Capture devices? Giving up on using Black Magic Shuttle for Betamax & VHS

[Neil-Betamax]

Can anyone suggest a good capture device?

I've spent years trying numerous techniques to capture betamax & VHS with a Black Magic Shuttle (+ a DMR-EX79), but I'm going to try a different device & sell it. The results have been amazing, I've captured high quality video but I can't afford to me fault finding trying to get the audio to sync anymore.


Years ago I used something similar to an EZ CAP, which produced low fi image quality but at least the audio was in sync.

Is there anything available now for £100 or less which could be either simple plug & play, or capable of capturing decent enough quality with no issues surrounding audio sync?

I'm not expecting cinematic quality, although that would have been great, but something less problematic than what I've been using. I have the DMR-EX79 DVD Recorder to use too, but I just can't afford the time for fault finding anymore in order to get audio in sync on playback.
So I'm thinking of selling the Black Magic Shuttle if there's a device good enough to work with what I have. The x3 machines I've been using are pretty good graphics card wise, nothing major but handled the black magic capturing ok.

Thanks

Neil

[Alwyn]

I don't know about Betamax, but for VHS, the IOData GV-USB2 works well. I'm using AmarecTV as the capture software. I'm using an ES-15 as my stabiliser.

Recent YT review here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flc8pOWm6YQ

[lordsmurf]

One of the most important factors is actually the OS being used, due to quality of the drivers. Win10/11 have issues, and don't care about legacy tasks like c

- Blackmagic cards are really lousy at SD, and even BM admits it.
- Easycaps are crap, lots of random USB cards are. (Nothing to do with USB itself, the PCI era had lots of random crappy PCI cards as well.)

I need to find out who that Youtuber is. He makes mistakes, messes up some facts, but has made amusing videos that I enjoyed watching. I'd not rely on those as reviews, but rather amusing semi-accurate commentary on how awful so many capture cards are.

[pchan]

What about these upscalers?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCURqv-pkHk

[Alwyn]

I need to find out who that Youtuber is. He makes mistakes, messes up some facts

I suggest you just buy one and find out for yourself. Or stop your criticism of something you've never even laid eyes on. I don't comment on something I hadn't actually used unless there were clear reports that I could quote.

[lordsmurf]

Or stop your criticism

He made some basic factual mistakes regarding NTSC resolutions, but that will be sorted.

Youtube in general has a lot of random information, with random factual errors, and is a mess of misinformation as a result.

What about these upscalers?

That won't end well.

capture

Is there a specific reason that you're trying to capture consumer analog SD formats (VHS, Betamax) into HD? Or is that a conversational tangent, and you're able to properly capture SD as SD, and upscale properly in software next? (Because that WILL give best quality, live HD conversion always sucks, obliterates too much data ion processing.)

[Bwaak]

I don't know about Betamax, but for VHS, the IOData GV-USB2 works well. I'm using AmarecTV as the capture software. I'm using an ES-15 as my stabiliser.

Recent YT review here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flc8pOWm6YQ

This is a fun video, but he uses OBS and he admitted that he was not able to get interlaced video off the dongle. Does he get 30p or 60p out of it? He demonstrates a movie, which is 24 fps, the best option would be to IVTC, the next one is 60p, and 30p is the worst of all. I suppose he uses OBS because he wants a solution that works on platforms other than Windows, too bad that OBS is practically the only multi-platform software that allows capturing.

He did not address the elevated white levels on his GV captures. I think Sharc or Jagabo mentioned different black level (pedestal in analog-speak) used in Japan, and since this is a Japanese product for the Japanese market, it may be the culprit. I suppose if he simply got "computer" levels after the capture, he could compress them back into "video" levels for his presentation without losing much of the detail. But apparently he did not do it, so side by side, the Elgato has more grays and more highlights.

Sharpness-wise, wow, the Elgato sucks compared to the GV. I suppose the good old DVC100 is about as soft as Elgato. I don't have the Elgato and don't feel like spending so much money on a rather mediocre product, so maybe someone else wants to compare them. I think someone compared the GV to the DVC100 and to the Diamond VC500, but there was no Elgato in the comparison (I should bookmark the links to the stuff I am interested in).

[Alwyn]

he admitted that he was not able to get interlaced video off the dongle.

He said he couldn't figure out how to do it. That's different. It does output Interlaced.

[oln]

The I-O data lets you adjust video levels like most capture cards so if the black level is too high you can just lower it. And yeah it does output interlaced fine even with the latest drivers, I have one myself so can confirm.

The panasonic should be able to handle stabilization if you send the video through it, only possible downside is that it can clip whites in some cases.

Another option if you can find it would be something like a magewell hdmi capture + hdmi splitter to evade hdcp and capture the hdmi out from the dvd-recorder though that can be a bit clunky to set up and may be hard to find for under 100 as well without gaining a lot over the i-o data other than avoiding the 8 pixel black borders on the left/right.

[Neil-Betamax]

Does anybody know much about the stand alone capture devices, like the DigitNow or Irecord?

I'm hoping these could turn out to be great, moreso because I like the idea of how I could potentially bypass a lot of fault finding and headache using a computer during the process.

The reviews look ok. I can see this one captures in 1080p, not sure if it could capture in 640x 480 SD which would be ideal as I'd prefer the image to be as close to the original as possible, then I can always render it into 1080p later.

It looks like a few of these style devices are available, would be interested in what people think:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30e9Kal86QA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-SGzUT1qKw

So long as it has no interlace problems or audio sync issues & the picture is good enough on a large screen, it might be worth a go.

As for OS, this is where I'm upto...

My Windows 10 desktop machine isn't stable for video processing.
I have a Thinkpad running windows 10, which tends to have a better graphics card & has
performed well using davinci resolve, so I could check compatibility with this for
any card I might be considering.

The other OS option is my Macbook Pro. Its always been great for video processing as the graphics
card is pretty decent. It captured uncompressed video with my BM shuttle almost perfect -
only issue was the audio sync, a shame because the video capture quality is great.



I think it does make sense to upscale afterwards.

[Sharc]

The I-O data lets you adjust video levels like most capture cards so if the black level is too high you can just lower it. And yeah it does output interlaced fine even with the latest drivers, I have one myself so can confirm.

The panasonic should be able to handle stabilization if you send the video through it, only possible downside is that it can clip whites in some cases.

Basically yes, but:
For PAL Panasonic DVD recorders in passthrough it is generally recommended to use the SCART AV1 plug configured for S-Video rather than the direct S-Video plug, because of the notorious brightness pumping which has been reported for the direct S-Video port of most (PAL) Panasonic recorders. See https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/403635-Panasonic-DVD-recorder-passthrough-settings...e9#post2685720
However, the Y (luma) signal of the SCART is DC-biased by about 0.74V, means the "black" is at about 0.74V rather than at 0V. It's rock stable, but biased.
Depending how the capture device handles this DC offset it may clip the brights (overdriving the ADC). In that case it may be better to use the the direct S-Video port and accept the temporary brightness hickup after abrupt scene changes from bright to dark.

Perhaps off topic and not relevant for NTSC Pannys, I don't know.

[Neil-Betamax]

The I-O data lets you adjust video levels like most capture cards so if the black level is too high you can just lower it. And yeah it does output interlaced fine even with the latest drivers, I have one myself so can confirm.

The panasonic should be able to handle stabilization if you send the video through it, only possible downside is that it can clip whites in some cases.

Another option if you can find it would be something like a magewell hdmi capture + hdmi splitter to evade hdcp and capture the hdmi out from the dvd-recorder though that can be a bit clunky to set up and may be hard to find for under 100 as well without gaining a lot over the i-o data other than avoiding the 8 pixel black borders on the left/right.

Thanks for the suggestion. I've been using my panasonic as a pass through in my set up, so its ok, I'm used to having a bulky room full of AV stuff.

How well does the IOData GV-USB 2 handle audio sync after say, upto 45mins to an hour of capturing?

I've researched a few devices to replace the black magic shuttle, but eg, there's a capture device called DigitNow which is stand alone and appeared to have great reviews, till I saw in the youtube comments that the audio doesn't stay in sync for long and its better suited for capturing short clips.


My BM Shuttle tended to capture audio in sync for about 10-15mins till is goes noticably out of sync. I was even considering warping the audio to fit using ableton, by stretching the entire audio track to fit the exact length of the video, then dubbing the soundtrack back over in davinci resolve. I think I'd lose a lot of sound quality &, I have a lot of tapes to get through.

Do you know if the magewell hdmi capture device you mentioned has a good reputation for keeping audio in sync on long videos? Trying to find info on this is a bit difficult. It's within my budget range but it'd be a shame if I get the same result as I have with the BM with audio sync issues.

I could always crop the 8 pixels if I went for the IO Data, but ideally if I can acheive a better capture I'd prefer to invest in a magewell, if its better as a whole.

[Neil-Betamax]

[QUOTE DigitNow which is stand alone and appeared to have great reviews, till I saw in the youtube comments that the audio doesn't stay in sync for long and its better suited for capturing short clips. [/QUOTE]

Edit - It was a similar device to DigitNow called Irecord, which is known to have audio sync issues on longer captures.

I'm yet to find out whether the DigitNow is ok for audio sync. If the IO Data GV-USB2 is ok with audio on long clips, this could be ideal as Im hearing it performs great in comparison to the dazzles & similar models you often see for around £30-40

[oln]

I've not had any issues with audio sync when using the I-O data when using typical virtualdub settings and a dvd-recorder for stabilization at least at least.

The magewell should in theory be able to keep sync since it's after all capturing the already in sync HDMI signal from the dvd-recorder (then again so should the Blackmagic if recording HDMI/digital input) though some hdmi capture devices can have issues causing audio/video being offset for whatever reason like the avermedia card I used to use for HDMI recording . I've not really gotten around to using mine much so not gonna say 100%.

When it comes to those standalone things that record to sd cards. As far as I know the stuff you get from them is cropped, deinterlaced and in compressed mp4 so it depends whether one is okay with that or not. ALso seem to be a mixed bag how well they handle video direct from VCRs.

There are standalone recorders that can record to high bitrade near lossless stuff like propres in original resolution like Atomos ninja and the like but that's another price range entirely and those are only SDI/HDMI afaik unless it's very old pro DV/Mpeg2 gear but that tends to record to discs rather than practical media.

[pchan]

If you happen to have a Sony digital camcorder, then you can use analog-to-digital pass-through. I digitized all my Video8 tapes using this method. I tried both Sharp ViewcamZ and Sony DCR-HC85E. The Sony handycam did a better job.

Here is an example from one of our forum members.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hbytp67EYAg

Most importantly, for VHS capture, transfer the tape to a new container and clear the video head with video head cleaner. Forward and backward the entire tape.

[oln]

However, the Y (luma) signal of the SCART is DC-biased by about 0.74V, means the "black" is at about 0.74V rather than at 0V. It's rock stable, but biased.
.

I would have to re-test to be 150% certain but the levels have a pretty wide range of adjustment so I don't think it should be an issue with this card. Don't remember encountering having any issue with the output levels from the panasonics being too high to handle with this or any other cards.

[Neil-Betamax]

The I-O Data sounds like the best bet for me so far from what I can see. That's another thing I noticed too about the stand alone recorders I looked at, a lot of them recorded in 1080p or 720, whereas ideally I'd prefer to record in SD.

A friend of mine suggested that the DMR EX79 DVD rec I'm using might be responsible for the audio sync issues & suggested using a composite to HDMI converter, but I'd be inclined to believe that the issue is with the BM device. I'd imagine that my DVD recorder is doing the same job as an anologue to HDMI converter. I see a lot of people here also use DVD recs as stabilizers so, I'd imagine its safe to say that its necessarily the cause of the audio issue.

If it saves me a lot of hassle I might just get a higher end stand alone device to do the job, not a bad idea come to think of it. I decided to have another look into it because I know someone who is digitizing their VHS with a daewoo VHS to DVD recording device. It looks a neet bit of kit but as you say, ideally we want the end result to be a file, not a DVD.

[Bogilein]

I don't think it's the Blackmagic Shuttle unless it's defective.

It is more likely that it is due to incorrect settings or a hardware conflict.

The Panasonic EX79 should perform similarly to the ES15.

Which operating system are you using, which capture software, which recording format, which driver, which settings?
Are you recording to an external or internal hard disk?

Observe a few basic rules, switch off the virus scanner, switch off Windows updates. Do not do anything else on the computer while recording.

When recording with the Shuttle where audio/video were not in sync, the cause was recording to an external hard disk via a USB3 port. After I switched to an internal or esata hard disk, I no longer had any problems.
However, I recorded via the HDMI port as described in the tutorial on a German video forum.

https://gleitz.info/forum/index.php?thread/47572-tutorial-hochwertiges-digitalisieren-...en-und-andere/

[oln]

I have a daewoo df-4500 dvd-recorder/vhs and the dvd-recorder side of it decoder on it is the worst dvd recorder at handling vhs output I've tried. It loses sync very easily and has a lot of horizontal wiggle, whether from the internal vcr or even worse from an external vcr, would not recommend at all. Idk if all daewoos are like this but if that one is anyone to go by it's not worth bothering with. If you go that route you might as well record dvds with the Panasonic.

And yeah, some of these standalone things may only give you video that's upscaled, possibly stretched, in addition to being cropped and deinterlaced. Same with most AV->HDMI dongles other than a few more expensive ones. And, if you are having sync issues with the BM with output from the dvd-recorder it's quite possible you'll also get it with a av->hdmi as it's likely it's some pc issue rather anything to do with the dvd-recorder.

[Neil-Betamax]

I don't think it's the Blackmagic Shuttle unless it's defective.

It is more likely that it is due to incorrect settings or a hardware conflict.

The Panasonic EX79 should perform similarly to the ES15.

Which operating system are you using, which capture software, which recording format, which driver, which settings?
Are you recording to an external or internal hard disk?

Observe a few basic rules, switch off the virus scanner, switch off Windows updates. Do not do anything else on the computer while recording.

When recording with the Shuttle where audio/video were not in sync, the cause was recording to an external hard disk via a USB3 port. After I switched to an internal or esata hard disk, I no longer had any problems.
However, I recorded via the HDMI port as described in the tutorial on a German video forum.

https://gleitz.info/forum/index.php?thread/47572-tutorial-hochwertiges-digitalisieren-...en-und-andere/

Thanks Bogilein,

I've taken into account everything you've said whilst I've been fault finding, I've tried various methods using all the hardware & software available to me, but it's still difficult to tell where the problem is. This is why I'm considering different hardware again. The main thing I notice is that when I used a cheaper capture card years ago, there were no audio sync issues. I'm coming to understand that this may have been a combination of the capture card's design + the OS I were using, windows XP. It was low resolution though.

I've tried all kinds of formats to capture to. The best result came from using uncompressed AVI (I forget the specifics off the top of my head). The video was really, really smooth, no skipped frames etc & would continue to be for over an hour. Its a good machine too. The files were being captured to the Master SSD for the reason you mentioned. I'd later render the uncompressed file (usually about 200GB) to MP4 I think, well, various types untill I got my preferred outcome.

All of this experimenting was done years ago, it took a few different devices & a lot of research & help on here too till I was able to get an image to capture at all with the BM. The last stumbling block was the audio sync issue, its the only thing wrong with the captures.

I haven't mentioned too many details on which proccesses I've tried up untill now. There's a few posts on here I created a years ago which helped me get to this point with the BM, I can briefly list how I got my best result. I tried Virtualdub, BM software, various codecs, bit rates, windows OS and mac, different settings on the DVD rec too & different ports like S-video, composite or HDMI, I was experimenting like a mad scientist. Briefly though, as I remember the best result I came to was VHS Composite out/or S-Video into the DVD Rec, HDMI out from the DVD Rec into the BM, captured using BM Capture software. I tried all combinations possible at the time in terms of ports, I can't remember whether I settled on S-Video now.

Theres a few small things I'm going to try before I buy a different device. I have a new windows 10 machine, so I'm going to try that this week. I'm not confident it'll make a difference but it'll be amazing if it turns out the change of OS improves things, whilst Win10 is probably the most problematic OS I can think of. Its worth a shot as the BM produced fantastic video, I just want to audio to line up.

Ideally I'd rather cut through all this fault finding and just capture the tapes, so if there's such thing as a realiable stand alone capture card, I'd get one. There's a lot of cheap devices around which I've come to realise are highly priced & poor quality (Digitnow, IRecord etc) but I've seen some which look suited for the job, a lot more expensive but I'd be keen to pay the money if it means I can start capturing the tapes, but I'd need to know if they are up for the task too.

A few of the cheap stand alone capture devices were reported to also have issues with audio sync after about 20 minutes of recording, which is the exact issue I'm having with the BM.

I did stumble across something last night though which I think I've already tried out, but I might have another try & see if I can come to understand it - but this could be another day of fault finding which I'm trying to avoid, as much as I know this passion is time consuming, I feel like I'm doing a long sentence here (I've had the BM for 15 years & come back to this task periodically, before that is was the ADVC 110, I never got a result with that but learnt a lot about capturing).

.......

[Neil-Betamax]

I stumbled across this last night.

The guy talks through his process using a I-O Data GV-USB2 (coincidental as some of you have suggested this & its high up on my list), but he does mention at 11:05 how he experiences audio sync issues..

"I've noticed how for some reason, time can drift upto around 15 seconds for every hour of tape. I don't know what causes this, but I usually add a bit of time just to be on the safe side."

I'm not sure what he's doing here, but maybe this method could fix the problem I'm having with the BM audio sync?

He finds out the run time of the video, & "inserts that into the stop conditions menu for how long the tape should be, plus however many seconds you want as buffer"

I do recall trying something similar to this in virtualdub years ago. Could this be worth trying out before I look at a new device? He's using a TBC too and still has this audio lag of about 15 seconds for an hour worth of tape, so there's a chance if I bought the GV-USB2, I could be faced with the same problem.

The video he's made is just a brief run through on video capturing tips, a very good watch for anyone interested in general. So I'm going to look around to see if I can get more info on this process, assumiung it's fixing the audio in the way I hope it is...

11:05 minutes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02Y3-iLmJFA

[Alwyn]

VCR>EX95>Gv-USB2>PC (Win 10/11) with AmarecTV. In Sync with hardly any drops after 3 hours on a VHS tape that had been recorded over at least twice and with hundreds of scene breaks.

Use S-Video if you can.

@Sharc, I think you're "pumping" (pardon the pun) the black-white issue too much. Yes, it is there, but would anybody notice it on a normal VHS capture? Most probably not.

[Sharc]

@Sharc, I think you're "pumping" (pardon the pun) the black-white issue too much. Yes, it is there, but would anybody notice it on a normal VHS capture? Most probably not.

I didn't want to wake up sleeping dogs. I was just curious and have been investigating the possible cause for it by checking the differences between the (recommended) SCART S-video and direct S-video outputs at analog signal level. Few more details given here:
https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/403635-Panasonic-DVD-recorder-passthrough-settings...11#post2710993
The strength (and annoyance) of the effect depends also on the capture device and how it reacts on the dancing Y-signal fluctuations, I think.

[Skiller]

The casual viewer would most likely not notice at all.
However, perhaps being the person who did the transfer, once you know it is there and know how it looks, you might notice it occasionally. And if you like being a perfectionist, it will bug you a lot.

[Neil-Betamax]

Update - So after trying a different Windows machine, I have promising results.

I don't know why, sometimes its ok not too especially where windows is concerned.... But, I've had some great results with the BMS today.

No audio sync issues after 30 minutes. This is capturing to uncompressed AVI using media express which comes with the device.

I wasn't hopeful that this machine would work better than my macbook, but for some reason, I appear to have no audio sync issues.

I'm capturing an hours worth at the moment, 'Menace II Society' on VHS, so hopefully it will still be accurate enough after an hour.

Excited to know its looking promising & I might not need to get a new device. Its annoying that technology as it is today, can be so inconsistent as I wouldn't have thought my Macbook could have contributed to any kind of flaws in the process, but perhaps it did, & all it took was a different OS / device. Doesn't make sense, unless I was to tear it apart and find logic behind it, but something about this machine has made it work. Unsatisfying to not know why, but great to know it works. Fingers crossed there might be a good end result. All I need to do now is fix my betamax, because after a year or more trying to get around this problem, its been static for too long and the tape pops out when it plays now.

The joys

[dellsam34]

I don't get why people insist in using Mac OS for such tasks, I use Mediaexpress too under windows 10 & 11, I can watch a youtube channel with audio while capturing with no problems at all, Though this win 11 machine use to be a gaming PC so a lot of horse power.

[Neil-Betamax]

I don't get why people insist in using Mac OS for such tasks, I use Mediaexpress too under windows 10 & 11, I can watch a youtube channel with audio while capturing with no problems at all, Though this win 11 machine use to be a gaming PC so a lot of horse power.

I can understand why. The presumption is that Windows generally has a lot of unnecessary tasks going on, a lot more to go wrong in general. I've used my Macbook up untill now because it was the only option. The reason I have my Macbook is because its very stable for DJ'ing with a 4 deck controller (traktor). I've never had a crash or cut out, but anyone with a windows laptop has always had issues, including myself till I bought it for that purpose only. I could hear the same issues on some pro DJ sets live, when I looked, it was the same windows errors all over again. No real logic, just a mess of all kinds of variables, & u never really know what the cause is.

I can't stand windows 10 because it forces updates on me, which eventually end up changing something which worked fine, to the point it doesn't work any more or is hindered. Currently my sound card only records in mono, no idea why, but now I have to use ableton to record my vinyl in stereo, & have spent the last 2 months re-recording every vinyl I'd ripped before I was aware it were happening.

I'm just happy I've got lucky here & it works. I'm taking it as luck because, its so hard to define where a problem can be with windows. But I can't stand how macintosh supports planned obsolescence, it's give & take between both OS's. Windows will still always be my go to OS though, its a lot more versatyle in all, but everything before windows 7 worked better & was reliable.

[dellsam34]

While I agree Mac is more stable and less customizable than PC hence less things to go wrong, Mac has limited hardware and software support, it has always been this way. PC is cranky but it can be made to work reliably if you are use to the platform, I personally strip down MS Windows to bare minimum during first installation, disabling all features, uninstalling everything stock I can, I don't use Anti-viruses, which are CPU hungry, I turn off every automatic process as much as I can, As a result the CPU and memory usage are at almost zero all the time unless I'm performing something I started.

[Sharc]

The casual viewer would most likely not notice at all.
However, perhaps being the person who did the transfer, once you know it is there and know how it looks, you might notice it occasionally. And if you like being a perfectionist, it will bug you a lot.

And most poeple probably hate the idea of re-capturing all their tapes just because they are aware late that the effect exists

[lordsmurf]

I don't get why people insist in using Mac OS for such tasks

After a person is told Mac is the wrong tool for capture...

It reminds me of people that tow a car, by tying it with a rope to the bumper of another car. It never ends well. It was literally last century when I saw something so stupid, but I saw it multiple times back then. And then I also saw multiple wrecks caused by it, especially at stop lights where ... uh, oh ... that car in neutral is now pushing your dumb ass through the light into traffic!

Just use the right tool.

And I say this having used Mac since Apple IIe, and have a M2 Pro Mini on my desk. Great tools, but for other tasks.