Gear-buying advice

[Venner]

Hey all. Sometime next month, I'm going to pick up a capture device and a TBC of some sort so I can finally start converting over our rapidly-deteriorating family VHS tapes from the early 80s to DVD. I already have a brand-new JVC 4 head SVCR with Svideo out (but no TBC) that I picked up on the cheap and have been using an old BT848 PCI card for capture (with very few dropped frames except during DVD-resolution capturing)

Obviously, I don't need to defeat macrovision or anything, but the worst degradation on some of the tapes is due to terrible vertical jitter that makes those all but unwatchable (although the JVC certainly helped vs. the old 2-head GE unit I had.) I'm assuming a TBC would be my best low-cost option to help mitigate that particular problem. (I couldn't do much of anything to correct it with virtualdub and some jitter filters.)

That being said, what would y'all recommend?
I was thinking along the lines of a
Canopus ADVC-110 (~$250) or ADS Pyro AV (~$150) paired with a Datavideo TBC-1000 (~$300) or an AVT-8710 (~$200).

That comes out as $350 to $550. (A big *ouch* for someone on a shoestring budget.) I'm certainly open to other suggestions. I've read extensively through the forums, but I'd still appreciate any thoughts on the Canopus vs. ADS and TBC-1000 vs. AVT-8710, especially as it pertains to my situation.

And FWIW, I have plenty of ram, drive space, and CPU power.

[reboot]

I like the Canopus 110 (I used a 100 for a few days). Others call it a toy, and swear by the Datavideo, as a "pro-sumer" device.

[steveryan]

If your PC is high spec don't discount an ATI All In Wonder card and capture to MPEG plus a TBC. Do you really want to capture and then convert to MPEG what is already a poor source i.e VHS? I use a £25 AIW PCI card to capture to MPEG and have been very happy with it.

[jdizzy40]

MOney in plenty? Canopus 110. On a budget, ATI All In Wonder. Final product will vary, but you won't know unless you can compare.

[Venner]

Well, this project took a slightly different turn. I just ordered a Datavideo TBC-1000 from B&H and a Hauppauge PVR-250 from Buy.com.

I finally decided to get the Hauppage to make a dedicated MythTV-based personal video recorder box. First though, I'll see how it does vs. my old BT848 based tuner card. I guarantee it will be simpler and less time consuming to get from the source material to DVD with the Hauppauge, but it will be interesting to see the difference in final results.

[spectroelectro]

You've already got 90% of the right equipment. The only issue withteh Hauppauge PVR250 is that editing the video requires some proprietary software; apparently the MPEG-2 files produced by the PVR250 can't be fed directly into editing software like Womble or M2Edit Pro. I've also heard occasional problems with audio/video sync in the PVR250.

However, many of these issues were cleared up by downloading the latest Hauppauge drivers. So it sounds like you've got a pretty solid system. You should be able to get excellent results from VHS. It's similar to the system I use (Canopus ADVC-100, AVT 8710 TBC, high-end VHS VCR with digipure DNR) and I consistently get excellent results in transferring VHS to DVD.

The only caveat about the ATI AIW cards is that they're notoriously sensitive to false macrovision -- i.e., older VHS tapes can cause the card to flake out and stop cature because the ATi thinks it getting macrovision when it isn't. But a TBC takes care of that.

[reboot]

The only issue withteh Hauppauge PVR250 is that editing the video requires some proprietary software; apparently the MPEG-2 files produced by the PVR250 can't be fed directly into editing software like Womble or M2Edit Pro. I've also heard occasional problems with audio/video sync in the PVR250.

I haven't seen any of the stuff you mention.
Womble, VideoReDo, Sony Vegas MS4, Mainconcept EVE, Cuttermaran, all take the recordings with no trouble.
I also have not seen any of the audio sync issues others claim.

[SatStorm]

I don't have any problem to use PVR250 mpegs on womble mpeg2vcr I own...

That USE to be a problem, years ago.