video capture advice (recording vhs to computer file)

[ejl1789]

hello everyone. i am looking for advice with video capturing, specifically for taking old home videos and capturing them onto a computer. the videos are on 8mm camcorder tapes, beta tapes, and vhs tapes. im playing them thru either the camcorder or beta/vcr player, and hooking the red, white and yellow cables to a converter device which then hooks to the computer thru usb.

currently im using a dazzle converter device. it works good, but the software it came with isnt so great. its roxio pinnacle studio 12. i mean its ok, it does everything i need as far as capturing, but the files it makes for the videos are just incredibly too large. i did a 3 hour video the other day and the file came to 20+ gigs!

im wondering, is it the software or something else? i know for a video like that, you gotta expect that the file is gonna be a rather large one, but 20 gigs for 3 hours?!?! please tell me that there is another way! a couple things that have come to my mind already are-- maybe its the software, and theres a better one out there? or also, i dont know anything about like formats and compression and all that, so another question i had was maybe im doing it in the wrong format, and thats the reason its so large. it really doesnt matter to me what format i capture them in, because these videos are just going to remain on the computer, im not burning them to dvd or anything.

so in a nutshell, im looking for advice on how to capture the videos into files that wont be so large. now i dont know whether that means i need to use different software, format/compression, etc. any help will be greatly appreciated! thanks.

[LMotlow]

20GB is about right if you're capturing analog to DV or similar. Great way to get second-rate but editable captures from analog, but mediocre results are the norm these days anyway. Really. There are better ways, but you're not ready.

Quick advice:
Dazzle = garbage.
Pinnacle = junkware.

Try a Diamond ATI 600 TV Wonder capture device and capture directly to MPEG on your PC for DVD output. Or get a DVD recorder and record directly to MPEG -- you can copy MPEG to your PC and play with it. Or get one of those over-rated Canopus cards and capture to DV again but get better software to play with, like SONY Movie Studio Platinum.

The way advanced users and pros do it with all the video sources you listed is a big leap into different territory. Just reading about it can make one tired, but many who are advanced users in this forum started at the reference site in this link: http://www.digitalfaq.com/guides/video.htm . It's needs updating as far as some hardware goes, but the main ideas still work. It has several articles in several sections.

You might also try browsing the Capture and Restoration areas of videohelp. There are a couple of analog to digital threads underway currently, and if you Google you'll find about 20 more since last spring. There have also been a couple of threads specifically about capturing Beta.
Here's one on analog tape: https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/367544-Capturing-Video8-Hi8.
Another current thread, many suggestions: https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/367191-Help-with-VHS-Capture-Setup

[manono]

i did a 3 hour video the other day and the file came to 20+ gigs!

Yeah, so? I captured a three hour long VHS tape about 10 days ago and it came to about 80 gigs.

However you capped it, that's not your final format. Maybe you want to edit it or 'restore' it before reencoding for DVD or MKV or something like that. Then that final format will be much smaller.

[LMotlow]

Yes, manono, good point. Last month I got Volume 1 of an ancient 2.75 hour 1940's film noir series VHS played on an AG-1980 VCR thru an ATI 9600XT capture card into huffyuv-lossless YUY2 AVI = 72GB. Of course, huffyuv is as good as uncompressed and I didn't lose the 50% chroma resolution that gets lost thru DV capture. That lossless AVI will be my permanent hard drive archive on an external hard drive. With a little cleanup of some bad frames and a couple of segments where the levels don't look so great, it will be encoded to final delivery format in two ways: (a) a high-bitrate authored standard definition DVD on dual-layer DVD disc, where the final vid should be about 7.5 GB. (b) Standard definition BluRay encoded and authored for single-layer BD-R disc at a higher bitrate, likely about 15GB in final size. I could probably get Volume 2 on that same BD-R disc as well.

More info about your playback gear and ultimate objectives will be helpful.

[usually_quiet]

Try a Diamond ATI 600 TV Wonder capture device and capture directly to MPEG on your PC for DVD output.

The Diamond ATI 600 TV Wonder comes in a PCI version, a PCIE version and a USB version. However, none of these devices have been made since 2009. They sometimes show up on ebay, but aren't always easy to find http://www.ebay.com/itm/ATI-TV-Wonder-HD-600-USB-Digital-and-Analog-TV-Tuner-with-Remo...item339662b190

The USB version is the one that most people here recommend. It uses different chips than the other two versions, and the automatic gain control is better-behaved. I have the USB version and I have gotten it to work with Windows 7 32-bit, with Windows 7 64-bit, and with Windows 8.1 32-bit, but some people do have difficulty getting the drivers to install. It works with Virtualdub, AmarecTV, and other capture software.

If the OP wants something newer, some people here like the Hauppauge USB Live 2 and the EZCAP.TV 116 EzCAPTURE USB 2.0 Video Capture Device http://www.ezcap.tv/usb-video-capture/ezcap116-capture-card which can be purchased from the company's Amazon store in the US. They also work with a variety of capture software. [Edit]Note that these are newer, but do not represent an improvement over the TV Wonder 600 USB, just a good pair of alternatives.

[ejl1789]

i did a 3 hour video the other day and the file came to 20+ gigs!

Yeah, so? I captured a three hour long VHS tape about 10 days ago and it came to about 80 gigs.

daaaamn you got some problems son!!

[LMotlow]

i did a 3 hour video the other day and the file came to 20+ gigs!

Yeah, so? I captured a three hour long VHS tape about 10 days ago and it came to about 80 gigs.

daaaamn you got some problems son!!

No, I wouldn't think so. manono is apparently capturing to lossless or losslessly compressed files. You're the one who's apparently capturing to lossy DV compression. That's a guess because you haven't answered questions about how you're capturing.

If you want to capture smaller files you need higher compression, such as MPEG2, h264, or a few others that might be possible with your cheapo Dazzle device. But becauase you want to do some "editing" you'd need a lossless or less compressed medium designed for editing work. If you're capturing to DV you can edit that way -- I'd suggest better software -- archive that, and then re-encode to a format for smaller files. It's the lossy re-encoding that's the gotcha. This is pretty basic stuff, so you might wanna read up on it and consider other options. As it is, DV is PC-only playback so you might want to think about it.

[manono]

manono is apparently capturing to lossless or losslessly compressed files.

Right, HuffYUV lossless. Then the multiple filtering before later making DVDs for me and MP4s with x264/AAC for upload to YouTube. My USB capture device came with some ArcSoft software that allows for capture in DVD-compliant MPEG-2 video, but I don't use it. As you said, most capture devices come with some sort of software to allow for small sized caps. But if it's a Canopus box capturing as DV AVI (but I don't think it is) then it can be easily compressed down after the capture using any one of a number of encoders.

daaaamn you got some problems son!!

Hardly. The points I was trying to make were 1) 20GB is nothing and 2) big sizes are good for those that care about getting the best out of their captures. If you don't care about quality then recompress your capture down immediately to some final format.