A Capturing Problem - Can it be done?

[Wedge Walker]

greEtings all.

Set the way back machine to 1998. I was working with a camp during the summer and started making some just-for-fun documentaries about it. Now I want to put them on DVD. But there's a problem.

I made the two earliest projects on the el-cheapo set-up of two VCRs connected together. At certain places in the video I wanted the image to slo-mo. So, while recording onto VCR 2, I hit the slo-mo button on playback VCR 1. Though not as fancy as digital technology would allow years later, it worked fine at the time.

So now I'm wanting to capture the video (the source footage has been destroyed, so I can't recapture and re-edit digitally from source). But simply playing that tape back, while converting to DV (using Dazzle Hollywood DV Bridge), and capturing to AVI using ULead, as you would guess, doesn't cut it. The video signal drops out beyond what the converter box can read (though playback to a TV works well). Plus, random frames that aren't slo-mo are dropped here and again, I'm guess also because of video signal problems. (It isn't a computer problem, I know that.)

After doing some research I had thought that using a TBC might solve the problem. But after doing more research, I'm not so sure. So I figured I should ask y'all and see what you experienced folks could tell me.

In the words of Darth Sidious/Emperor Palpatine- Can it be done?

If it might work, my plan was to purchase a JVC S-VHS VCR and the AVT-8710.

[edDV]

If it's just a few tapes, have them dubbed by a pro tape transfer house. They can probably lock it with a true frame sync and your cost will be lower than buying equipment. If they can't play the tape, often they won't charge. Negotiate that up front.

[Wedge Walker]

There are 2, possibly 3 tapes that have slo-mo on them. (I say possibly 3 because I can't find all my source tapes for the 2nd year's video, so I might have to just capture and convert the final VHS version already in existence...which is not preferable since it is a 3rd generation tape..which bits of 4th generation on there too. Quite nasty.)

But if you add to that number all the original analog C-VHS tapes I have to draw from (no slo-mo on the of course), the number is somewhere between 50 and 75 I'd estimate.