Capturing VHS-C - what's best equipment for my situation?

[Gibson's Squares]

I've got around 10 PAL VHS-C tapes of footage I shot from 15-20 years ago which I'd like to digitize/archive (to DV or raw AVI I expect).

I've got a Mac with firewire, and still have the original JVC GR-45 camcorder that the footage was shot on.

I'm looking for advice on what additional equipment I should look at buying to give me the best results. Should I get/Do I need an external TBC, and what capture device options do I have? I don't mind spending more cash if it's gonna get me better quality.

Also, I'm wondering if playing back on a 'better' VCR (something like a Panasonic AG-1980/NV-FS 200 or JVC HR-S9600) would enhance playback significantly?

All advice gratefully received.

[budwzr]

Personally, if the camcorder has composite-out, I would buy a Hauppage HD-PVR.

[edDV]

Good that you have the original camcorder. A TBC will smooth out VHS H jitter. There are many capture options on a Windows PC. Mac is more limited to Firewire or USB devices for composite or S-Video capture. Unlike a PC, it is very difficult to equip a Mac for uncompressed capture unless a Mac Pro tower.

Firewire devices: Canopus ADVC or a D8/MiniDV camcorder with analog pass through to DV Firewire.

USB devices: Best to go with Elgato. They will have better user and factory support.

[Gibson's Squares]

@budwzr - Camcorder does have composite out (3 RCA Phonos: Video, L & R Audio).

@edDV - have got a Macbook Pro (2.53GHz, Intel Core 2 Duo, 4Gb RAM). Not sure what a tower has that would be better, other than more speed?? Can get one if need be though.

What sort of TBC should I be looking at? (brands/models?) Does it depend on whether I go the USB or Firewire route?

[edDV]

@edDV - have got a Macbook Pro (2.53GHz, Intel Core 2 Duo, 4Gb RAM). Not sure what a tower has that would be better, other than more speed?? Can get one if need be though.

Mac Pro tower has RAID multi-hard drive capability for uncompressed capture.

But that would be overkill for VHS. DV capture would be sufficient.

For 10 tapes you would be better off using a quality capture service.

[Gibson's Squares]

@edDV - have got a Macbook Pro (2.53GHz, Intel Core 2 Duo, 4Gb RAM). Not sure what a tower has that would be better, other than more speed?? Can get one if need be though.

Mac Pro tower has RAID multi-hard drive capability for uncompressed capture.

If that's the only advantage then the MacBook will suffice as I was planning on archiving all footage off to external drives anyway as each tape was captured. Am I right in thinking I can get about 8-9 hours of DV footage on a 1Tera drive?

BTW, what is 'uncompressed capture'? I thought DV was as uncompressed as it got?

For 10 tapes you would be better off using a quality capture service.

Have thought about that but firstly I wanna learn how to do this myself, as once mastered I've got heaps of other standard VHS footage/tv recordings from various sources which I can play with. Secondly, I'm not sure who to trust to do it. Anyone got recommendations of of UK based capture services?

[edDV]

You can fit about 77 hours of DV format video on a 1 TB drive (~13 GB/hr). DV is lightly compressed about 5x and makes a fine archive format. Again a Canopus ADVC 55/100/110/300 would make a good Firewire capture device for composite or S-Video PAL and be fully compatible with the Mac.

Extreme VHS hobbyists like to work with fully decompressed captures (40-60 GB/hr) and use avisynth noise and deinterlace filters filters for optimization before recode to MPeg2 or AVC. This is easier to do on a Windows PC.

The main advantage to using a pro capture house is they will be using a sophisticated framesync/tbc to remove hotizontal timing jitter from the signal. Consumer TBCs like Datavideo are also available for moderate performance. Use a pro capture house that caters to the broadcast TV market for best quality. You only have ten 20min (max) tapes.

[budwzr]

The thing is, the recording is from a VHS tape, which is the worst possible source. You can put lipstick on a pig, but still nobody's going to be fooled that it's not an old home video.

Point is, there's a certain charm about watching old home movies, they're always poor quality, everyone expects it, and just have fun with it.

You're gonna need an NLE, that way you can caption it, make cuts, color correct, etc. more easily. Trying to learn the free tools from scratch is no fun, get an NLE.

[Gibson's Squares]

Extreme VHS hobbyists like to work with fully decompressed captures (40-60 GB/hr) and use avisynth noise and deinterlace filters filters for optimization before recode to MPeg2 or AVC. This is easier to do on a Windows PC.

What format is the fully decompressed one you speak of? Is it Raw AVI? Is it possible to capture that on a Mac?

Avisynth looks amazing. Shame there's no GUI, but I guess therein lies its power & flexibility.

Use a pro capture house that caters to the broadcast TV market for best quality. You only have ten 20min (max) tapes.

The tapes are 45mins each. Still might consider this route if I get any good UK recommendations. Really wanna do it myself though.


@budwzr - what's a NLE? a Nonlinear Editor? Was thinking of using Premiere.

[edDV]

Extreme VHS hobbyists like to work with fully decompressed captures (40-60 GB/hr) and use avisynth noise and deinterlace filters filters for optimization before recode to MPeg2 or AVC. This is easier to do on a Windows PC.

What format is the fully decompressed one you speak of? Is it Raw AVI? Is it possible to capture that on a Mac?

Avisynth looks amazing. Shame there's no GUI, but I guess therein lies its power & flexibility.

Fully decompressed is 4:2:2 Y,Cb,Cr (without compression) at pro broadcast bit rates. The Mac supports SDI 270 Mb/s (SMPTE 259M) i/o when using Final Cut Pro or Premiere Pro. This is the typical setup for serious Final Cut Pro editing but is not supported on Mac laptops due to lack of disk sustained rate. Uncompressed video can be wrapped with Quicktime or AVI. Again this is overkill for VHS but commonly used in a Windows PC environment.

[budwzr]

Yeah, Premiere Elements should be good enough, or Sony Vegas Movie Studio. Don't be fooled by the "Movie Studio" in the name, it's a solid product. You can get a free 30 day trial on Vegas, not sure about Premiere.

There's still some learning curve but nothing like those freeware apps which are horrendously arcane.


@budwzr - what's a NLE? a Nonlinear Editor? Was thinking of using Premiere.

[edDV]

Yeah, Premiere Elements should be good enough, or Sony Vegas Movie Studio. Don't be fooled by the "Movie Studio" in the name, it's a solid product. You can get a free 30 day trial on Vegas, not sure about Premiere.

There's still some learning curve but nothing like those freeware apps which are horrendously arcane.


@budwzr - what's a NLE? a Nonlinear Editor? Was thinking of using Premiere.

Those are all Windows programs. Adobe only offers Premiere Pro for the Mac.

[budwzr]

Hmmph, that sux

Well, Gib, you have an expensive entry fee into this arena. But if you're really interested in A/V production, it's well worth it. Even as a hobby, it's very rewarding in terms of freedom of creativity in a medium that was previously locked down to a cadre of Hollywood fatcats.

It's like playing golf at a premier country club, and you can hack your ball and knock out chunks of sod every swing and nobody can shut you out.

Mwahahaha

[magillagorilla]

I used HuffyUV to do lossless AVI capture of all my VHS and VHS-C. I don't know if it works on MAC.

Before I got in to video I was (still am) in to audio archiving and restoration. When ever I have an analog cassette and the original recording deck, I would always play back on the original deck (unless the player was in horrible condition). Analog tape machines all have their own personality, motor speed, position of tape in the tape path, not to forget the nuances in capasitors and ICs which shape the in/out signal.

If you have the original VHS-C camcorder in good condition, I bet no other consumer deck will play the tapes any better. My Panasonic AG-1980 didn't do any better at playing back my VHS-C than the original camcorder (which I still have). In fact the camcorder played the tapes back better. I can't speak for pro decks as I don't have one.

Keep in mind that DV has a limited color space (16bit I think, I'm sure someone will jump my shit if I'm wrong) where MPEG2 is 24bit. I notice a color difference between my original VHS and DV coded VHS footage (when I experimented with this method). This is almost a non-issue.

BUDWZR's advise is solid. If it's just poorly shot family footage, the important thing is that you are saving it. Don't get stuck in the details of codecs and hardware. In fact, playback is 80% of the battle. If you can play the tapes back in an acceptable manner then even a mediocre capture card will do well.

I'm now in the process of reducing all my lossless AVI to MPEG2. Quite frankly the original footage is so bad (like 2nd gen SLP) I can't tell the difference from lossless and 8mbps MPEG2 unless I push my face against the screen.

Keep your gaols in mind. Remember you are not archiving forensic evidence or historically critical footage. Digitize your footage and share it with family and friends (they don't care if it doesn't look exactly like the original).

That said, there is no point in doing a hack job and wasting time (like using a Daewoo VCR from 2001 and a Magnavox DVD recorder on 6hr record time). But it sounds like your leaps ahead of that anyway.

[lordsmurf]

Those are all Windows programs. Adobe only offers Premiere Pro for the Mac.

Premiere Elements 9 is on Mac: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003YV62CM?ie=UTF8&tag=thdifa-20&linkCode=as2&camp=17...SIN=B003YV62CM
Or $59.99 sale+rebate from Adobe, thru 1/5. More info here.

I've got around 10 PAL VHS-C tapes of footage
Also, I'm wondering if playing back on a 'better' VCR (something like a Panasonic AG-1980/NV-FS 200
would enhance playback significantly?

Yes, significantly! That Panasonic is great for VHS-C tapes. Better than your camera.
This exact issue has been discussed here before: http://www.digitalFAQ.com/forum/forumdisplay.php/dvd-project-help-9.html

But for just 10 tapes, why not pay somebody else to do the base transfer? You can get anything you want dumped to a hard drive by a good service. I know several people in Europe, with the right gear, who could do this. (Need a reference? PM me.) In fact, several hang out at the same link I just gave. They've been discussing VCRs quite a bit for the past week.

I'd pay for the transfer, and a nice sized hard drive, and spend the rest of your funds on software.

[magillagorilla]

lordsmurf,
I found that my VHS-C looked better played on the original camcorder. They looked soft on the AG-1980. This is probabely subjective though. For 10 tapes I side with you on getting a service.

I'm on tape 55 of about 58 on my project. When the 58th tape is captured I am offically retired from caping analog video. I will have my master green belt in video capture and will move on to my NLE skills. Lordsmurf is a 3rd degree blackbelt in video capture, listen to him.

[Gibson's Squares]

Ok, so I've got hold of a Canopus ADVC 100 - what sort of external TBC should I be looking for that would work well with this and my Mac?


(decided to extend my capturing to all my old VHS tapes to make this all worthwhile)

[Gibson's Squares]

Any help on the TBC anyone?

Also, this might sound like a dumb question, but would there be any improved quality in capturing standard VHS using an S-VHS player and via an S-VHS cable, over capturing VHS via VHS player with regular RCA/phono/scart leads? (forgetting for a moment that an S-VHS player is likely to have better heads)?