suggestion for vhs capture card

[abbymat]

hello,

please give some suggestions for good capture cards PCI/USB/Firewire for converting VHS tapes to AVI.

card should be able to capture to AVI with Huffyuv2 compression and 768x576 PAL resolution.

thanks


ps: does the Canopus ADVC-55 support 768x576 PAL AVI capture ?

[Richard_G]

Why 768 x 576? 576 vertical resolution is correct for PAL but your profile states you are in the US where NTSC is the standard and that uses 480 pixels vertical. The correct resolution for PAL is 720 x 576.

Most capture cards will suit your purpose (if you use the standard 720 x 576), but if you wish to use Huffy, avoid the Hauppauge range as they compress to mpeg on the fly. The Canopus ADVC-55 does not support the resolution you are thinking about, only standard resolutions.

[abbymat]

so can we use Virtualdub/Virtual Vcr with Canopus ADVC-55 to capture AVI with Huffyuv2 at 720 x 576 PAL ?

[Richard_G]

No. The Canopus ADVC range convert the analogue video and audio into a DV .avi stream which can be transferred over Firewire. This is identical to a transfer from a Digital camcorder (or exactly the same as using a camcorder in analogue to digital passthrough mode). So you would transfer using WinDV, Windows Movie Maker, etc and then compress with Huffy later. Thinking about it, as DV .avi you probably wouldn't need to use Huffy as a small amount of compression has already been done by the DV encoder in the ADVC. This will give you files of around 13GB per hour in DVD standard quality.

[abbymat]

Thanks for the info.

I already have PCTV Stereo and AIW 9800 Pro capture cards which gives okay quality with old VHS tapes with Huffyuv2 AVI. Do you think i would get better quality captures if I use the Canopus DV AVI ? Btw, file size is not important, only picture quality.

[jagabo]

Thanks for the info.

I already have PCTV Stereo and AIW 9800 Pro capture cards which gives okay quality with old VHS tapes with Huffyuv2 AVI. Do you think i would get better quality captures if I use the Canopus DV AVI ?

Not really.

The best thing you can do (if you haven't already) for capturing VHS is to get an S-VHS player with a line time base corrector. Even that won't help with 2nd generation (or more) tapes.

[Richard_G]

I have the earlier AIW 7500 Radeon card and there isn't a lot to choose between an analogue capture using that or DV passthrough using one of my MiniDV camcorders. With VHS I do as you are proposing, analogue into the AIW using ATI MMC and Huffyuv. The captured file quality is about as good as you're going to get from a VHS source.

[jman98]

abbymat - Do note that while many capture cards allow you to capture the same format (PAL or NTSC) as the video input, if you are planning to play a tape in one format and capture in another that the cards may not be able to do this. Your profile says you are in the USA, so it surprises us that you say you want to capture PAL. Maybe you have a very good reason. Maybe your source actually is PAL. However, if you are hoping to capture NTSC VHS tapes and magically turn them into PAL via a PC capture card, that probably won't happen. Do note that it is VERY VERY rare indeed to find a DVD player incapable of playing back NTSC DVD correctly. It does happen, but it's rare. If you're going to make copies for friends in PAL land, you may be able to just send them NTSC DVD copies and have them play that with no hassle. Also note that PAL full height DVD resolution is 720x576 and this 768x576 that you mention is not correct.

[abbymat]

thanks for all your valuable advice ! i'll stick with the pci capture cards, rather than going for the canopus.