Why does anyone bother with capture cards or capture devices for tape?

[nopcbs]

I have been using an Avermedia PCI video capture card and recently a Plextor ConvertX external USB capture device with a hardware encoder to converst VHS videos I own to DVD. I have a Pentium 4 2.8 GHz XP box with 1 G of RAM a loads of IDE drive disk space. A reasonable quick PC.

I have NEVER gotten a conversion that was equal to the original VHS quality and each conversion takes hours to do (beyonf the lenth of the tape itself), even with the ConvertX hardware encoder.

So last week I bought a $100 Liteon LVW-5007 set top DVD recorder on close-out for $100 at Sears. It was bult in late 2004 and only does +R/+RW which is fine since I only use + disks. I set the thing up with my Panasonic VHS player (some one I always use) and proceeded to copy movies witout refering to the manual. I've done six so far in under one day and all are as good as the source VHS. I could not copy one because of Macrovision, but there is supposedly a hack to get around that.

Point is a relatively old design $100 set-top DVD burner allowed to me to quickly do what I could not do with great effort using $200 worth of capture devices and a $1000 worth of computer.

Why does anyone bother with these difficult to near impossable to use (with good results) PC-based capture devices when a cheap DVD burner will blow them away in terms of ease of use and quality. I ould kick myself for all the wasted effort.

A word to the wise for anyone getting into this VHS copying, just get a cheap set top DVd recorder.

- nopcbs

[yoda313]

I've used the hauppauge wintv pvr 250 capture card for years and got OUTSTANDING results from it. Near perfect copies depending on how high of a bitrate I used.

Now I'm using the fusion 3 hdtv gold t capture card and I'm getting excellent results from it as well.

It all comes down to getting the right card. Pc capture cards ARE WORTHWHILE in my opinion.

[greymalkin]

sorry to hear you had such bad experiences with your vhs transfers. If all you are wanting is a 1:1 copy of vhs then i agree you would save yourself a ton of time/effort by just getting a standalone.

the reason some go through the toil of capturing to vhs in so that they can edit and actually improve the quality of their vhs source..whether it is simple brightness/contrast adjustments or more advanced image stabilization/enhancement. having the video digitally stored on you pc gives you the flexibility of manipulating the video in many ways before outputting it to dvd. If done properly it takes lots of time and hard drive space but ending up with a better product (better/more visible video, cleaner audio, better/cleaner scene changes) is worth it.

[mikiem]

Andddd..... I've yet to see compression in a can that can do wmv, real, mp4, hi-bitrate mpg2, avi... & I never have to dust it.

[FulciLives]

With a decent capture card you can get good results.

A long time I used an Avermedia "AverTV Stereo" capture card. Just a simple BT based PCI capture card.

I would capture with PICVideo MJPEG (19 quality setting) and 16-bit 48k Stereo PCM WAV audio.

I would then "pre-process" the video with AviSynth using a video noise filter (Convolution3D) then do a multi-pass VBR with CCE. I would normalize the audio and convert to AC-3 format.

All of this resulted in a DVD that looked BETTER than the original VHS/LaserDisc source (the 2 sources I captured the most).

Only problem with these damn PCI cards (like my AverTV Stereo) is keeping A/V sync. I finally found a solution on my old computer but my new computer, although MUCH faster, just can't keep sync with this card.

Now I use a stand alone DVD recorder because I need SPEED since I am now concentrating on recording cable TV stuff (whereas before with the capture card I mostly did pre-records like VHS and LD). I could have gone with a computer capture card that does hardware MPEG-2 DVD spec captures (like the Hauppauge WinTV PVR 250) but went with a stand alone DVD recorder so as not to "tie up" the computer.

I have done some VHS to DVD with the stand alone and I've been happy enouogh with the results but I miss the old way of doing it.

I will probably get a hardware MPEG-2 capture card for those captures I want to do the "old" way since a computer MPEG-2 capture card can do a 15,000kbps capture (which serves as a "stand in" for the old method as this is similar to a PICVideo MJPEG capture more-or-less) or I might get a DV capture device ala the Canopus ADVC-110 ... either way A/V sync is not an issue and I get a high quality capture for further filtering and then on to multi-pass VBR encoding.

The main benefits of the computer method?

1.) Can do a true multi-pass VBR encode from a high quality capture.
2.) If need be you can apply filters to clean up the video and/or audio.

Last but not least if you need to do extensive editing you can't beat doing it on the computer especially if you capture to the DV format.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[hech54]

I have been using an Avermedia PCI video capture card and recently a Plextor ConvertX external USB capture device with a hardware encoder to converst VHS videos I own to DVD. I have a Pentium 4 2.8 GHz XP box with 1 G of RAM a loads of IDE drive disk space. A reasonable quick PC.

I have NEVER gotten a conversion that was equal to the original VHS quality and each conversion takes hours to do (beyonf the lenth of the tape itself), even with the ConvertX hardware encoder.

I'm with you....give me a DVD Recorder anyday. I paid $800 for mine....that is how long I've had one/been using one.

[lordsmurf]

To transfer from VHS to DVD, you must have 3 things:

(1) Quality tape playback equipment, and related filter devices (TBC, detailers, proc amps, etc)

(2) Quality digital conversion hardware and software, be it a DVD recorder, or a computer-based capture card/device.

(3) Knowledge of how video works.

Most people that have trouble fail at all 3 of these things. Many more try to be cheap or lazy, and they get crap as a result.

When I convert VHS to DVD, it always looks better than the source because I use whatever filters and hardware are needed. If I don't get the result I like, I go out and learn how to do it better.

[rumplestiltskin]

My Hauppauge PVR-250's tuner provides better quality that what my Toshiba TV does. In this case, it's the quality of the tuner to "lock in" the signal that makes the difference.

I rarely use the PVR-250 anymore, however, as most of the content I like to watch is now on the web as mpeg4 and I connect my 5G iPod to my TV to view it. No; it's not DVD quality but, frankly, if I want to watch a movie, I'll rent the DVD for 99 cents.

[aiw9800proman]

So last week I bought a $100 Liteon LVW-5007 set top DVD recorder on close-out for $100 at Sears.
Why does anyone bother with these difficult to near impossable to use (with good results) PC-based capture devices when a cheap DVD burner will blow them away in terms of ease of use and quality. I ould kick myself for all the wasted effort.
- nopcbs

I have the liteon lvw 5006 and it does an excellent job of converting vhs tapes, this is mainly due to the dominofx chip inside the machine and one of the reasons why I am closely watching developments on the audigy video editor which has the same or similar chip from lsi.

Liteon pros:

I have used it to outperform captures from ati, matrox, canopus, edirol, formac, pinnacle, and god knows how many others.

Liteon cons:

Very little editing, no avi capture, no control over dominofx parameters and sometimes puts a mosquito mesh over the entire capture.

I was hoping the ati theatre 550 would outperform it but it hasn't yet.

Yes, I have tried the edirol vmc1 and was unimpressed.

[Baatfam]

Why do it????

Because it's fun, that's why!!

Later,
Bob T.

[axlish]

I use DVD-RW's to record sources onto my DVD Recorder. I then rip to mpeg2 on the PC and do any enhancements needed, add menues, etc. I used to use a video capture card but the dropped frames on VHS were too much to handle. This is the best of both worlds IMHO.

[Bjs]

As an owner of one of these card's , in particular , the aververmedia dvd ezmaker gold , I have never found the problem with macrovision ever .

I also own the avertv usb2 unit which is superior to the previous , and again , no macrovision problem here .

Both product's provide a superior quality compared to many other capture device's , and I have had a few over the years' ... asus vivo agp were my favorite before avermedia .

Never a "sync" issue .

As for using a topset dvd recorder , if this is the case , it wont be long before the companies , even though the tape's may be years old , hit back at these device's , so the next generation of topset box's cannot perform this function .

Just as in the case of the sony playstation 2 , where you can record the output by any other device .

My new slimline ps2 was supposed to have had this fixed to prevent the recording of dvd's ... but unfortunately this is not the case as I have no problem's here .

As for why do it anyway , as mentioned before , for the fun of it , and :

To learn various process's of authoring media of any kind .
Tape's dont have menu's ... and some want to add them .
Using a topset box waste's media .

Most video that is available on the net is rubbish in quality .

And for us nutt's :

The abilty to add mind blowing menu's , additional audio , and subtitle's to movie's released only on tape which may never be available on dvd ...

From source's around the place , the demise of the vhs recorder's / player's isnt far off ... esspecially with video store's here switching too dvd only ... which tick's me right off because people dont look after them .

As for the final detail ... to archive a valued asset before it's quality is deminished by friend's who lend them , yet dont look after them like the owner dose ... and before the demise of vcr's .

[rhegedus]

I have NEVER gotten a conversion that was equal to the original VHS quality and each conversion takes hours to do (beyonf the lenth of the tape itself), even with the ConvertX hardware encoder.

That's because you're watching the conversion on a PC monitor whereas you saw the tape on TV. Try running the capture through a few filters, author it to DVD then see what you get.