Converting Old VHS Tapes To DVD With DAZZLE 150

[EsotericTT@aol.com]

I've been making copies of old laser discs and even recording directly off the TV using my DAZZLE 150. I use Graphedit to demux and DVD Complete to make the finished product. The results have always been perfect. However with VHS tapes, horror! I get stuck frames, gross losses of video/audio synch, stuccato motion, etc. This has usually occured only with my oldest tapes. However, some look great, and the problems still occur.

I have tried the following:

Carefully adjusting tracking.
Using different VHS players.
Different filters in Graphedit
Running the outputs of the VHS machine thru a Pioneer DVD recorder.


The best results have resulted from different players and using that DVD recorder, which I just bought from Best Buy and will take back. I found that the desk top DVD recorders have far fewer problems and may actually do something to the video to make it more palatable to the DAZZLE 150. I am podering about getting a fancier Pioneer with built in HD.

Anyway, has anyone experienced these anomolies when trying to back up old VHS tapes with a DAZZLE 150 and how did you overcome the problems I have relatated?

[Capmaster]

They are problems that can occur with any capture card when capping off VHS.

The solution: a Timebase Corrector. VHS is a lousy source because of mechanical slop, tape stretch, curled edges, etc. All of those play hell with the timing and cause poor picture, dropped frames, constant sync problems, you name it. Tape is the most challenging of all capturing sources, bar none.

A TBC stores the video in buffer and replaces all the vertical and horizontal timing with precise, clean timing. Frames are perfectly sync'ed.

The bad news: The cheapest decent quality standalone full-frame TBC is the DataVideo TBC-1000, and it runs about $300. The built-in TBCs on standalone recorders will help, but they're line TBCs and not full-frame TBCs. They don't help with larger errors requiring vertical timing replacement, or macrovision removal.

But ....they will help if the tape isn't in too bad a shape.

If you plan to regularly capture off tape, do yourself a favor and bite the bullet and buy a TBC. If you're only doing a few, look into renting one and doing all the tapes in one sitting.

[EsotericTT@aol.com]

Capmaster,

Thanks for the info. I wasn't sure of what was going on when I tried using the DVD recorder as video filter. Right now, I am finding that it works with most of the tapes I want to correct and will contemplate the DataVideo TBC-1000. I can always put the tapes and a VHS player in a closet and wait a few years for TBC products to come in dirt cheap. You gotta admit, for the same price you get a reasonable TBC and a good recorder to boot.

Let me pose another question. Now this applies to video right out of the VHS machine and into the DAZZLE 150, and to video that flows thru the Pioneer for cleanup. What I have done is to check the captured video by playing portions of it, especially at the end in WINDOWS MEDIA PLAYER. When I see and hear synch problems there, I know it's hopeless to procede to demux and DVD production. However, I have seen *.mpg files that played perfectly. Absolutely no synch problems, but when I produce a DVD, all is screwed up.

This is what causes me to think that something is happening either in the demux process or in the (as DVD Complete calls it) the "DVD build" process. I am wondering if changing one of these processes or inserting some sort of magic filter in the the Graphedit demux process could improve upon this futher. Any ideas on this>

Mike