Very old VHS - Major frame loss

[widemouth]

Hello

I have some very old VHS tapes that I would like to capture but are having problems capturing as I end up loosing about half the frames.

The footage was orinially on 9mm film and was converted to VHS about 10 years ago and the quality is not that good.

I have a Pinnacle DC10 card and have tried to capture with Studio 8 and Virtualdub without success This setup works flawlessly for other VHS tapes of good quality.

Does anyone have any suggestions for capturing bad quality tapes?

One thing I just though of is to play the VCR through the TV and try captuing from the output from the TV. Would this give better capture results?

Thanks in advance.

[splissken]

One problem I've had with old tapes is that over the years of storage tapes can stretch, and capture cards are very unforgiving. I had some where a slight glitch that was even barely noticeable would cause the whole file to screw up. The only way I found around it was to copy the old tape to a new one, then use the new tape to capture from. I didn't try the TV output. If anyone else knows a better way I'd like to hear it.

[SaSi]

In some other threads the same topic came out. It appears that it has to do with gradually losing tracking on the VCR. A cause for the loss of tracking may well be streched out tapes.

I have a couple of very old (and important) VHS tapes myself that failed to capture with my old VCR (a low cost Hitachi) that has been recently replaced. My new VCR is a Panasonic NVH-S960. It has auto tracking and manual controls, but it also allows you to select Auto Tracking.

So, I jumped to try my luck.

They worked fine! Well, almost. Before I could not even watch the tape on the PC. Now, I only got a few drops (and bad picture while re-tracking perhaps) here and there.

Then, I tried a well known rule about backup tapes. Rewind them a couple of times. So I did. This fixed the problem.

So, why not try to re-wind the tape and retest. If you see an improvement (but not perfect capture), rewind once more.

Another guide about tape storage stated that tapes must be winded and re-winded every year or so to preserve them. Must be true.

[spiderman2k1]

For tape's that are really bad there are two thing to do. the reason i think your Pinnacle DC10 is having problem is that Pinnacle DC10 is a hardware card. I have the Dazzle 2 and ATI AIW radeon. The Dazzle 2 is hardware and AIW is Software card. I did a old tape for a friend that was on 9mm film and the AIW did not have the frame drop problem as with a old tape the signal is not that strong and Hardware card's go out. Kind of like is you use you VCR as a tuner and the signal is so week that the screen goes blue. But the AIW is
Software does capture what it see's. The Hardware card can shut down if there a blue screen but not the AIW. I know you do not have a blue screen but that's when the signal goes week or goes off. So your tape's are kind of like trying to shut it down but it's just a little to strong to make the blue screen pop up go here and get a $300.00 dollar JVC VCR http://www.crazyg.com/ or http://www.jandr.com/

[GangstaMo]

This might sound weird..

I hook up vcr to a webcam video in ,got 4 frames drop only at Start of
capturing..
20 mins segment of old videotape,pic came out good.

[jeremypps]

hi everybody.
I have 2 vcrs, an old (but recently cleaned up) panasonic and a new sony, they both are 6 heads.
some time ago a friend of mine brought me 2 vhs of home shooting, he wanted me to capture them.
well, I've tried with both vcrs, no way, too many frames lost, I've tried every resolution and every compression.
frames got lost randomly, maybe for 1 or 2 minutes no frames lost, then suddendly a disaster.
I use virtualdub for capturing (but in that case I've tried also ati mmc and another couple of progs), I've noticed that the VT adjust parameter in the bottom right (audio section) sometimes went crazy and in those moments frames began to get lost.
I have a sapphire radeon 9000 vivo and the audio card integrated in my mobo (gigabyte 7va), the system usually does fine.

[edsmith77]

Good Morning to All,
VHS to digital format is creating havoc for me as well. However, wtih the specific problem in this thread, I do not experience any frame loss or video audio sync issues at all with any of my 300 odd 20+ year old VHS tapes. I am using a 800 MHz PIII (512MB) with the ATI Rage Fury Pro (64MB) video card and onboard mobo sound system. Certainly not top of the line. Just plain run of the mill equipment. I think a key point here is not to set expectations to high and live within the capability of your system.
From my experience video / audio sync problems during capture are related to equipment speeds and compatibility. If they do not work well together, then expect to spend a lot of time trying to mend the process. For a one off situation, this could be justifiable. However, if there is alot of conversions to do, it is best (IMHO) to get some better cooperating cards. My video card was less than $100 several years ago. The sound came with the mobo, so no additional cost there. The only problem that I do have with my conversions is capturing in full D1 specification. To many lost frames. However, that is exceeding the capacity of my system. So I just opt for a lower resolution. Its not like I am expecting DVD quality from the conversion. If you are, you will always be disappointed.

But unfortunately, I do have serious noise problems (or at least that is what I think it is). I believe it is due to the VCR tracking function. My tapes were recorded on older VCR which have long since bit the dust. My new Panasonic VCR (with auto tracking) I think is the culprit. When viewed with my capture software (MMC 7.6) the bottom portion of the screen is filled with intermittent black and white lines (that is about the bottom 15 rows or so). This was also apparent but not as bad (only about 4-5 lines) with the older VCR but was correctable with the manual tracking controls, which are now not available. Thus, the only choice I have is to do some severe post capture cropping to chop off those noise lines. Which destroys part of the picture. I have found no reliable way to eliminate those pesky noise lines. Sure wish I had my old trusty VCR around.

[nick1977]

One thing that I found that works for me is to change the vertical resolution. i.e. if you were capping at 352x576, try 352x500. Obviously this will then require some resizing, and maybe deinterlacing if the source isn't progressive, but it did stop my frame drops on an old VHS.
Just try something different to the "standard" resolutions of 576 and 288 (or 480 and 240).

Nick

*Obviously only use these unusual resolutions if absolutely necessary!*