Not able to Convert VHS to digital file

[dellsam34]

... And what we are saying is not to follow the masses even if the view count is in millions, do the right thing. Hope it's clear now.

[Bwaak]

... And what we are saying is not to follow the masses even if the view count is in millions, do the right thing. Hope it's clear now.

Are you talking about yourself in royal we? I do not necessarily disagree with you how it should be done, but few want to built an outdated Windows machine for the sole purpose of digitizing old videos. You - and your entourage - will see more and more questions about OBS and less and less appreciation of "just use VDub on Windows". Hence, for the forum to stay useful, it needs to recognize that the times a-changing, and embrace OBS and similar tools.

I see a market for solutions like ClearClick and ClonerAlliance. If they tailored their products to analog input, in particular if they would output 960x720 PAR 1 @ 50p/59.94p, it would be a perfect solution for a lot of people. I have about 40 tapes that I wanted to digitize and upload either to Youtube (well, youtube keeps blocking my 30-minute music uploads) or to the Internet Archive, and if I could have a one-click solution that does not steal cycles from my PC and that outputs a small H.264 or H.265 file, I would be happy to use it. Sticking to uncompressed or visually lossless, I maxed out the number of HDDs in my system (4TB+4TB+4TB+8TB) and they keep getting filled up quickly. Sure, I can keep buying external HDDs, but the quality difference between uncompressed and a quality H.264 is negligible. I need to delete all the Cineform junk.

[Cornucopia]

I have been thinking about this for a bit, and I think it <edit>MIGHT BE</edit> possible to set up OBS to properly capture using some/many capture cards (since it is SUPPOSED to be able to hook into any which have DirectShow drivers), but to set it up properly would require going into many advanced settings (both in its main settings, its recording settings, and its video source settings) and creating new custom presets so that things like color system changes, resolution scaling, framerate interpolation, very lossy capture, etc are avoided and it is locked into the card/device official NTSC/PAL system expected defaults and it doesn't perform an unwanted change behind the scenes.
As it is right now, it DOES (inapropriately change things).

Scott

[Alwyn]

Thank goodness. Somebody's posting on-topic.

creating new custom presets so that things like color system changes, resolution scaling, framerate interpolation, very lossy capture, etc

Every one of those, with the exception of frame rate interpolation (what is that?) are covered in Tim Ford's You Tube tute.

[Alwyn]

Here you go, peeps. 768 was deliberate.

[Bwaak]

Here you go, peeps. 768 was deliberate.

Looks pretty good!

[Sharc]

Thanks Alwyn. Looks ok. It's what I was looking for.
It can certainly be done without the deliberate horizontal rescaling, I assume.
(With the side borders still in place it should be 786 wide for square pixels, rather than 768, but it doesn't matter for now).

[dellsam34]

Are you talking about yourself in royal we? I do not necessarily disagree with you how it should be done, but few want to built an outdated Windows machine for the sole purpose of digitizing old videos.

No, I'm not talking about myself, What I use is not available to the majority of people, I'm talking about people using vdub and AmarecTV and similar programs on Win10/11 successfully without needing OBS.

[Bwaak]

I'm talking about people using vdub and AmarecTV and similar programs on Win10/11 successfully without needing OBS.

The share of Windows is steadily dropping, while the share of Mac increases. I bet that the situation among laptops is even more in Mac favor.

[Sharc]

The advantage of OBS is that it is multi-platform for those who need it. Otherwise it is basically an ffmpeg frontend (GUI). When configured accordingly (a bit laborious and prone to errors without a preset) it can also be used as an alternative to Vdub and AmarecTV for tape capturing it seems (until someone proves the opposite), based on ffmpeg codecs and libraries (like many other GUIs and NLEs).
Just my preliminary conclusion.

[DB83]

Gee. I am struggling to understand what the increasing use of Macs has to do with this topic. Maybe the OP uses a Mac - who really knows at present since one of his early comments did not fit in to the yt guide. But I read that many a Mac user has issues with video capture even with more standard tools due to the non-standard interface (thunderbolt rather than usb without adapters)

Do tell me if I am wrong but a certain poster seems intent to argue a 'Black Man Blue' - just a statement and not intended to be a racist remark.


So, yes, let OBS do what it is primarily intended for whatever platform the user prefers.


PS. I noticed some lagging with Alwyn's sample both with video and audio whereas my own lossless samples, and with such a bitrate, do not suffer in this respect.

[Sharc]

It looks like I spoke too soon re. Alwyn's sample in post#35:
There are field order glitches or dropped frames, for example fields 462....466, 754...756, 1006....1010. (I got similar issues in my rudimentary tests).
The tape is obviously in relatively poor condition (via composite video?) and Alwyn obviously didn't use any form of TBC or signal conditioning, so maybe the flaws would be the same for Vdub or AmarecTV? Only Alwyn could shed some light on this ....

P.S. These Windows vs Mac statistics are for US only.

[Alwyn]

Ok peeps, here are 1/OBS recording and 2/Amarec recording. My hieroglyphics are LG=crappy Composite VCR; ES=ES-15 Stabiliser; GV=GV-USB2; ULY2=UTVideo codec. I did try MagicYUV/Amarec, with the same result. It appears UT video (ULY2) is the only lossless codec that is used for lossless capture in OBS; not user-adjustable. I didn't try VDub because it didn't pass my CBA test.

Enjoy!

[Alwyn]

And the MP4 of the same part of the tape (I didn't trim this, to preserve the MP4 data). Deinterlaced with "YADIF2x". I don't know what that "2x" means; it didn't produce 50 frames per sec.

[dellsam34]

Gee. I am struggling to understand what the increasing use of Macs has to do with this topic.

The guy has a backward way of reasoning to the point it makes him look like a troll, He got banned once already.

[Sharc]

Thanks Alwyn.
My comments on the 3:
1/ OBS Jerky crap with repetitive field swaps and dropped frames
2/ AmarecTV OK
3/ .mp4 Mediocre base rate deinterlacing.
(The colorbars are badly off the kilter, probably a tape/VCR player issue)

Final conclusion: Avoid OBS for VHS capturing like the plague
Agree?

[lollo]

Final conclusion: Avoid OBS for VHS capturing like the plague
Agree?

I agree. Lot of inserted and dropped frames in OBS. Does it report this or not?

In addition, for frames that match, there are evident differences.



I never tested it, so I cannot provide facts, but for sure OBS has something "strange"

[LetsDoIt]

@Letsdoit, to put your mind at ease, I have the VGB100, and it's not bad. Not the greatest digitiser on earth (I like the GV better) but not a disaster.

Hi Alwyn.

My issue with VGB300 card is that nothing is recording, when played just blank video with no sound. Could you tell me what steps you followed. Thanks.

[DB83]

Back in reply #10, Alwyn posted a link to a good youtube video that explains the settings you MUST make - I guess you missed a few. Here is the direct link.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2CIEE8kjSU

[Alwyn]

@Letsdoit, let's back up a step. On my Win 10 machine, I tried my VGB100 in AmarecTV and got sound but a garbled image (PAL_B kept changing back to NTSC_M), so I reinstalled the driver only (from the August website. Which one should use for your 300 I can't say. That didn't work, so I then installed the complete Honestech 4 DVD suite, and I then got a image and audio in AmarecTV. The VGB100 displays as a "Conexant Polaris Video Capture".

In OBS, I get an image, but no audio!

I therefore suggest you try reinstalling the whole Honestech DVD package and see if you then get an image and audio in firstly the Honestech software. If you do, then you can try with OBS.

[lollo]

I performed an additional fast check on Alwin's capture and I highly doubt that OBS is able to generate a proper interlaced capture,
at list in this test.
Analizing the fields architecture, what is supposed to be a TFF video is behaving with fields being late or early in time.



By comparison, the Alwin's AmarecTV capture is clean in this regard.

[Alwyn]

Had a look at the MP4 on my TV and the field order looks good to me; the AVI glitches don't exist. The MP4, overall, given the poor quality tape and VCR, came out quite OK for a 1-step process. Obviously, no editing or trimming but... compared to the rigmarole of separate capturing, deinterlacing, editing and converting, it could fit the bill for some.

[Sharc]

Had a look at the MP4 on my TV and the field order looks good to me; the AVI glitches don't exist. The MP4, overall, given the poor quality tape and VCR, came out quite OK for a 1-step process. Obviously, no editing or trimming but... compared to the rigmarole of separate capturing, deinterlacing, editing and converting, it could fit the bill for some.

There are glitches (dropped frames) in the .mp4 as well. I would however agree with your conclusion, provided OBS would do the 1-step process reliably and consistently. And strictly advise the "some" not to ditch the tapes as they might come to new conclusions at some later stage
Thanks for your testing. It reassured me that I didn't miss anything so far re. interlaced capturing with OBS.

[Alwyn]

Out of interest, Sharc, where are those glitches? The one I was focused on is in the area of the player coming in from the right at frame 643 on the MP4. As he gets to the umpire, the OBS AVI reverses fields a few times, but the MP4 is smooth at that point, so I assume correct field order.

[Sharc]

Out of interest, Sharc, where are those glitches? The one I was focused on is in the area of the player coming in from the right at frame 643 on the MP4. As he gets to the umpire, the OBS AVI reverses fields a few times, but the MP4 is smooth at that point, so I assume correct field order.

The .mp4 is baserate deinterlaced. Separating the fields and stepping through the fields should result in a regular pattern like aabbccddeeffgg..... and the motion advancement should be consistent between the field pairs.
Doing this with the .mp4 and starting from field 1434 I get a sequence like aabbccddeeffffgghh...... with a unnatural motion jump from ffff to gg, indicating a frame drop/insert.
Watching it deinterlaced (progressive) I see the drop/insert at #722,723,724.
The casual viewer will probably not notice it unless it happens too frequently, (apart from watching sports in baserate deinterlaced format isn't the best option, but modern TVs have the option to "improve" it by adding some motion blur).

[Alwyn]

I'll get my glasses checked... again.