YouTubers capturing cheaply misguiding people

[VHSvideocapture]

@VHSVideoCapture,are you speaking from experience or are you commenting based on what other people have said?

Have you actually tried capturing with OBS and compared it to a lossless workflow?

I have never tried using OBS, my understanding is that OBS is made for live streaming and online gaming

Have you actually tried capturing on a DVD recorder and realised what a clunky workflow it is?

Yes but some time ago and I used a cheap dvd-r

Have you captured with the Live 2 and the GV-USB2 to compare them?

YeS, both the live -usb wants a very strong signal dvk100 and es15 don't help the audio jitters
GV-USB2 no issues I've read some posts on her from LS that talk the card down which made me doubt it

Have you got a quote from any of the "experts" for a tape transfer and compared that price to Emarald Coast or Got Memories (if an expert will even do them for you)?

I would never pay high prices for a conversation
I think got memories charges $50
I think emerald coast charges $30
I'm not sure what digital faq charge they do have a tape capture service or did have in the past.

Have you compared a lossless capture with a DV capture?

Yes, dv is pixilated and lossless is not even after re render
with dv information is lost if NTSC 4:1:1 PAL 4:2:0 chroma subsampling same as any DVD, if it's ok for a dvd then it should be ok for a VHS captured to DVD.

Do you really have a grasp of the head-spinning rigmarole that is needed to get your own gear, then do your high-quality lossless transfers, then re-sell it, compared to sending your few tapes to Emerald Coast or Got Memories?

I'm here to learn and ask.questions.
I don't think lossless capture is difficult.
Virtualdub, huffyuv or lags
Graph studio
Histogram set
Name capture file
Start capture

The real issue is equipment
Is the GV-USB2 good enough?
is the dvk good enough?
is the es15 or es10 good enough?

If I was to find a ati wonder 600
TBC 300 or TBC 400
How much of a difference would it really make if the tapes are jumpy or a bit worn out?
If my source tape is clean why not just convert to a an LSI DVD recorder in FR 160 mode then rip the dvd in handbrake?

[QUOTE=Alwyn;2794619]
Have you thought about how often these family memories will actually be watched, and whether the extra cost for the "high-quality transfer" was actually worth it?
[\QUOTE]
Who knows people might want to pass it down to the coming generations, it's a difficult question to answer.

Until you've done all of those things, I wouldn't be criticising Emerald Coast or Got Memories.

I totally disagree with you here Alwyn, these people are using an elcra*o usb capture card
and Panasonic es47 or newer es47, with no TBC or even TBC ish set up, I would at least expect
A dvk 100 and ES10:in the chain, I fully understand buying a TBC is risky and expensive especially the datavideo TBCS they are all 25 years old and all need re capping now.


FYI,

he is using sellotape on a snapped VHS, this will damage the head of the VCR and is bad practice right?

Have you tried it? The tape goes on the opposite side, away from the heads. If you were going replay the tape over and over, then you could argue you'd use "proper" tape but speaking from personal experience, sticky tape is fine. Watch and digest:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kurE-FuqkbU

I have on an old VCR and the head would make a very tasty sound, it can't be doing it any good and I've had used VHS sellotaped because it was old the glue had tried up the tape disintegrated on the head and the VCR shut down causing damage to the head, I had to open the VCR and take out the tape, the sellotape got stuck to the head drum.

[VHSvideocapture]

[QUOTE=lollo;2794641]
You should not rely on what people say, but on the evidences and facts that they bring.
[\QUOTE]

I like the stuff on your youtube channel but with my experience of the hauppage live usb 2 it requires a clean signal, if it doesn't get a clean stable signal then it goes out of sync and the audio has jitter this is when I first tested it 4 years ago, it uses the same cxt chipset as the diamond VC500

The workflow for a good capture is always the same. A high-end S-VHS VCR with TBC and Y/C output, one of the recommended capture card (Hauppauge USB-Live 2, IOData GV-USB, ATI 600 USB, Pinnacle 710 USB, few others; the first two are available new on the market now).
Additional external TBC may be required for tapes not in good shape; replacing the TBC of the VCR with a specific DVD Recorder in passthrough mode may be needed for tapes not in good shape.
Capture YUV 4:2:2 720x576(480) lossless interlaced with AmarectTV (preferred) or VirtualDub.

Even with a JVC svhs player some tapes can tear when JVC svhs TBC is tuned on and it is combined with DNR, DNR can't be turned off.

The DV approach is solid, because while featuring a slight loss in term of quality, is easier and less prone to user errors.

even with dv you still need an svhs player and some sort of TBC, if someone has a new PC TI firewire cards are becoming rare and expensive, windows has dropped support for firewire, you have to download legacy drivers, how long until windows stops dvd support altogether?

https://www.youtube.com/@videocaptureguide[/url] (I do not agree on everythind, but the main concepts are ok) and few others.
In term of results, you can check this thread https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/405502-YouTube-channels-playlists-showcasing-captu...eo#post2654664

The video capture guides channel is good he tests different gear and shows the results on screen.

[VHSvideocapture]

I think it's time we call out these youtubers and shame them and try and warn people not to send tapes to them.

Good luck to you.

“And in what business is there not humbug?

'There’s cheating in all trades but ours,' is the prompt reply from the boot-maker with his brown paper soles, the grocer with his floury sugar and chicoried coffee, the butcher with his mysterious sausages and queer veal, the dry goods man with his 'damaged goods wet at the great fire' and his 'selling at a ruinous loss,' the stock-broker with his brazen assurance that your company is bankrupt and your stock not worth a cent (if he wants to buy it,) the horse jockey with his black arts and spavined brutes, the milkman with his tin aquaria, the land agent with his nice new maps and beautiful descriptions of distant scenery, the newspaper man with his 'immense circulation,' the publisher with his 'Great American Novel,' the city auctioneer with his 'Pictures by the Old Masters'—all and every one protest each his own innocence, and warn you against the deceits of the rest.

My inexperienced friend, take it for granted that they all tell the truth—about each other! and then transact your business to the best of your ability on your own judgment.”

-- P.T. Barnum

P.S. It's too bad all the experienced competent video transfer specialists here on Videohelp are all so busy at the moment with other stuff that they aren't able get together and offer their great expertise -- and at a reasonable profit, being they know their business -- to the madding crowds!

Some businesses are more valuable than others some things we need to survive food and water, if a food shop cheats we can't do anything about it, unless we grow our own food and animals for meat but we are taking about VHS capture something that can be done at home, especially when these so called pro o companies are using cheap useless gear and ripping the public off and Phil got memories arrogance us on another level he uses abuse for his rivals legacybox and Kodak digitizings south tree, why should he have the right to abuse when he himself is doing an equally bad job?

I can't keep animals in the back yard for food but I can buy a cheap elcr*po capture card a Panasonic ez45v and a Mac or PC like these VHS companies. I might have emails of got memories sending me a quote I'm not sure if I kept or deleted them.

[VHSvideocapture]

Remember fellow user Gary34 saying that Phil charges around 30 bucks a tape, I know there was a clip of used in VWestlife's USB capture card videos where Phil said something along of the lines of "Yeah these people come in dropping 46 tapes and I have to tell them it'll cost $1500"

One of the comments on VWestlife's video that he liked was funnily enough "48 tapes through an Elgato for 1500? I am in the wrong business!!!"

Doing the math (1500 / 46) that'd be around 32 bucks per tape. Using an Elgato with it's built in software compressing the image, blowing on the whites and not even keeping the original frame rate. That is what we'd like to call a rip off.

That's around the same cost my local transfer service use, and they use S-VHS VCRs with TBCs...

The Elgato sucks complete ass, but it's mainly the built in software there transfer services use, especially the Mac version.

I feel like what pisses me off is that these people go through the effort of mold cleaning and tape splicing if needed, they do something that I would never dare to do. My local transfer service does do that stuff at extra cost of course. Heck I'm in the process of having them do a shell swap since one tape has a broken flap. Just so I can digitize the contents of it myself.

And they go through all this effort to save a damaged tape, only to throw it into a cheap VCR hooked up to an Elgato..

This is exactly my point if he is charging $30 per tape if they are in good condition I'm sure he charges extra for mold cleaning
$1500 is very expensive if using just an excr*po and the Panasonic es45v, I'm sure both of these can be picked up for $200 on the used market.

I'm am the same as you what gets me angry the most is Phil's bragging and calling people trolls anyone that calls him out is a troll he blocks people from his youtube channel, anyone that takes bad about the elcra*o is a troll, anyone that tells him to use a TBC is a troll. He says it's pure economics, he gets a large number of tapes, he only excepts 25 tapes or more if you email him asking for 1 or 2 he says ask if your family members have some too 😂 I deleted that email of his or I would have posted it on here for a laugh 😂

Guess how much he wanted to charge me for ripping 100 dvds in handbrake or his paid software anymp4😂 😂 😂
See his reply to my email which I sent for laughs
[Attachment 91781 - Click to enlarge]
I have attached a reply from him, remember this is to rip 100 dvds using free software please try not to 😂 😂 😂


Changing the shell and flap of a cassette is pretty straightforward, unless I have misread your post?
Why don't you try it on an old damaged tape or just by a cheap one from a local shop to take apart?

[VHSvideocapture]

emember fellow user Gary34 saying that Phil charges around 30 bucks a tape

Phil charged 30 to 50 dollars a tape in 2023 depending on the condition of the tape and if there is mold he charges more than that. He says that at 8:30 on this video. https://youtu.be/huEewOKBcK4Phil Also he says some very true things about consumer awareness being really low which is why people go to places like Legacybox. Phil’s methods obviously aren’t great either. Phil charges a minimum of $350. https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/418030-arrogant-digitizing-companies-on-YouTube-in-2025. There are videos of Emerald picking out gear at the local thrift stores https://youtu.be/IydIuPgRAHQ?si=XyhOo82rdH8SnLgC. It’s just junk.

I'm trying to call these people out over charging $30 and yes Phil only works on big orders.
Why pay he $30 if you have 50 tapes or more? Since he isn't using good equipment why send the tapes to him in the first place?

If somebody is doing this as a business and capturing peoples memories that are important to people then I would expect a TBC let's not talk about which one just something in the chain right? A high end JVC svhs 9000 series excluding the 9500 because it's not recommended. If this was Gary doing this at home saving money then low end equipment is fine because some home users might only have 10 tapes to convert. I can't see anyone spending $1k on a TBC for 10 tapes even if a TBC was available at the original selling price for 20 years ago.

OP is asking questions about different methods. He doesn’t have to go and try different methods before he can ask questions about them. He doesn’t have to try a bunch of different methods for any reason unless he wants to. He might just want do his project and move on. If he wants to compare methods though that’s fine. Not necessary when soo many people have already done it.

I was just asking would it be ok to record on a recommended LSI DVD recorder rather than give stuff to people like got memories, lifetime digitizing, emerald coast digitizing.

To make myself clearer my example would be

would you let Phil or Sean capture on an elcra*o and a Panasonic ez45v and be happy paying because a company is doing the capture or would you use DV capture like the advc 50.advc110 datavideo dac 100 datavideo dac 200 and do it yourself?

Would you spend money on a full frame TBC for the tapes you own or would you feel the company is doing the capture at the best quality possible? If they aren't then they are cheating you and money others and need to be called out.

I will use this thread to call out more youtubers if I can find any more videos

[VHSvideocapture]

The OP has form on this. A similar rant in 2023 on VH here. Judging by the questions they were asking in 2023 and the questions being asked here, they don't appear to have learnt much, but are still happy to sledge Emerald and Got, even accusing Phil of being a moron. Nice.

Whenever got memories emerald coast digitizing post a video we should rant about it and call them out, if you watch got memories videos he isn't very kind to his rivals then why can't I do the same to him? He runs a business he charges money he brags about being better than legacy box why can't I call him out for that? If he was using high end equipment a good capture card, a TBC then I would have no rights to call him out.

I am learning from different places videohelp is all about asking questions or letting people know if someone is doing something wrong with video capture.

I go on to your website aaproductions.net, your r website helped me set up graphstudio and it has some very good information about video capture it is for people looking for help and advice.

I generally find you a very helpful person but I don't understand why you are supporting emerald coast Sean and Phil got memories so badly? Please try and understand they are not random guys at home in a basement doing video captures, they charge serious amounts of money not $5 $10 bucks a tape, if they were that cheap then they can use whatever rubbish they like nobody would care much.

When it comes to Phil got memories he trash talks all his rivals legacybox Kodak South tree, in fact one company took him to court and he was made to take the video down he talks about it in another video of his.

[Gary34]

Phil got memories arrogance us on another level he uses abuse for his rivals legacybox and Kodak digitizings south tree, why should he have the right to abuse when he himself is doing an equally bad job?

Legacybox is a lot worse than Phil or Emerald. I know employees. https://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/video-capture/14178-legacybox-rip-off.html


It’s more the fault of consumers than it is Phil or Emerald.

[lordsmurf]

A lot of these Youtubers are morons, lazy cheap bastards, that get lazy cheap quality.

None are using recommended gear.
None are using a TBC.
They still getting a capture.

It it worth trying to capture with low quality equipment?

This reminds me of the pandemic. A local yokel began to offer takeout from her kitchen. With pets in the house. With a roach problem. The county shut that mess down, but it sadly wasn't fast enough.

It takes more than a bottle of Advil to call yourself a doctor. And yet, that's exactly what some people do. Quacks still happen in the 2020s.

Every field has hucksters and jackasses. You found several in video, and they proudly boast about their garbage methods and work on Youtube.

[lollo]

I like the stuff on your youtube channel but with my experience of the hauppage live usb 2 it requires a clean signal, if it doesn't get a clean stable signal then it goes out of sync and the audio has jitter this is when I first tested it 4 years ago, it uses the same cxt chipset as the diamond VC500

Unless you use a high end card like a Datavideo DAC-7 or BrigthEye 75 or a Snell and Wilcox TBS8000 or a Canpopus NX and similar, any consumer card need a clean and time base corrected signal.
This is mandatory for a good capture. End of the story.

Speculating about the resilience of a card versus a bad input is a futile exercise.

If you experienced a/v asynch it depends on the correctness of the timing of the input signal and/or on the capture software. Once you are sure to provide a "good" signal, on modern card with modern OSs use AmarecTV, not VirtualDub.

Even with a JVC svhs player some tapes can tear when JVC svhs TBC is tuned on and it is combined with DNR, DNR can't be turned off.

That's why I wrote earlier that sometime you need to replace the TBC of the VCR with a more aggressive correction performed by a specific DVD Recorder.

DNR does not paly a role here at all.

even with dv you still need an svhs player and some sort of TBC

Sure, so what? The DV approach only replace the capture card with a DV device, and lightens the contraints of a lossless approach.

if someone has a new PC TI firewire cards are becoming rare and expensive, windows has dropped support for firewire, you have to download legacy drivers, how long until windows stops dvd support altogether?

Not a point, many are still using Windows XP and 7 for their workflow (uselessly in my opinion).

[Alwyn]

So many holes in your arguments... but I missed this:

if someone has a new PC TI firewire cards are becoming rare and expensive, windows has dropped support for firewire, you have to download legacy drivers, how long until windows stops dvd support altogether?

VIA is the best Firewire card for Win 10 and 11. Windows "hasn't dropped support"; you simply may have to install the legacy drivers, like you have to install every other bit of software on your PC, and it is a damned-sight easier to do than install HUFF, the favoured codec of your mentor. And what do DVDs have to do with the topic?

I totally disagree with you here Alwyn, these people are using an elcra*o usb capture card and Panasonic es47 or newer es47, with no TBC or even TBC ish set up

Research "Diga".

[VWestlife]

FWIW, I do MicroMV transfers in my own spare time, and about two years ago when I got approached with a larger project than I could handle at the time (40+ tapes), I inquired with Phil (GotMemories) if I could give them a referral, and after ranting about how much he hates MicroMV, he quoted $60 per tape to do the job, plus a setup fee.

Edit: I checked my e-mails. It was Phil (GotMemories), not Sean (Emerald), who at the time didn't support MicroMV at all. This was in December 2023.

[timtape]

It's not just high or low quality gear. It's also condition. Gone are the days when we could go out and buy brand new VCR's with factory warranty, parts available and service techs in every city.

For me the VCR is the most important item in the chain because it handles the tapes and can permanently damage them if faulty.

Then there's playing already damaged tapes. The very best VCR in top condition will not play optimally certain damaged tapes. I have a tape here with unstable picture because after inspection I can see the bottom edge of the tape was stretched and frilled by being played at some stage in a faulty VCR. Now no VCR can lock onto the control track because the tape is damaged in that area of the tape. No TBC will help. Not even VHS decode. Custom VCR modifications and techniques are the only way, and sometimes even they dont work if the tape damage is too great.

But I dont automatically assume people are rogues because they dont put out a good product. They may just be low in skills and knowledge, not knowing any better. There's a limit to everyone's skills.

It's good when someone in the business knows the limits of their skills, knowledge and gear, and knows when to seek advice, internally pass a job on to someone more skilled with that problem, or to recommend to a customer another more capable business. When a business, if they mention other businesses at all only ever mentions other businesses in derogatory terms, that could be a warning sign. It could be mere self promotion, and something to take note of. Another possible red flag is when someone implies their own work is excellent but rarely if ever displays examples of that same work.

[lollo]

For me the VCR is the most important item in the chain because it handles the tapes and can permanently damage them if faulty.

Yes. For that and mainly because is the main responsible for the video quality of the capture. All the rest comes after.

[GAhere]

Why did DVD recorders not catch on for recording like VCRS did?
Since most of the professional recommended equipment is not available to buy, how many people are going to bother to find it and pay what people are asking for?

I think people should at least record memories on dvd recorder, at least the memories are not lost rather than wait for ages to find the right equipment.

VCRS and tapes (mainly VHS) were dirt cheap, one could say almost free when DVD recorders came out. Beta never got off the ground it was unjustifiably too expensive and run time was very odd and often movies would fit on Beta 1, wasn't until Beta2 came out before a movie would fit and Sony didn't learn their lesson with the some mistakes of 8mm/Hi8 tape being way more expensive than VHS, pretty rare to find 8mm home decks, mainly "Prosumer", only a few models made and they were super expensive. Hi8 was pretty much the same.

Digital Video tape, yeah that was a pretty short run, never saw a Home deck, had no choice but to carry around cables with your camcorder where every you went to hook it up to a TV..

When DVD recorders and recordable media came out were insanely expensive compared to venerable VHS and very few people saw the need to spend the money when VHS was plentiful and cheap.. There was the battle of recording media versions (DVD -R and DVD +R) not to mention the more expensive ReRecordable versions. Most DVD Recorders were not compatible between the two versions when recording. Additionally there was a draconian measure of enforcing the DVD recorder market to make sure the recording was disabled if Macrovision signal was present in the video input.. Often it would falsely trigger even on home video from a camcorder.. DVD recorders also didn't "age well", often the recorder used a modified firmware computer DVD recordable drive, when the drive failed, finding a replacement became a problem.. Then you have the bad caps in the power supply, you had to be proactive on this issue and recap the supply before it damaged and sunk the rest of the unit into a door stop.

As far as using a DVD recorder as the means to digitize VHS goes, while one could do that, but at what cost? Quality? Time?

Recordable DVDs must be finalized before they are readable on DVD players and it is best to do that in the same session, basically have to record all in one shot, then finalize if you want to avoid the dreaded "failed to finalize" message. The only exception was the rerecordable discs were touted to not need finalization, however in practice, I never was able to get that to work unless I finalized the disc.

Even if you were successful, no guarantees that every DVD player will play them and to get them into your computer you must use a ripping software which adds time and errors to workflow..

There is also no guarantees on the life span of DVDs (commercial pressed and Recordable DVDs), I have had commercial pressed DVDs fail and some recordable discs.. Contamination in between the laminated layers when the disc was made will doom the disc down the road.

Just much more effective to digitize the VHS directly to computer files.. Even if it is a crappy consumer version dongle you are much more ahead rather than to DVD..

The rest of your post, well that is more of a personal view point type of rant.. Yes, there are going to be crappy vendors using sub par methods and equipment. Can't fix that..

As a supervisor once told me after coming back for a long vacation, he reflected on what bothered him the most about his work life.. He came to the conclusion it was the things that were out of his hands that he had no control over (IE dumb management moves).. He decided to no longer worry about what he could not control and his work life got better..

No direct control, can't fix, move on to other things you can..