MPEG capture from VHS

[chris.newbold]

I have a pentium 4, 2.6 GHz setup with 512RAM and a fast 160 GB second hard disk, running xp sp1. I have Pinnacle Liquid pro (version 5.5) installed. Also my old Pinnacle Dv500 plus version 4.5 software.

I am trying to capture some reasonable quality VHS tapes to put onto DVD. These are playing on a JVC video with TBC. At present I have two options for capture:

When I use the pro card I get quite a lot of issues with stuttered frames (it seems like if there is any kind of major analogue 'glitch', the digital encoding doesn't know what to do and fills the gap with a repeated frame). Also quality from analogue is not great.

When I use the DV500, capturing with scenalyser, it is much more forgiving although I still get some stuttered frame errors. Also the resulting digitised video can be a bit jittery (probably the videos fault). TBC off helps the analogue signal, by the way, but the picture becomes so much more fuzzy (by turning TBC off, you also turn off some other picture processing features, which sharpen it no end) that I think I prefer the odd stuttered frame.

I think I have pretty much had enough. I have 2 capture cards and neither works properly, or at least well enough for this purpose. Incidentally I have tried running the system with just each capture card on its own after a clean install - same result - they do not seem to be conflicting.

I would be very grateful for views on the following potential solutions:

Capture with pro card using different software which may help correct the picture errors?

An alternative second capture card (I want to keep my pro card and set up for editing purposes and its great for capturing stable VHS and digital). Obviously this would have to be very affordable (given my outlay so far)and give great quality analogue. Any ideas?

Probably my preferred option: Using something else to do A-D conversion. I don't have inputs to route the analogue through my Sony PC 5 digital camcorder (is it adaptable with a widget?) but maybe an A-D converter so I can capture via firewire into the pro card or directly via USB. At present I use Cinemacraft encoder to MPEG my AVIs and it gives great quality. I am wary of buying anything where the MPEG encoding is not up to scratch and have no idea about the relative merits of software/hardware based encoders..

I have been looking at the Canopus device which captures to MPEG and stabilises the picture..or even something (much cheaper) like the Cameo Grabster 200 which claims to capture AVI/MPEG and transfer via USB 2 - are such things totally crap?

Or how about a DVD recorder - is it possible to take the MPEG files and do something else with them on a PC in terms of menu authoring??

I am thinking at some point the DV500 will be obsolete anyway and I could do with a workable alternative as most of the video work I do is off people's old VHS tapes. I need good quality analogue capture!! Please help!

Chris

[yoda313]

Hello,

You can take dvdr's from standalone recorders and rip them to pc to edit them Though some will be in .vro I think which is a little different but still copyable.

I believe a capture card is better than a usb device (even usb2 although I'm told a usb 1 will still capture mpeg2 quite well).

I use just an old 2 head hifi vcr and a wintv pvr250 for my captures (mpeg only quite good and easy to use).

Many options out there - just do a little more research and set your price range and you'll do fine

Kevin

[chris.newbold]

Thanks Kevin

I am tempted by the PVR150. Seems to do a good job capturing MPEG 2 for a very good price. Shame I can't get something with an option to capture AVI too, to give me more options when I need them eg editing flexibility. Also I guess I will still have all the frame stutter issues, as I can't imagine the AD conversion will be any better than my Dv500..

Still will save me time. Anymore suggestions on any good quality stable MPEG/AVI encoders welcome!

Chris

[ulapines]

I don't know if this works but take a look here:

http://www.shspvr.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6404

[chris.newbold]

Thanks - if I buy one I will certainly try it!

[BrainStorm69]

If you are looking for something to give you the flexibility to do either mpeg or avi capture, the ATI AIW cards are good at both. You can probably pick up a used 7500 AIW off ebay for about $50. Just make sure you get the purple breakout box with it. Here's one:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=40158&item=5149771731&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW

or another:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=40158&item=5150271080&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW

[wwjd]

I have a P4 2.53 with 512Mb and I have not been able to get my AIW7500 to not drop frames unless I capture in uncompressed avi. I very much prefer working with avi but the uncompressed avi file from my AIW 7500 is over a Gb per minute of video. So lots and lots of HD space is required.

I also have a WinTV 150 PVR that I have been testing out for the last week or so. It does a pretty good job but I am not really that happy with the picture quality, the resulting mpeg encoding is not as good as what I get with avi to mpeg using CCE.

My preference is using an ADVC-100 to convert to DV and download to my HD using a firewire. I use this to convert my VHS and 8mm tape home videos to DVD as well as do TV captures. I use CCE basic to do all of the mpeg encoding. The quality is significantly better than what I have been able to produce with any other method that I have tried so far.

To be fair to the WinTV 150, I have not completed my testing and it is possible that I have not found just the right settings or my particular card may not be working completely properly.

wwjd

[greymalkin]

are you capturing using ATI's MMC ? I found I got dropped frames and things unless I used ATI's software for the actual capture. Otherwise the only time I would get dropped frames is if the VHS source is very poor..like flickering or static..

[wwjd]

I use the MMC software. I defrag, use a dedicated 120GB Baracuda, I shut down lots of background stuff and so on. The reason I drop frames is that I do not like the quality when capturing at Half D1 vs Full D1. I also prefer the video quality at higher constant bitrate. I have a large screen TV and I need every bit of quality I can get.

The quality difference that I percieve between Half and Full D1 is small but I think that difference is magnified somewhat by the fact that I view it on a Large screen TV.

wwjd

[chris.newbold]

Pardon me for resurrecting my hijacked thread!!

I have now bought a PVR 150 and installed onto my pentium 4 2.6 Ghz, 512 RAM windows xp SP2, 2nd hard disk machine and have tried to capture to Mpeg at standard resolution. I am in the UK (PAL) capturing good quality VHS footage from a JVC SVHS video with TBC.

Apart from the fact that the quality is not brilliiant when I burn the resulting mpeg to DVD, there is loads of blocking / pixal artifacts visible on the monitor and on the recorded footage. Have tried swapping the PCI slot and IRQ and have downloaded the updated drivers.

Any tips before i take it back for a refund?

Do I need to try some of the reg tweaks suggested in other threads? Do i need to alter the data rates or frame size settings?

And while I am here - there must be a really good MPEG encoding piece of hardware out there? After all my SKY PLUS box essentially 'captures' MPEG in excellent quality! So what is the best way to capture VHS footage, either to AVI or MPEG?

Chris

[FulciLives]

Some people use the Hauppauge WinTV PVR cards to capture at a CBR of 12,000kbps which is the highest setting it can use (some say it can actually go as high as 15,000kbps).

This should give you a very clean artifact free image.

After capture you do a software MPEG encode to get it back down to the DVD spec. This way you can "do it right" such as doing a 2-pass or multi-pass VBR encode.

Another option is to try to use Half D1 (which is 352x576 instead of 720x576) with a CBR of 4000kbps to 5000kbps which should look good enough with VHS that no re-encoding need to take place.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[wwjd]

I will re-iterate what I posted earlier in this thread and is that the best capture from VHS that I have found is JVC-S2901U VCR to Canopus ADVC-100 to CCE Basic to TDA or VS8. This is also the best TV capture method that I have found that is PC based. Very flexible and excellent video reproduction.

I have a PVR 150 and have been teetering on bringing it back ever since I got it. I have done the tweaks and updates. I have made sure my coax cable from my cable provider is solid. The net is that it is not nearly as good as the captures I get with my Canopus. The only reason I may keep it is that I can use it to capture stuff that I will probably not keep, stuff that will be watched once and then deleted. It is slightly more convenient than my Canopus because the scheduling is little more straight forward.

I have not taken the plunge and gone the way of a DVD recorder but that also seems like a viable way to go. Less flexible but should produce fairly good video reproduction.

wwjd

[junkmalle]

I have now bought a PVR 150 and installed onto my pentium 4 2.6 Ghz, 512 RAM windows xp SP2, 2nd hard disk machine and have tried to capture to Mpeg at standard resolution... Apart from the fact that the quality is not brilliiant when I burn the resulting mpeg to DVD, there is loads of blocking / pixal artifacts visible on the monitor and on the recorded footage.

I have the PVR 250 which is very similar and don't have those problems unless I capture at very low bitrates. Try the WinTV2000 app with the "DVD Standard Play" configuration. That will give you about an hour and 20 minutes on a DVD.

[chris.newbold]

Tahnks for the replies, guys.

Take the point about the canopus - may well be the way I will go..

Re PVR 150 - tried the Standard DVD setting and 12000 setting - no improvement - still blocking.

Couldn't work out how to use the advanced button to customise a setting. Whenever i clicked ok it reverted to the defaults - HELP files no help in how to create an advanced set of customised settings and save!

[junkmalle]

Couldn't work out how to use the advanced button to customise a setting. Whenever i clicked ok it reverted to the defaults - HELP files no help in how to create an advanced set of customised settings and save!

After setting the video and audio settings go back to the "Configurations" tab, type in a name for your settings, then press "Save New Config". Then go back to the previous dialog and select that configuration from the pulldown. Took me a while to figure that out too!

[FulciLives]

Here is a website dedicated to the Hauppauge WinTV PVR capture cards:

http://www.shspvr.com/

You will find many tips there.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman