Capture device

[jimlong]

Years ago, I sold my video capture device and software. Now I need to capture some VCR tapes again. I purchased a EasyCAP device from eBay that came with software. It captures in some format I never heard of before, in short it sucks.

I have the NCH VideoPad Pro and Debut. I need you find a capture device that captures MPG and will work with my software.

Any recommendations?

[Barrythecrab]

Why are you aiming for MPEG capture? Most of us (I think most anyway) capture some form of lossless AVI because we process the video at least once and anything but lossless will suffer degradation.

[ozymango]

Hi, Jimlong. I have an Avermedia C039 "EZMaker" USB capture device (composite and S-video) that I think does a pretty clean VHS capture, but I capture using VirtualDub and the HuffYUV codec, then convert to whatever portable formats afterward -- I believe you can capture to mpg (dvd) format with other software, but I've never tried it for mpg capture so I don't know how good it performs for that. But for lossless compressed capture I've had no issues with it, no dropped frames or audio sync problems. And Avermedia has drivers for it for Windows 7, 10, and 11. You can find these on Amazon for $40-$50.

[Brad]

Avermedia C039 "EZMaker" USB capture device (composite and S-video) that I think does a pretty clean VHS capture, but I capture using VirtualDub and the HuffYUV codec [...] Avermedia has drivers for it for Windows 7, 10, and 11. You can find these on Amazon for $40-$50.

It's AVerMedia's version of the Hauppauge USB-Live-2 / Diamond VC500: https://linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/Conexant_CX2310x#Boards

The drivers may be better/worse than those other manufacturers. Years ago when I had lots of time for hacking around, I cross-installed different brands' drivers to use with my VC500 to check things like different vertical framing of 480i. So if a preferred driver is determined by VH users, it may be possible to install on different hardware.

This family of devices provides great picture quality from a stable source, but performs terribly when fed unstable VHS with no TBC.

OP should place a recommended DVD recorder passthrough between their VCR and any capture device (Panasonic DMR-ESxx or one from the Sony/Pioneer partnership).

[Sharc]

It's AVerMedia's version of the Hauppauge USB-Live-2 / Diamond VC500: https://linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/Conexant_CX2310x#Boards

The drivers may be better/worse than those other manufacturers. Years ago when I had lots of time for hacking around, I cross-installed different brands' drivers to use with my VC500 to check things like different vertical framing of 480i. So if a preferred driver is determined by VH users, it may be possible to install on different hardware.

This family of devices provides great picture quality from a stable source, but performs terribly when fed unstable VHS with no TBC.

OP should place a recommended DVD recorder passthrough between their VCR and any capture device (Panasonic DMR-ESxx or one from the Sony/Pioneer partnership).

My 2 cents: I hate the auto gain/contrast adjustment some of these dongles with the C2310x chip seem to do. I have attached a demo of the Live2. As you can see from the brights in the histogram the contrast gets gradually reduced during capture, and the last picture is noticeably "turned down" compared to the same picture at the beginning of the capture.
I don't know as to how much this is due to the specific edition of the Hauppauge USB Live2 or the specific driver. It's just annoying IMO. Doing the same test with my I-O Data GV USB2 with the Techwell (Renesas, Intersil) TW9910 chip the levels remain rock stable.

[ozymango]

It's just annoying IMO. Doing the same test with my I-O Data GV USB2 with the Techwell (Renesas, Intersil) TW9910 chip the levels remain rock stable.

The I-O Data GV devices are quite good, possibly the top-of-the-line for this style of video capture (USB "dongle"), but they're a bit of a hassle to find at the moment, if you want to be sure they're genuine -- the real ones (that I can find) ship from Japan, and there is no English language support, and you need to go to their website (in Japanese) to download the current drivers. Now I don't think it's that terribly difficult to go through these kinds of steps if you're a video nut like most of us here and there is all sorts of helpful links on the web to help you get the device working. So definitely worth checking out.

From what I can tell, the latest version of the GV USB2 has packaging that shows it works with Windows 11, and that's the device version you want to buy, because it has even better hardware/firmware/functionality/whatever. The only ones I can find that show that packaging (in Japanese) are on ebay, shipped from Japan, and the prices range from $80-$110 US, which includes shipping and delivery can be anywhere from a few days to a few weeks. Again this is for the device in its original packaging, which I would hope means it's genuine -- or at least a really well made fake.

EDIT: I do use a Panasonic DVD recorder in pass-through mode as a frame stabilizer (ersatz TBC) from my VHS VCR to my Avermedia dongle, and that makes a huge difference on stability on some tapes. I don't have any of the varying contrast level issues that others may experience with this chipset, I get a good clean transfer on the tapes I've done so far (SP and EP), so it may be a driver issue (e.g. Avermedia's current driver is pretty good). And I've done several Laserdisc captures using the Avermedia dongle, composite video output on the LD player to composite video input on the C039, straight connection, no TBC or frame stabilizer, and I get a very clean results, no flagging, frame drops, etc. So a lot depends on your source video, but I definitely recommend having at least a Panasonic DVD recorder to use for problematic tapes.

[Sharc]

For what it's worth here another comparison of the Live2 vs GV-USB2. The proc amp of each has been tuned (within reasonable effort and accuracy) to match the levels and to output the colors correctly. The Live 2 was more laborious to tweak (and stabilize) than the GV-USB2, which was close to its defaults. Take it for what it is.

[ozymango]

For what it's worth here another comparison of the Live2 vs GV-USB2.

Thanks for sharing this -- either device looks decent enough for me, for what that's worth. And even if one has a preference on one over the other, low price is around $40 and high price is a little north of $100, and compared to what a vintage PCI/AGP capture card used to cost back in the day, seems a pretty good return on either investment!

[Sharc]

Yes. The two perform nearly the same. The Live2 is reasonably stable (means no auto adjustments as demonstrated in the former example in post#5) when one strictly avoids capturing into the 236...255 levels range. This can be difficult in real life case as one often gets some luma in that range, even if its only some halos. Anyway, one needs to know how to work with the proc amp settings for decent results.