Capturing software

[sruddy]

Hi everyone this is my first post. I just read a few of the stickies and learned a lot at the provided links pointing here http://www.digitalfaq.com/guides/video/index-record-capture.htm I have decided that I would like to keep my editing possibilities as open as possible so I will need to capture my S-VHS and VHS tapes to an uncompressed format like DV AVI then edit using Premier Pro. I will be encoding my projects for the web and depending on size on DVD or BD for viewing on a Plasma display. I may even encode for playback on our PC's. Anyway I didn't really think that much about my workflow and expectations before I bought a S-VHS Player with no TBC and a ADC in the form of a audio video cable to usb instead of a capture card but I would like to make due with what I have. I have done a little bit of experimenting capturing with the cable which is a Grabby made by Terra Tec. The problem is the Magix Movies on DVD TerraTec edition software it came with only has various mpeg and mxv recording/capturing formats. So I guess my questions are can I use my capture devise with any other software which will allow me to capture to an uncompressed format and is this actually the way I want to go? How big will the file sizes be? My PC has 8 gigs of ram and I have about 600mb hard drive space I can use. I tried using Production Premium to capture but it said device not found. Ultimately I want to have the image detail close to the original with no scan lines and adjust the color and image levels to improve some areas of bad exposure.

[usually_quiet]

First, welcome.

You could try Virtualdub, if it detects your capture device. Huffyuv, Lagarith and Cedocida DV codecs can be used for compression if you install them. Building a capture graph in GraphStudio is another option if you can figure out which filters to use.

Uncompressed PAL (720x576 25 fps) YV12 video requires about 66.5 GB/hr. Those who opt to capture uncompressed video find that they must use a RAID array to avoid dropped frames.

For that reason Huffyuv compression, or Lagarith compression are often used instead. HuffYUV and Lagarith are lightly compressed lossless codecs. HuffYUV uses up about 40 GB/hr for PAL (720x576 25 fps), while Lagarith consumes about 30 GB/hr. In contrast, DV-AVI requires 13 GB/hr. A second hard drive dedicated to capture is preferred and it should be uncluttered and defragmented.

Note that I don't personally do many software-encoded captures, and none yet from VHS. However, those who do VHS captures regularly would tell you that the right hardware (prosumer VHS deck with line TBC, full-frame TBC, and ProcAmp) can fix problems that are impossible to correct with software, as well as save time correcting some problems that software could also correct.

[PuzZLeR]

I totally agree with Usually_Quiet's advice about file sizes, TBC, etc. I will add just a few more comments.

...can I use my capture devise with any other software which will allow me to capture to an uncompressed format and is this actually the way I want to go?

Your device would need WDM drivers for other capture apps, including VirtualDub, to recognize it. (This is similar to using TWAIN drivers in scanners so other scanning/photo capture/edit apps can use the hardware). You would have to contact support for your capture hardware if such drivers are available otherwise your device won't work anywhere else but with the software provided for it and its limited settings.

Yes, HuffYUV and Lagarith are much bigger in file sizes than DV (Usually_Quiet is quite accurate). Keep in mind however, that DV is not uncompressed and lossless - but it seems to be a good middle ground for many between lossless and very compressed formats like MPEG-1/2/4.

After several tests, I find high bitrate MPEG-2 with a good capture utility (I prefer the ATI 600 myself) is very, very good. At over 8500kbps I see little difference in quality compared to the bigger formats, but is much smaller in file size, fully editable with an MPEG dedicated editor, and of course plays directly on DvD.

As for the way to go, several people like using less compressed formats like HuffYUV, Lagarith and DV due to maybe some paranoia. I confess I will use these formats for a minority of my most prized content, but am happy with MPEG-2 for pretty much everything else.