video capture

[moonshadow]

hi,
im thinking of buying a video capture device... hooking it up to my vcr player
and end up with digital files on my computor

Im wondering though is there a pause facility .... ? I want to play a 3 hour video tape
in my computor and record bits and pieces... so a pause button is very important.

thanks for any comment or advice

would appreciate any recomendation of the best video capture to buy .

[super8rescue]

capture everything, chop out the rubbish in the edit to use.
Keep the rubbish.
What seems rubbish today might be valuable tomorrow.

[DB83]

Short answer. No. No capture device, to my knowledge, can pause and resume a capture.


Slightly longer answer. Capture the entire tape. It will be quite easy to trim, edit out bits that you do not want.


'Best' is a rather subjective, personal opinion. My device is a Haupauge USB-Live2 there are others also recc. here. Just avoid the 'too cheap to be true' easycap (easycrap) devices.

[moonshadow]

thanks for the advice.... pity there is no pause ... as my vids are 3 hours long
to edit all that would be quite a task !

[Skiller]

Good luck with audio sync without a TBC or TBC-like device in a 3 hours VHS capture.
Only few capture devices can do that.

[DB83]

I recently did a vhs capture of the 3hr+ original version of 'The Alamo'


I did not detect any audio drift in that.

[Skiller]

I'm not saying it can't be done. With the right equipment the length of the recording doesn't have any effect on audio sync.
Just saying that, in my own experience, VCR plus most capture devices = sync issues (and on top of that frame drops and jiggly lines).

[lollo]

I recently did a vhs capture of the 3hr+ original version of 'The Alamo'
I did not detect any audio drift in that.

I never captured that long, but for 2 hours movies I have 0 dropped/inserted frames and no audio desynch/drift with my JVC HR-S9500MS and my Hauppauge USB-Live 2 using AmarecTV and HuffYUV under Windows 10.

edit: tapes were in excellent conditions

[Skiller]

Aside from Macrovision, commercial store bought tapes cause a lot less problems when capturing compared to home recorded tapes that often have several different recording sessions with rough overlaps and empty gaps.
With a commercial tape, unless there is physical damage to the tape, there is a continous signal from the beginning till the end of the tape. Much easier to capture therefore.

[Eric-jan]

A "neat" recorded tape without noise gaps still have a sync issue ? > lost frame on that "edit point" ?

[silverstar2003]

quote Slightly longer answer. Capture the entire tape. It will be quite easy to trim, edit out bits that you do not want. end quote

just wondering what edit software would you advise as... quite easy to trim ..... ?

[DB83]

^^ Several exist


Easiest to use is avidemux


Virtualdub can also do this. Just a little more complicated to set up for 1:1 copying.

[silverstar2003]

THANKS just downloaded avidemux... at first sight it looks a lot like virtualdub

I ve been using windows movie maker to chop out junk in my short vids.... but I dare say avidemux will be
a lot more precise

[DB83]

It will.


The one caveat with trimming and cutting is to do it on an I-frame. Then there is no re-encoding or corruption.

[clashradio]

I recently did a vhs capture of the 3hr+ original version of 'The Alamo'


I did not detect any audio drift in that.

Are you talking about the Directors Cut/Roadside Edition? I have the ac3 laserdisc of this. I was going to transfer it but then I heard a German company put this out on a limited BD.

[DB83]

^^ That's the one. The German Co might ship to the US. It was also available on Amazon Germany but it sold out very quickly (too late for me). Goes for silly prices on Ebay now.


There is also a French edition but I understand that it is not up to the standard of the German edition (which is not complete HD for the extended cut).


Details here:


https://shop.kochfilms.de/de/Alamo


But it seems that it is not even available here at present.

[dellsam34]

I don't understand why the OP wants to sit 3 hours next to the tape waiting for which scene to cut and which scene to leave alone when he could be doing something else by capturing the entire tape and come back later and do the editing in less than 15 minutes by just searching through the tape and mark the scenes to be cut, easily done in VDub2.

[lordsmurf]

I don't understand why the OP wants to sit 3 hours next to the tape waiting for which scene to cut and which scene to leave alone when he could be doing something else by capturing the entire tape and come back later and do the editing in less than 15 minutes by just searching through the tape and mark the scenes to be cut, easily done in VDub2.

Same.
Makes no sense.

[carlmart]

I downloaded and installed OBS as a capture program, and it is very good.

It's much better to capture on your computer and edit/clean it later than edit a tape, particularly because each editing involves copying and each new generated video (copy) will be worst than the previous one. Editing on a computer is done digital, with no quality loss.

One problem I'm having with my present capture device (indeed a cheap one) is the audio, which is only mono. Can anyone recommend other capture devices that capture stereo or multichannel audio?

[carlmart]

In any case I was surprised at the high video quality the device captures. I made recordings from SD and HD sources, and there were exactly like the original, watched on a 32" 4K monitor.

OBS is quite a powerful program, and it seems to be able to do a lot of things. Unfortunately there's not a complete tutorial on how to proceed for each thing it can can do.

[dellsam34]

OBS is quite a powerful program, and it seems to be able to do a lot of things. Unfortunately there's not a complete tutorial on how to proceed for each thing it can can do.

OBS is a multi purpose screen and camera digital stream capture software, It was never intended for analog video capture from a tape player conforming to Rec.601. The right Software is vdub or AmarecTV. Yes you can get screws removed with a swiss knife but the right tool is a screwdriver.

[Alwyn]

OBS is a multi purpose screen and camera digital stream capture software, It was never intended for analog video capture from a tape player conforming to Rec.601.

OBS has specific "video capture device" functionality. It is now designed to capture analogue video from a capture device (not a "tape player").

601 can be set in the settings.

This is simply a case of being familiar with the software. Give someone VDub for the first time and they would be bamboozled by it as well.

[dellsam34]

Obviously I didn't mean the software captures from a tape player, It's like I've never done this before. Vdub settings are all for analog video capture, While OBS most features are for HD and 4K progressive, Again the swiss knife analogy.

[Cornucopia]

Nothing different than it has had. In that for analog video, it needs to have: A ROCK SOLID TIMEBASE. AND PROGRESSIVE VIDEO.

So analog capture of analog games could be quite decent if your capture device can bob deinterlace on the fly.

But, since the vast majority of analog video devices are tape players, including the OP's, that still means OBS is not the optimal way to capture, unless you have a TBC and good hardware deinterlacer lying around. Even then, it's heavily relying on the quality of the capture device to cover the nonsquare AR issues, the colorspace change, captioning, possible Macrovision entanglements, etc.

Nope.


Scott

[silverstar2003]

Ive got the vid capture device scart out of dvd player into computor usb
Ive got the hdml cable from sat box into dvd player

problem is Im not getting that sat signal into the tv from the dvd player

it should be able to go thru the dvd player and into my tv esp when the dvd is turned on

[carlmart]

What DVD player is that that can accept a sat signal? A recording DVD device? A player with inputs?

[silverstar2003]

YES ITS a panasonic dvd recorder

[carlmart]

It's peculiar that no capture video device mentions anything about audio. Whether if it's mono, stereo or multichannel.

My guess is that is because it involves permits from Dolby or DTS that they do not want to pay.

[codehound]

OBS can pause.

[Alwyn]

One problem I'm having with my present capture device (indeed a cheap one) is the audio, which is only mono. Can anyone recommend other capture devices that capture stereo or multichannel audio?

If your capture thingee has dual audio leads ie red and white RCA females, it will/should capture stereo.

What exactly is your capture device eg via Amazon link. We'll check it out for you.