Dazzle on Windows 10 and Windows 11 Tutorial

[lordsmurf]

I'm not a videophile. Those people are nuts.

I just want my video conversions to not look worse than the source tapes. But the Dazzle is a POS that can't do that simple request. Sadly, many cards cannot, as most are just cheap Chinese garbage USB cards.

The most damning problems are bright exposure (blown highlights), among many others.

If you want to accept bad quality, fine, Dazzle does it in spades.

[Anonymous]

I'm not a videophile. Those people are nuts.

I just want my video conversions to not look worse than the source tapes. But the Dazzle is a POS that can't do that simple request. Sadly, many cards cannot, as most are just cheap Chinese garbage USB cards.

The most damning problems are bright exposure (blown highlights), among many others.

If you want to accept bad quality, fine, Dazzle does it in spades.

When I've shown tapes to my friends I digitized with my Dazzle, they have rated them around 8 or 9 / 10. While I understand the Dazzle isn't the best capture device, it produces better results than I've found with other people's captures to compare it to. It's just when I've read posts you have wrote, you have set a high bar with your standards. I understand you have much experience with VHS capturing. I've also tried a Hauppauge HDPVR and I've got worse results from it, but I want to know what capture device around the price range that you recommend to people without any time base corrector or other addons. Here's a capture I did with my Dazzle, feel free to critique it http://vimeo.com/899972941/

[Sharc]

..... you recommend to people without any time base corrector or other addons. Here's a capture I did with my Dazzle, feel free to critique it http://vimeo.com/899972941/

Well, you get what you get, and if you are happy with it, it's just fine.
Not knowing the quality of the original tape, and with some doubts what has been damaged by the dazzle/capture process, the vimeo upload and/or your editing, here just some observations:
- low details (plastic skins, low texture visibility, maybe over-denoised?)
- smeared colors, best seen at edges
- halos
- deinterlacing and compression artifacts
Still better than loosing the tapes though

[Alwyn]

Not knowing the quality of the original tape

Precisely. It is impossible to say "that is a bad capture" without a comparison with that tape. You can make absolute assessments, but any implication that the Dazzle is rubbish based on one video is just wrong.

Apart from being oversaturated, it doesn't look bad to me. The vertical edges on the metronome are as straight as a die, the definition on that green swinging thingee is great.

I'm not a videophile.

Of course you are. Nothing wrong with that though, provided people realise it and don't unwittingly fall for the multi-thousand $$$$ setup you recommend when all they want is a half-decent transfer.

The most damning problems are bright exposure (blown highlights)

Surely you are not suggesting "no levels adjustments" for capture?

[Sharc]

The most damning problems are bright exposure (blown highlights), among many others.

And these problems aggravate when the levels get expanded (often unintentionally "under the hood") by import filters and/or filters doing an YUV->RGB conversion, driving the brights (and darks) even more into the clipping. Unrecoverable damage.

[Alwyn]

And these problems aggravate when the levels get expanded

But only if they're not set correctly at capture, surely.

[Sharc]

And these problems aggravate when the levels get expanded

But only if they're not set correctly at capture, surely.

Not only. Out-of-gamut RGB can result from YUV being nicely within the luma 16...235 and chroma 16...240 range. Remember the RGB block in the YUV cube. Many posts about this.

Edit: Demo added.
Left: the original capture
Center: YUV Histogram. All YUV components are perfectly within their allowed range.
Right: Out-of-gamut RGB marked cyan. They exist even without expanding the range. Would be much worse if the range gets expanded (as some filters do).

You will still see "nice red" on the source picture, but they are actually slightly off and with missing "red" details in the out-of-gamut area. One may still accept it, as fixing can be a PITA, and simple fixes may look worse even for the healthy part of the picture ......

[Anonymous]

I think the quality might've been affected by compressing the video and uploading it to Vimeo. However, yeah, I feel with analog capture devices like VHS there's not really a point where a capture with it is gonna be perfect. I agree that the Dazzle is a inexpensive way to capture VHS tapes rather than the setup lordsmurf uses which would cost more

[ProJiJi]

You folks will have to excuse my interjection here, please. This thread is educationally entertaining, which is very rare to find in the quality of both that we can read here. Just wish to thank all participants. Please don't stop. Well, at least make it to the one-year anniversary.

[Alwyn]

Edit: Demo added.
Left: the original capture
Center: YUV Histogram. All YUV components are perfectly within their allowed range.
Right: Out-of-gamut RGB marked cyan. They exist even without expanding the range. Would be much worse if the range gets expanded (as some filters do).

I'm sure you are correct but let's stick to the OP's video. Anybody can "prove" anything with the "right" video.

Is Larsenv's video "bad" because of the Dazzle 100 (the subject of the topic) or not?

[Sharc]

I'm sure you are correct but let's stick to the OP's video. Anybody can "prove" anything with the "right" video.
Is Larsenv's video "bad" because of the Dazzle 100 (the subject of the topic) or not?

Well, I gave my comments in post#33 and pointed out that the noted deficiencies can't be isolated or traced back to the capture device (the dazzle in this case).

You are right, my post was not directly linked to that Vimeo clip (although some other dazzle captures referenced and published before are shocking in this respect). Sorry for my excursion. It was thought as a bit more elaborate reply to your comment in post#36 - instead of just saying "nope" or "wrong" . Rest assured it is certainly not just "anybody proofing anything" with the "right" video: You might be surprised to find that issue - stronger or weaker - being almost omnipresent in "home" video captures/productions. The question is whether one is aware of it or not.

[lollo]

However, yeah, I feel with analog capture devices like VHS there's not really a point where a capture with it is gonna be perfect.

False, the goal is to extract the signal as it is on tape, without adding any degradation.

I agree that the Dazzle is a inexpensive way to capture VHS tapes rather than the setup lordsmurf uses which would cost much more

The only expensive element in LS workflow is the external TBC, which can be avoided if the tapes are in good conditions.
So, once more, the suggested flow is a high-end S-VHS player with TBC and Y/C output and one of the recommended capture cards (Hauppauge USB-Live 2, IOData GV-USB, ATI USB 600, Pinnacle 710 USB, few others).
Addition of external elementes only if needed because the conditionsof the tape (which is the key element for a nice capture).
There is nothing here that would cost much more as you wrote.

[PADDYKIRKSMITH]

Hi everyone,

I hope this is okay to post here. I just wanted to give a bit of background and see if anyone has run into similar issues.

I’ve recently started digitising my parents’ old VHS tapes (including their wedding, footage of my grandparents, and home videos of my sister and me growing up). It’s been a really meaningful project, and after following a few well-recommended guides, I picked up a white Dazzle DVC100 with the correct serial number on the back.

I initially tried a cheap Amazon capture device, but the quality was awful, so I moved to the Dazzle. Unfortunately, I’ve hit a few problems that I can’t seem to solve and I’m starting to wonder if the device itself may be faulty.

Current issues:

Using OBS with RCA (yellow/red/white): I get video, but no audio.

Using S-Video (preferred due to better quality): I get neither video nor audio.

Installing the driver from the supplied CD causes my laptop to slow down badly and eventually crash. I’m using an Acer Nitro 5, so it shouldn’t be a performance issue.

I’ve contacted Dazzle/Corel support and was told that the white DVC100 is unsupported, not compatible with Windows 11, and that no updates are planned — which was pretty frustrating.

I’ve seen references to a Windows 10 driver working for some people, but I’m currently on Windows 11. Has anyone here managed to get this working on Windows 11, or found a workaround? Or have I slightly shot myself in the foot by upgrading my OS?

Any advice or insight would be massively appreciated. My end goal is to digitise all these tapes and upload them to a private, unlisted YouTube playlist as a surprise for my family, so I’m keen to get this working properly.

Sorry for the long post — just wanted to give the full picture.

Cheers,
Paddy

[Anonymous]

Hi everyone,

I hope this is okay to post here. I just wanted to give a bit of background and see if anyone has run into similar issues.

I’ve recently started digitising my parents’ old VHS tapes (including their wedding, footage of my grandparents, and home videos of my sister and me growing up). It’s been a really meaningful project, and after following a few well-recommended guides, I picked up a white Dazzle DVC100 with the correct serial number on the back.

I initially tried a cheap Amazon capture device, but the quality was awful, so I moved to the Dazzle. Unfortunately, I’ve hit a few problems that I can’t seem to solve and I’m starting to wonder if the device itself may be faulty.

Current issues:

Using OBS with RCA (yellow/red/white): I get video, but no audio.

Using S-Video (preferred due to better quality): I get neither video nor audio.

Installing the driver from the supplied CD causes my laptop to slow down badly and eventually crash. I’m using an Acer Nitro 5, so it shouldn’t be a performance issue.

I’ve contacted Dazzle/Corel support and was told that the white DVC100 is unsupported, not compatible with Windows 11, and that no updates are planned — which was pretty frustrating.

I’ve seen references to a Windows 10 driver working for some people, but I’m currently on Windows 11. Has anyone here managed to get this working on Windows 11, or found a workaround? Or have I slightly shot myself in the foot by upgrading my OS?

Any advice or insight would be massively appreciated. My end goal is to digitise all these tapes and upload them to a private, unlisted YouTube playlist as a surprise for my family, so I’m keen to get this working properly.

Sorry for the long post — just wanted to give the full picture.

Cheers,
Paddy

Please read the first post of this thread. Dazzle does support Windows 11. If you install the specific version of Pinnacle Studio which is explained in the first post, it should work quite well. I have the same Dazzle and I use it on Windows 11. You have to use the installer on the post, as the DVD will not work. Also, I do not recommend using OBS to digitize this, as Pinnacle Studio uses raw MPEG2 which can then be processed. Also, please uninstall the driver prior to following the tutorial. The reason why the old driver does not work is because a specific one must be used on Windows 11. Let me know whether or not it work

[ozymango]

I picked up a white Dazzle DVC100 with the correct serial number on the back.

Current issues:

Using OBS with RCA (yellow/red/white): I get video, but no audio.

Using S-Video (preferred due to better quality): I get neither video nor audio.

Hi, Paddy. I've got a Dazzle DVC100 working on my Windows 10 machine, and configuring it to work in OBS was a bit of a hassle due to the fact I didn't realize the DVC100 was defaulting to PAL when plugged in. So assuming you got the drivers working in the OS -- even it's Windows 11, not Windows 10 -- and assuming you're NOT in PAL-land, for OBS capture, try these steps:

1) Assuming OBS recognizes "Dazzle DVC100 Video" as a video capture device,, open the device properties
2) In the Device Properties window, click on "Configure Video."
3) You should see a Properties window with a couple of tabs, open the "Video Decoder" tab.
4) Under the top entry, you'll see ":Video Standard" and my DVC100 defaulted to "PAL" so ah ha, that's not right. So there's a little down-arrow you can select to choose "NTSC_M."
5) Then close that Properties window, and click on "Configure Crossbar."
6) In the Crossbar Properties window, you'll see an "Input" option menu, and the default input (for me) was "2: Video Composite in." Change that to "3: Video SVideo in."

With any luck, your DVC100 will now start working for S-video captures. But important note -- I've not gotten the audio inputs working for my DVC100,, not on Windows XP, 7, or 10 -- the audio input is just useless on the DVC100 -- but that's no big deal for me because I just use a little Behringer USB audio input device for recording, any other audio input device should also work.

Anyway hope this helps!

[ando7700]

Greetings!
I have lots of old family videos in VHS to digitalize. But I am running into dead ends.
My sister started doing this 10 years ago, she only digitalized a few tapes and then stopped because she just didn't have the time to continue. I offered to continue doing it from now on, so I asked her for all the tools that she used to do those few digitalizations 10 years ago.

I grew up in the 90s, but prior to this, I had no idea about how all of this tech works, much less how to digitalize it.

My sister gave me a VHS player (Grundig GV9403 S), and a DVC100, the one that looks like a white drop, and told me that I will need to download a software called "Pinnacle", but added that she also doesn't know too much about this, and that she can hardly remember anything from when she attempted to do any of this.

I started googling and tried many things, but I hit a dead end in which with Pinnacle Studio, VirtualDub and AmarecTV, I only get audio, without any image. Only a black screen.

I kept researching and I found this thread. I just registered to see if I can get any help from you guys. I know the last post is from January 2026, but I see people were commenting since 2024, and at this point, I don't know where else to ask. I tried using gpt but it hasn't been of any help.

I am using Windows 11 by the way, and I suspect that this is why my sister could do it but I couldn't. I also found that Pinnacle is a paid software. Before buying anything, I decided to use the Free Trial. I told this to my sister, but she said she installed the software from a CD that came with DVC100 and that it was free. Later on I found out that it started being paid after a certain version I think. I also think she was using Windows 7 or 8 back then. I asked, but she can't remember, and she lost the CD.

Before continuing, two things:
-I tried connecting DVC100 to both USB 3.0 and USB 2.0
-I have no idea whether this VHS player is PAL or NTSC or anything like that. All I can say is that it's been purchased in Argentina, most likely in the 90s, and every VHS that I'm trying to digitalize has been purchased and recorded on in Argentina as well. Nothing of this has ever left the country.

So anyway. I tried to follow OP's instructions:
1) Uninstalled everything related to DVC100 and Dazzle and Pinnacle, and restarted my computer.

2) Downloaded Pinnacle Studio from the provided link, but I got this pop-up mid-installation (I clicked Cancel):



3) I launched this version of Pinnacle Studio. It didn't force me to choose between Paying or a Free trial, but the VHS option wasn't there, so I closed it and proceeded to Step 5 to install the driver. I download the zip, uncompress it, and install "Dazzle Video Capture DVC100 X64 Driver 1.09.msi".

4) Launch Pinnacle Studio again, and now I do see the "Dazzle DVC100" tab. But, just like before, I hear the audio perfectly, but a green screen. It's set to NTSC by default. If I change it to PAL, same thing.






At this point I have no idea what else to try. I tried following the steps of the other comments that I saw on this thread, of those that found a way for it to work for them, but nothing worked for me so far. If anyone knows how to help me, I will tremendously appreciate it.