Best Device Capture VHS

[AgustinFerrari1994]

Hello, first of all I introduce myself, I am Agustín from Argentina. I am looking for the best device to capture vhs.
From what I have seen the best is the Hauppauge HD PVR 1212, but it is no longer manufactured so I cannot import it to my country for sure, I have seen that the live usb 2 version captures almost the same, but I see less stability in the image, a dvd recorder could help as what they call "TBC" ?. dazzle dvc 100 recommend it ?. First of all thank you very much and excuse my poor English.

A detail that I forgot, is for pal n

[Eric-jan]

Which VHS player do you have ? it's not just the capture card you have, but also your PC hardware, like SSD's....

[AgustinFerrari1994]

I have 2 vcr, a hitachi vt m688, JVC hr j621.

a detail that I forgot to ask, someone tried Hauppauge HD PVR 2 gaming edition in pal n ?.

the hauppauge rocket only works in ntsc


Intel core i3 8th gen, win 10 64bits, SSD 480, 8 GB ram.

[jagabo]

The Hauppauge HD PVR 2 and 1212 are definitely not what you want to use for VHS capture. They doen't deal well with poor time base and they always use hardware h.264 encoding -- loosing detail before even before you get the video. There are literally hundreds of threads here about what's the "best" for VHS capture. Do a little searching. But be warned: you'll need to spend US$1000.

[AgustinFerrari1994]

and the HD pvr 1445 version ?. it is as good as the hd pvr 1212 which is the best?

I was looking, many recommend diamond but there are no captures, and also the hauppauge live usb, but the live usb I saw that it has some stripes I suppose it will be in vhs LP / SLP

What is your opinion of dazzle dvc 100? They say that fps is missing

[jagabo]

The HD PVR 1445 is a bad choice too, for the same reasons.

[AgustinFerrari1994]

uh, but even if you record in mpeg2?

[dannyboy48888]

Been using the hauppauge 955q, a dimax grex 7.4 tbc, and ffmpeg for capture with good results for me. Does work with virtualdub and Obs studio, but ffmpeg is the only one to give me synced results and Little to none duped/dropped frames over long periods

[jagabo]

uh, but even if you record in mpeg2?

You don't want to record in MPEG2, h.264, or any other high compression codec. You want to capture raw YUV 4:2:2 video and use a lossless codec like huffyuv, UT Video Codec, or Lagarith. Then you clean the video and produce whatever your final output is going to be.

[lordsmurf]

Been using the hauppauge 955q, a dimax grex 7.4 tbc, and ffmpeg for capture with good results for me. Does work with virtualdub and Obs studio, but ffmpeg is the only one to give me synced results and Little to none duped/dropped frames over long periods

That's a terrible setup.
The main reason for sync loss is dropped frames, whether reported or not.
The 955Q chipset is terrible.
The Grex is not a TBC, and often makes quality worse.
ffmpeg is not a capture software. OBS is not analog capture, but streaming capture.

Essentially a perfect recipe on what NOT to do.

and the HD pvr 1445 version ?. it is as good as the hd pvr 1212 which is the best?

Don't use those.

What is your opinion of dazzle dvc 100? They say that fps is missing

Minimally acceptable, but there are many better cards.

You don't want to record in MPEG2, h.264, or any other high compression codec. You want to capture raw YUV 4:2:2 video and use a lossless codec like huffyuv, UT Video Codec, or Lagarith. Then you clean the video and produce whatever your final output is going to be.

And from a clean signal (TBC in use), with good image quality (quality VCR in use, not some POS pulled out of the closet).

[AgustinFerrari1994]

lordsmurf, I know someone who has the pvr1212 and it is the best thing I saw on vhs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OeQoCt8vBc

[dannyboy48888]

Been using the hauppauge 955q, a dimax grex 7.4 tbc, and ffmpeg for capture with good results for me. Does work with virtualdub and Obs studio, but ffmpeg is the only one to give me synced results and Little to none duped/dropped frames over long periods

That's a terrible setup.
The main reason for sync loss is dropped frames, whether reported or not.
The 955Q chipset is terrible.
The Grex is not a TBC, and often makes quality worse.
ffmpeg is not a capture software. OBS is not analog capture, but streaming capture.

Essentially a perfect recipe on what NOT to do.

and the HD pvr 1445 version ?. it is as good as the hd pvr 1212 which is the best?

Don't use those.

What is your opinion of dazzle dvc 100? They say that fps is missing

Minimally acceptable, but there are many better cards.

You don't want to record in MPEG2, h.264, or any other high compression codec. You want to capture raw YUV 4:2:2 video and use a lossless codec like huffyuv, UT Video Codec, or Lagarith. Then you clean the video and produce whatever your final output is going to be.

And from a clean signal (TBC in use), with good image quality (quality VCR in use, not some POS pulled out of the closet).

Fair enough, just saying what has successfully worked for me is all. Sure there's better ways just giving my setup I can vouch for saying it works....though not the best. Done 3hr captures with no sync issues and happy with the quality so maybe the reader will be too. I use ffv1 for video and flac for audio so it is a lossless capture. Afterwards I cut in avidemux and then encode etc with avisynth. I use a ffplay script to preview the tape before recording then set ffmpeg to capture for x amount of time