Need VHS capture advice

[OneMillionWays]

Hi

I know this topic has been covered elsewhere but I am wondering whether my current plan is a good one. I recently bought an ADS Pyro A/V Link. It's the rev. 2 version with locked audio support. I know the Canopus is more highly regarded but the ADS was only $140 at Circuit City so I had to give it a try. It has absolutely no problems capturing from a dvd or a tape recorded with my current vcr. My current vcr is a JVC HR-S7500U.

Anyway, the problem I am having is with dropped frames from old VHS tapes. I am thinking since tapes recorded on my current vcr work fine I can make new vhs (or maybe svhs) copies. Then I can use the new copies as the source for capturing DV to my computer. I know there will be another generation of analog quality loss this way, but will it work???

[BobK]

I don't know if it does or doesn't work in every instance. I had one VHS tape that was dropping thousands of frames an hour even though it played okay on the TV (not the monitor). I tried copying it to another tape (VHS to VHS) and using the new tape to capture- didn't work. It still dropped thousands of frames.

At that time I was capturing in AVI with a Pinnacle card. I've just started using the Snazzi mpeg capture card, so when I have time I plan to see if it will capture from that tape.

[andkiich]

I think that your best bet would probably be to get a TBC(time base corrector). This will help keep the video/audio information more stable and will eliminate or greatly reduce the number of dropped frames. VHS is probably one of the hardest sources to capture from because it has a log of variance, which is difficult for the capture devices to handle.

Making yet another copy of the same VHS tape will probably only buy you a worse copy as the quality will keep degrading from one tape to the next.

If you have a lot of VHS tapes then another option might be a stand-alone DVD recorder. They are still quite expensive, but will probably give you the best quality you are going to get.

If the DVD-REcorder is not an option, then I suggest the TBC and using one of the guides from the lordsmurf site (www.lordsmurf.com).

[OneMillionWays]

BobK - Thanks, that is the kind of problem I am having. The picture on the TV looks fine, but it won't capture smoothly. Sounds like my plan won't work.

andkiich - My vcr has a built in TBC which does help, but doesn't totally fix the problem. I know stand alone TBCs are probably better... I'll have to consider that or maybe a stand alone dvd recorder. I think I will still borrow another vcr to give my original plan a try first.

[FulciLives]

The problem you are having is exactly the type of problem that a TBC can and most often does solve.

I know LORDSMURF says he uses a JVC S-VHS VCR that has a built-in TBC but he still also uses a stand alone TBC though I imagine that such a combo is not needed MOST of the time it does sound like it is what you NEED to be able to capture that problem video.

Of course the problem here is that there are only two modestly priced stand alone TBC units that seem to work well and they aren't really cheap. There is the DataVideo TBC-1000 which normally goes for around roughly $300 or the AVT-8710 which is $179.00

Neither one is all that cheap if you ask me

- John "FulciLives" Coleman