Help with Old Vidbox Capture from Camcorder

[Xander]

Hello all, first post here!

I have an old Panasonic PV-GS59 camcorder, trying to capture the video on some old DVC tapes on a Windows 10 PC. The Vidbox is model 03. It came with a disc and VHS to DVD 5.0 software. This software used to work great years ago. But on Windows 10 it is not showing video in the preview windows, audio only. I was thinking perhaps a more current version of VHS to DVD software would be the solution (maybe v5.0 was only for older versions of Windows?). But I cannot install versions 7, 8, or 9 because they require a product key and the key I have for version 5.0 will not work.

Should I be using a different software for the job? VLC seems like it can work, but it saves it as massive AVI files Plus I get strange errors about indexing when trying to open the output AVI files.

[dellsam34]

DVC is the DV version of Panasonic and can be transfered via firewire in full digital quality using WinDV, no capturing or any other device needed.

[Xander]

My Windows 10 PC does not have a firewire card, so I guess one would be needed to try that method. My wife has an iMac but it is 2019 and I am pretty sure it does not have firewire either.

As far as these cheap capture devices like the Vidbox, it seems like the software is not supported very long by the company that produces them. Because I have another one from ENMVG and its software does not work anymore either. I emailed the Vidbox company (formerly Honestech) but they said the model is no longer supported and it cannot be guaranteed to work with Windows 10.

Back to the VLC option, it outputted a massive AVI file. I figured out how to use VLC to convert it to a much smaller MP4, but the 27 min video started having trouble after about 1:43. The picture was "jumping", I am guessing the indexing errors had something to do with that.

[usually_quiet]

If you want to try a firewire card, a Texas Instruments chipset is recommended for older devices like your camera. I have recommended a PCIe x1 firewire card that has a TI XIO2213B chipset and sells for under $30 to several people, the SYBA SY-PEX30016. It has 3 firewire ports, one 1394A firewire port and two 1394B firewire ports.

You would use the 1394A firewire port for your camera and WinDV or ScenalyzerLive as the capture software. If the software fails to recognize the card, install Windows Legacy Firewire Drivers. This combination of hardware and free software copies the DV data from the tape to your PC. DV AVI files are about 13GB per hour. You can convert from DV AVI to other formats for convenience and keep the DV AVI file for archival purposes.

[usually_quiet]

My Windows 10 PC does not have a firewire card, so I guess one would be needed to try that method. My wife has an iMac but it is 2019 and I am pretty sure it does not have firewire either.

As far as these cheap capture devices like the Vidbox, it seems like the software is not supported very long by the company that produces them. Because I have another one from ENMVG and its software does not work anymore either. I emailed the Vidbox company (formerly Honestech) but they said the model is no longer supported and it cannot be guaranteed to work with Windows 10.

Back to the VLC option, it outputted a massive AVI file. I figured out how to use VLC to convert it to a much smaller MP4, but the 27 min video started having trouble after about 1:43. The picture was "jumping", I am guessing the indexing errors had something to do with that.

I have tried VLC but IMO it is not the best choice for analog capture. Most recently I used GraphStudio for capturing from a composite video source but it isn't beginner-friendly. I have not used Virtualdub2 but it is considered to be a better choice than VLC and easier to get working than GraphStudio.

I don't know precisely what is causing your problem but transferring your DV recordings to your PC using firewire and converting the DV AVI to mp4 with something other than VLC would probably produce better results.

[Xander]

Thanks for the info. Based on usually_quiet's reply I tried Virtualdub2 with the x264 8-bit H.264/MPEG-4 AVC codec. I am unfamiliar with all the available codecs in Virtualdub2 but get the impression that this is a popular choice. The output file is now 793 MB for 27 minutes of video. No errors or other issues when opening the file in VLC.

[energizerfellow]

My Windows 10 PC does not have a firewire card, so I guess one would be needed to try that method. My wife has an iMac but it is 2019 and I am pretty sure it does not have firewire either.

You can use IEEE 1394 / Firewire on a modern PC, which is best done using either a PCIe card or Thunderbolt. Your best options for maximum stability are either a PCIe card based on the Texas Instruments XIO2213B chip (typical example) or use Apple's Thunderbolt to Firewire adapter in combination with Apple's Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) to Thunderbolt 2 Adapter. Cheap UVC (USB Video Class) compliant DV adapters are typically "you get what you pay for" affairs with various issues like no AV/C VTR control and USB bus contention.

The Apple dongle route works on both macOS and Windows. Regardless of the Firewire hardware used on Windows you'll need to manually install the Firewire driver from microsoft.com (plus change permissions on a registry key if you're on Windows 10).

A one-piece FireWire 800 to 4-pin Firewire cable would be a good idea as well.

You then pull in the DV video stream with something like ScenalyzerLive or WinDV, plus a number of video editors like Premiere.

[Pinto007]

Regardless of the Firewire hardware used on Windows you'll need to manually install the Firewire driver from microsoft.com (plus change permissions on a registry key if you're on Windows 10).
.

It sounds like a fairy tale. My Windows 10 Pro machine installed TI XIO2213A PCI-E card automatically - no manual driver installation or registry modifying.

[usually_quiet]

My Windows 10 PC does not have a firewire card, so I guess one would be needed to try that method. My wife has an iMac but it is 2019 and I am pretty sure it does not have firewire either.

You can use IEEE 1394 / Firewire on a modern PC, which is best done using either a PCIe card or Thunderbolt. Your best options for maximum stability are either a PCIe card based on the Texas Instruments XIO2213B chip (typical example) or use Apple's Thunderbolt to Firewire adapter in combination with Apple's Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) to Thunderbolt 2 Adapter. Cheap UVC (USB Video Class) compliant DV adapters are typically "you get what you pay for" affairs with various issues like no AV/C VTR control and USB bus contention.

The Apple dongle route works on both macOS and Windows. Regardless of the Firewire hardware used on Windows you'll need to manually install the Firewire driver from microsoft.com (plus change permissions on a registry key if you're on Windows 10).

A one-piece FireWire 800 to 4-pin Firewire cable would be a good idea as well.

You then pull in the DV video stream with something like ScenalyzerLive or WinDV, plus a number of video editors like Premiere.

I'm guessing that Xander either doesn't want to install a firewire card or can't because he has a laptop.

I have an ASRock motherboard with a Thunderbolt 3 port but, unfortunately, they are an uncommon feature on computers that were not made by Apple and can't be added simply by buying a PCI-e card. While I have seen a Thunderbolt 3 PCIe card (made by Gigabyte), the motherboard must have a compatible Thunderbolt header in order to install it.