with results considering the source tapes)

*note : plays in all computers . may not in your standalone DVD

[crudux-cruo]

You're lucky to find a RCA-to-S-video cable let alone a cable that would suit your needs. They don't even make them.

Is this what you mean?

http://www.svideotorca.com/svideorca.html

Actually, I ment a firewire-2-rca cable

[holistic]

Crudux,
The PYRO PCI capture card comes with a cable with a regular looking USB connection on the card end, and similarly thick(about 1/8th inch), but wider(about 3/8th inch)connector at the digital camera end that fits into a matching slot on a camera.

Is there an adapter at Radio Shack, etc. that would adapt to that(1/8"x3/8")end and have RCA connectors for my VCR? Bypassing any camera and feeding right from the VCR.

Would that work? Is the VHS VCR analog and would not transfer movies to digital card?

Would that work? My old RCA VHS video camcorder is shot!

And dgsmith, when you say "not good quality", if this is my only other affordable option, how bad of quality do you think? Why would they sell it if it gives terrible quality?
(the VCD Recorders are all just over about 10 times what the card or BELKIN setup would cost....WAY more than I've got to spend)

joe
.....your thought?

The 'slot' on the firewire card is NOT USB... It is a 6 pin 1394 (firewire) interface - the other end is a 4 pin.
6 pins includes power for external equipment. Since your camera is already powered it only needs the 4 pin.

Err nope .. no 1394 to rca adaptor - different interfaces here !

To get your analog VCR to the 1394 card you need a 'translator' or A/D converter
Dazzle Bridge or the AVDC-100 are the only one woth looking at. Believe my i have been looking . The rest are junk. AVDC-100 gets my vote of the two.

As far as quality - if the source is crap the end encode will be crap.
You cannot make GOLD from STRAW ... or Rumplestiltskin is my name....

As i said in my previos post. I make MiniDVD because it is a 1. a DVD spec and 2.Quality i can put up with.
Try xSVCD if your DVD plays it , OR make 15-20 minute MPEG2 masters and 60-70 minute VCD for the family.
Saving the masters in an editable closed GOP structure (you will need to do your own research now as this is a big topic) for future DVD's

[bbb]

Firewire output is only from digital sources (e.g., digital video cameras). VCRs are (for the most part) analog sources.

[joeAgain------]

Ok, Thanks guys....Wow! this newby is a little overwhelmed by the techno speak and terms. This is totally new to me. But IF my small budget can handle this, I'm determined to learn and copy these family videos.

Ok, that's what I thought. VHS videos are analog. We do(as I mentioned) have a Panasonic digital camera for future movies, but that doesn't help with the 25 or so VHS tapes of precious memories.

Holistic, I'm not wanting gold out of straw. I just would like to get a reasonably good copy of those VHS tapes(not perfect, but at least reasonably good)...do you think that BELKIN product would do that?

And how does a Dazzle Bridge or AVDC-100 connect to computer and VCR?(I was unable to find anything about AVDC-100 on Tektronic's website)

joe
(MANY more questions, but please let me start with those 2) OH! 1 more thing...What do you guys think of this product below(will it work for this?):
http://shop2.outpost.com/product/2827554

[nedlyj]

Joe

Your situation is similar to mine, and all the information I've been reading over the past week is overwhelming. TMPGEnc vs CCE, bitrates, codecs, dvd authoring packages... it's chaos!

I also have a newer Panasonic DV camcorder - which unfortunately doesn't allow pass through translation. So all my old C-VHS tapes need to get captured with an analog to digital converter. The three I've been researching are:

1. Dazzle Hollywood Bridge
2. ADS USB Instant DVD
3. Canopus ADVC-100

They're all about $200-300, but everything else I've looked at that's cheaper is, quite frankly, junk. The Dazzle has dropped of my list due to many reports that it creates soft/blurred capture. So, it's really down to the ADS or Canopus. And, they are distinctly different approaches.

The ADS does hardware MPEG2 encoding on-the-fly as you transfer your VHS footage to the computer. That means you won't have to encode the file to MPEG later. This is done pretty much in real time and is a huge time saver. For instance, I encoded a DV file last night of 6 minutes of DV footage (using TMPGEnc) and it took 2 hours. So, a 30 minute encode would take 10 hours maybe(?). Now granted, this was much higher quality than I'd be doing with VHS tape input, but you get the idea. With that said, the ADS is limited to about 6MB/s capture and you're dependent on their encoder quality - there's no way to clean up compression artifacts after the fact. I haven't used this device - maybe someone else has - but it definitely looks like there are tradeoffs.

The Canopus ADVC-100 looks like the best choice for flexibility and quality. It translates the VHS video into DV video and allows it to be captured to your PC just as if your DV camcorder were connected. The plus here is that you should get the best possible raw data on the PC this way. The downside is, your files will be huge and you'll need to encode them to MPEG1 or 2 later. Potentially with another piece of software that you'll then ned to purchase.

On another note, and maybe someone else can help here. I've tried encoding (or capturing to MPG) using TMPGEnc, MyDVD, VideoWorkshop and Pinnacle Studio 7. And all had drastically different results. I have just purchased an HP DVD200i DVD writer and am siply trying to move both my VHS tapes and my new DV tapes to DVD. But so far my results have been terrible and tedious. Nothing at all like the image I see when I just hook the DV camcorder up to the TV and watch it. And I thought that was the whole point of all this. With the "Best" settings in MyDVD and VideoWorkshop, my DVDs are noticably pixelated compared to the original. That's using a 1.2GB avi file for a 6 minute segment and encoding it to an 8MB bitrate. Now granted it only took these programs about 20 minutes to encode this (and I can't get sound with Video Workshop).

On the other hand, when I used TMPGEnc to encode that same AVI file, it took 2+ hours. But, the image quality was much better. But 2 hours for 6 minutes is a huge committment!

Anyway, I can't say I found any definite answers yet, or have a good process in place. This is definitely going to be a work in progress...

-Ned

[holistic]

Joe

If you really want the cold hard truth , the product you speak of is junk.

http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProductPage.process?Merchant_Id=1&Product_Id=88962

USB 1.0 dosen't have the transfer speeds to capture full screen video , hence it is only 352 * 240 (288) 30 fps - VCD size at best

Be aware VIDEO EDITING on the computer, although cheaper that it ever has been, is not a budget hobby if you want good results.

Depending on your camera - what model ??? - it may be possible to copy your VHS onto it then 'export' (capture) through your firewire card.

http://www.panasonic.com/consumer_electronics/camcorder/digital_camcorders.asp

If your camera has no analog IN support then i still recomend the AVDC-100 A/D converter . A little costly but the time savings and quality outway the Studio PCTVpro TV .

Software :
You should have got video software (basic) with the firewire card. Check your CD's and your burner should also have come with a package - Nero or Easy CD?

If not the following will work - and are free so you can spend your $$$ elsewhere.

Virtual Dub - editing and such ( requires a DV codec in order to open DV files )
TMPGENc - encoder . turns your .avi files into MPEG1 or 2 (lots of how to's to the left of screen)
TSCV - make the VCD , SVCD (http://www.vcdhelp.com/tools.htm)

[joeAgain------]

Thank you for all that info., Ned

Ned, and everyone....

What do you think of this simple solution:

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.asp?TabPage=ProductHighlights&sku=972...0&refurbished=

Please let me know.

[nedlyj]

I have to agree with Holistic - I don't think it's very good unless all you want is to get som web-sized videos. The quality isn't there for actual archiving.

-N

[Eyepop]

I checked out your possible solution there. I am doing the exact same thing that your trying to do here I had a Dazzle(I foget what version) but it was quite similar to that shown there and the results it produced were less than desireable. I would recommend buying a video/capture card which supports component in from your VHS as well as firewire. If these tapes are that important to you that you want them copied in reasonable quality. I would think, you'd be better off investing money in a good card to do this, as it is still much cheaper than having the tapes dubed to DVD by a company.
I must warn you though...even once you've managed to capture your video you will still have much to do before you can burn your captured video to a disc format to be played in your DVD player. My experience thus far, while over a short period of time, has led me to the conclusion that VCD produces a image quality which is substandard. I would recommend that you look into one of the following formats XVCD, SVCD or XSVCD. I guess what I'm saying is that I would not consider a VCD capture device.
Good luck and I am by no means an expert but that's my $0.02, hopefully it helps.

[holistic]

Ned ,

"On the other hand, when I used TMPGEnc to encode that same AVI file, it took 2+ hours. But, the image quality was much better. But 2 hours for 6 minutes is a huge committment! "

No it isn't . mine take 8+ hours - i suggest the following

Since it is pointless putting poor quality images to DVD i do the following .

1. Capture (transfer - all the same) the DV file to the drive. WinDoze see it as an *.AVI (extension) file.
2. Load the .avi file into your NLE (non linear editor) and edit away - save project often - I use VirtualDub if just straight cuts.
3.Resize and add filters , effects as required
4.Export to the encoder - 2 methods
4a - use the one supplied ( unless it is panasonic, LSX forget it)
4b - 'frameserve' to TMPGEnc - my method
5.Encode

** Encoding - a very complex topic that i am still mastering

Quality encode : 2 pass VBR . 1500-4500-7500 takes a while and gives me a file in the 20 minute range. From that i make miniDVD on my CD's . As i use an old 266mmx computer with 5.1 Sb live, Hollywood Magic Decoder card and DVD rom as my 'entertainment' center, the miniDVD spec is a non issue. *may not work in stand alones

Medium quality encode : TMPGEnc offers a CQ - sort of constant quality mode. You can use this to make SVCD , VCD and it is faster than the 2 pass of course.

TOOLS SECTION :
http://www.vcdhelp.com/tools.htm


To 'frameserve' from another application - AviSynth may be required
http://math.berkeley.edu/~benrg/avisynth.html
Confused now -- this will tear your hair out . Took me days to figure out.

[joeAgain------]

Eyepop,

Please give me the names or links to those XVCD, etc. units that you recommend that would work for both my digital camcorder and the VHS VCR capture/transfer tapes.

I'm afraid they will be out of my price range, but need to know before I throw my money on something(s) that won't work.

thanks

[Eyepop]

Joe>>Sorry for being so vague. Personally I am not familiar with any unit which captures directly to XVCD, SVCD or XSVCD. Most likely you will need about 32Gb of free disc space for a 2hr capture into AVI format. Then you will need space after using a program suchas TMPGenc to convert the avi into the appropriate format(listed above). Also I woudl advise you to check out the 'DVD Players Compatibility list' under the 'OTHER' headding on this page to see what formats your DVD player is compatible with.
For the initial capture of the video however, I would recommend that you check out your other topic...

Cheers

[joeAgain------]

I do have that much free HDD space. But I only have a CD burner, not a DVD.

But could someone please recommend a caturing device that will working my combined situation....and comes with software that doesn't take so much converting in order to burn onto CD????

This all sounds arduous!

[joeAgain------]

And HERE'S a question that puzzles me!

Why can I take a mini video cassette out of my digital camcorder and put it into an adapter cassette ....and play the digital video on my VHS VCR?

but I can....what's going on there?

[Eyepop]

Joe->to be honest the only way I'm actually familiar with to get from VHS to any of the aforemetioned formats is to follow this well...."arduous" yes arduous process. Mind you that's why it's between $50.00 and $100.00 to get one 2hr tape converted to DVD format.

do have that much free HDD space. But I only have a CD burner, not a DVD.

I am aware that you only have a CD Burner but there a multiple formats which can be burned with your CD burner which are compatible with DVD players....check the "DVD Players Compatiblity List".[/quote]

[jabber]

nah - it's easy. just takes some patience!

1) get a creative digital VCR (has rca/svid input with a cable connection/tv tuner) $89
2) record your footage
3) dvd2avi to extract the audio
4) soundforge (or other) to make the .mpa file into .wav
5) combine the video and audio in tmpgenc


All the software is free! It takes some playing around, but it won't kill ya!

[nedlyj]

Joe and Eyepop,

Joe: I think the real answer is that there's no "easy" solution. Also, are
you sure you are talking about DV tape? I've never seen an adapter that
plays DV tapes in a VCR. There are adapters for C-VHS (mini-VHS) tapes
but I'm not aware of any for DV tapes. It shouldn't work.

Eyepop: Your process sounds almost like the path I've been going down.
I just assumed (or hoped) I was doing something wrong to see encoding
times like I'm seeing. But one thing stands out in your process. You say
after editing you export to the encoder - or "frameserve" to tmpgenc.
What is that? I've simply been saving as AVI and then importing the avi
file into tmpgenc. What am I missing?

Also, you said:

Quality encode: 2 pass VBR . 1500-4500-7500 takes a while and gives me a file in the 20 minute range

Is this MPEG2? And how long is your clip (3 minutes?) that only took 20
minutes to encode. And not to sound stupid, but (okay, I'll sound stupid)
what is the 1500-4500-7500? Is that your min, avg and max VBR setting?
And (lastly) in my new copy of tmpgenc it has 2 pass VBR listed as "old way"
so I thought I was supposed to use the new VBR-QC (not plain QC) method
for best quality.

Thanks,

-Ned

[joeAgain------]

Yes, I think you are right. They are C-VHS little cassettes, but I could have sworn it was a digital camcorder. I'll have to check it when I get home. Does that mean that little Panasonic camcorder is Not digital?

My choices on all will have narrowed Lots, if that is the case!

On the "cheap solution" with that BELKIN adapter...what size screen would 352x288 look like on my computer. It is looking like I'm not going to be able to afford the full size TV screen good quality route.

[nedlyj]

Joe,

You can see an image that size at:

http://www.portune.com/video/image.gif

-Ned

[joeAgain------]

Ok, Well, That's out. That's no bigger than my empty wallet...HaHa

So if I'm producing C-VHS mini tapes, then I don't have a real digital camcorder, Right?

Is it just a mini-VHS camcorder? Or What?

[wumbus]

Another possibility is to get a Pinnacle Systems DC10plus capture card. This gives you a composite and SVideo in/out and can capture up to 640x480 NTSC (2fields, 6000 kbps). I've used this card successfully with my P3-700MHZ, Win98SE and AVI_IO. Not as good as the Canopus ADVC-100, but a heck of a lot cheaper. In fact, I picked mine up at Office Depot for $19 US when they were clearing them out. YMMV.

[nedlyj]

Joe - Sorry, but... yes.

VHS-C was a great development. It (along with Sony's 8MM) brought the word "compact" to video recorders. And VHS-C had the extra advantage of being able to be slipped in a converter and played in your standard VHS player. But VHS-C is still VHS. Good old analog VHS, and that's all teh better it gets.

All my old tapes are VHS-C taht I'm going to have to play in a new VHS player and send the signal through a capture card. As you may have guessed I'm leaning towards the ADV-100. But I have to get my process down first. I still can't write a DVD from footage on my DV camcorder and have it look acceptable yet - so I need to get that working first.

General question for anyone here:
Did I waste my money on a DVD burner? In other words, am I spending twice as much time, effort and money trying to get MPEG2 DVDs created from my DV tapes as I would be spending simply writing MPEG 1 VCDs to CD? I keep reading hear that you can rip a VCD that's almost the same quality as a commercial VCD/DVD - so is there really an advantage to DVD?

Now even though I'm asking that question, I did make a few VCDs a while back and they looked terrible - but that was befor I got into using real encoders, etc...

Thanks,
-Ned

[joeAgain------]

Ok, that being the case(that ALL my videos are in VHS format...whether mini or full size cassettes)...then I think I know which way I'll go(maybe).

As much as I'd like the quality of the ADVC-100, I think I'll have to go the cheaper route and get to watch TV and listen to the radio too..by getting the Pinnacle Studio PCTV Pro. to capture my VHS videos,...and their(or other software to convert and burn to CDs) at $89.99.

Does this sound Ok as a compromise?(with TV and radio thrown in?)

Please give me your comment, Ok?