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  1. Member
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    Hi Everyone. I am in the process of converting my VHS and Hi8 tapes to digital format (and hopefully later to DVD). I'm having a really having a hard time getting decent results. I have used DV Capture Live, which may not be the best, but I am hesitant to spend lots of money on other options because I really don't know much about the video transfer process to make an informed decision.

    For my Hi8 tapes I have been using my Sony TRV-120 set to AV>DV output via Firewire, but there are lots of jagged edges, and some of the audio ends up out-of-sync with the video. The picture quality of the converted video always looks murky. When watched on a TV, the original tapes look much, much better than the archived AVI files and the sound is in sync with the video.

    I have been spending far too many hours getting nowhere with my VHS/Hi8 archiving. I am hoping that a VHF member can recommend a beginner's approach to archiving VHS/Hi8 videos into digital format with pretty decent results.

    Thanks,
    ~Dom
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  2. The jagged edges are normal. Your sources are interlaced video and you're viewing them on a progressive monitor. Ie, each frame of your source contains two half pictures taken at two different times. You're supposed to see only one of those half pictures at a time, but you're seeing both. That isn't a problem if you're making DVDs. DVDs and TVs know how to deal with interlaced video.

    Regarding the washed out colors: you probably just need to adjust your video proc amp settings in your graphics card's setup applet.

    Try capturing a short segment that normally looks good on TV. Make a DVD from that segment. Then compare the DVD display to the original tape. It should look pretty much the same.
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  3. Member
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    Thanks for the quick reply jagabo. I will try making some comparison DVD's soon. What about the out-of-sync audio? Does this have anything to do with capturing the video in DV AVI, Type 2 file format? The program I am currently using has three choices for capture:
    • DV AVI - Type 1 and Type 2 (*.avi)
    • AVI - Audio-Video Interleve (*.avi), and
    • ASF - Advanced Systems Format (*.wmv)
    ~Dom
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  4. Member
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    DV or lossless compression is generally recommended for analog capture.
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  5. Member edDV's Avatar
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    Your TRV-120 is a Digital8 camcorder capable of conversion of Hi8 tape to DV format for streaming over IEEE-1394.

    Try free WinTV for DV format capture. It will make a bit for bit 480i DV-AVI capture. You will then need to edit and encode for 480i MPeg2 DVD.

    I suspect "DV capture Live" is the cause of your problems. It attempts to reconpress during capture.
    Recommends: Kiva.org - Loans that change lives.
    http://www.kiva.org/about
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  6. Member
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    edDV, do you have a link for downloading WinTV? I did a Google search but can only find a website with Happpauge hardware.
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  7. Member edDV's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by Obtong View Post
    edDV, do you have a link for downloading WinTV? I did a Google search but can only find a website with Happpauge hardware.
    I'm sorry. Was typing too fast. WinDV.

    http://windv.mourek.cz/ (home site)

    A good tutorial
    http://www.windowsmoviemakers.net/PapaJohn/61/WinDV.aspx
    Recommends: Kiva.org - Loans that change lives.
    http://www.kiva.org/about
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  8. WinDV or DVIO. Both are suitable for DV capture.
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  9. Member
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    WinDV kept on freezing so I tried DVIO. The video tranfer worked well, but I still had audio sync problems. I tried capturing in DV AVI Type 1 format, and the audio is now synced! Yeah!

    BTW, is audio on VHS recordeings saved quite differently than on miniDV recordings? None on my VHS transfers (using pass through AV>DV, Type 2) had any kind of audio sync problem.

    ~Dom
    Last edited by Obtong; 10th Jul 2011 at 23:26.
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