Opinion between two VHS capture options

[Spektre]

Hello,

I have been putting off my archiving VHS project for quite a while. I have approximatly 300 VHS tapes to archive. Content is fairly poor quality, typical jerky camcorder home video.

Hardware-wise I already have a good sturdy SVHS deck and a seperate full frame TBC. On the capture hardware end I have two devices and wondered which one you all would suggest using.

I have a PVR-150 I am familiar with and have done captures with before. I have never been particularly pleased with the captures, but they were "OK". It was mostly high motion artifacting that I did not like and a constant "strobing" appearance to the video. Also, as noted in a previous thread, I am having trouble getting the PVR-150 ProcAmp settings to work in Windows 7.

Also available, I own an ATI TV Wonder HD 600 PCI-E card. I have not captured with an ATI card (or to AVIs) since the early All in Wonder days.

Goal is archiving to a HD the best quality so that I can dispose of the aging tapes. There is a good possibility of DVD distibution of the videos also.

PVR-150 or ATI 600?

Thanks.

[jagabo]

Ati 600. Though, if you crank the PVR-150 up to the highest bitrate setting (12Mb/s? 15 Mb/s?) your macroblock and strobing will probably go away.

[sanlyn]

For best quality, capture to AVI or huffy-compressed AVI, work any image cleanup you might want, then find a good encoder. Capturing directly to MPEG gives OK results with the ATI device, but standalone MPEG encoders will likely give better results without going to super-high bitrates and you can store more video on a disc. The higher the bitrate, the less you can burn to a disc.

[jagabo]

Capturing directly to MPEG gives OK results with the ATI device, but standalone MPEG encoders will likely give better results

And if you need to perform any filtering you'll be stuck with MPEG artifacts in your caps if you capture directly to MPEG.

[Spektre]

Thanks all. Looks like this device is a no go as well. There are no ProcAmp settings available to the HD wonder 600 card.

[jagabo]

Try different capture software. Try accessing the crossbar or capture filter in Graph Studio. See if you can find proc amp settings there.

[usually_quiet]

Try different capture software. Try accessing the crossbar or capture filter in Graph Studio. See if you can find proc amp settings there.

See his other thread. https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/335984-Capture-software-for-ATI-HD-Wonder-600-PCIe. The proc amp controls don't work because the drivers released for Windows 7 don't allow access.

[jagabo]

If the cap isn't too far off you can just fix things in software after capturing.

[sanlyn]

If the cap isn't too far off you can just fix things in software after capturing.

I'll second jagabo on using filters during capture, especially to MPEG. I'd avoid going directly to MPEG anyway and stick with AVI, because every capture has a problem of some kind and cleaning MPEG is really difficult. Some filters are slow in operation, resulting in lost frames or audio sync problems. Another problem with filtering during capture is that it's difficult to see just what effect the filters are having, until later -- by then it's too often late. The best filtering proc amps are truly expensive and seldom interfere with the capture itself.

My experience with ATI's filters with most analog sources is that it's easier (if not a longer process) to get better cleanup and fixes going to AVI and filtering later. After you do a few captures, you'll see what we're talking about. But it's your choice. I know plenty of people who use techniques you're trying, and they seem satisfied. . .mostly. Don't be surprised if the results aren't perfect every time.