Picking a Capture Card chipset, going in circles..

[LukeS]

I am trying to pick a good capture card to transfer old VHS family videos to my computer. I have bought two capture cards but am not trilled with the results. I am going in circles at this point and need a little help.

Here is the equipment I currently have:
- Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-1850, hardware MPEG-2 encoder
- Pinnacle Studio MovieBox HD, hardware MPEG-2 encoder
- JVC SR-S365U professional VCR
- UPDATE: I plan on also getting a external Time base corrector, have not decided which on yet

What I like about the pinnacle adapter is that you can adjust the audio and video levels which is critical on old VHS home movies. What I don't like about it is it is unstable and freezes. The WinTV-HVR-1850 simply does not have enough control, the Win TV 7 software does not allow you to adjust audio or video levels and the card does not really work in Vdub since it is a hardware MPEG-2 card.

I need to bump the color saturation and audio levels up on the tapes.

What capture card chipset do you guys recommend? Should I be going for a card that captures uncompressed video? Do the newer capture cards with uncompressed AVI capture work in VDUB, it seems they do not use the BT8X8 chipset.

Update:
I forgot to give information on my computer setup..
My computer is an overclocked i5 750 at 2.7Ghz, P55 chipset, 12 Gb of DDR3-1600, NVIDIA Quadro 2000 (192 CUDA cores), dual color calibrated IPS screens, Windows 7 64-Bit

Update 2, fixed some errors on my equipment specs, my VCR does not have a TBC

[themaster1]

Try This software it support Hauppauge WinTV series apparently

[LukeS]

Thanks for the software link, I will try it out.

So I should have made my first post more the to the point: If I will be doing post editing, saw with Neat Video, should I be using a raw capture card (no hardware compression)?

If the answer is yes to the question, any card suggestions? Or am I missing something and there is a way to capture AVI or lossless AVI from a Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-1850 with a hardware MPEG-2 encoder?

[DB83]

To answer your last question - No.

To give suggestions for other cards, some idea of your CPU, ram, OS etc will be quite useful

[jagabo]

You should be using a raw video capture card if you plan to perform a lot of filtering later on.

You might be able to get the video proc amp working with the Hauppauge HVR 1850, even if WinTV7 doesn't give you access to it. Start up GraphStudio. Add the Hauppauge Capture device or Encoder filter (I don't remember which). You don't need to build an entire graph. Back at the main window right click on the filter and select Properties. Look for the proc amp settings on one of the tabs. See if you can adjust them while WinTV7 is running. Here's an example from a Hauppauge PVR-250:

[LukeS]

Thanks for the response guys!!

@DB83: I am running a medium grade workstation. An overclocked i5 750 at 2.7Ghz, P55 chipset, 12 Gb of DDR3-1600, NVIDIA Quadro 2000 (192 CUDA cores), dual color calibrated IPS screens

@jagabo: I will give that software a try today, thanks for the info

One card that stuck out to me was the blackmagic intensity pro, it allows capture in uncompressed format

[DB83]

'RAW' need not mean 'uncompressed'. You need a lossless capture and Huffyuv or Lagarith would be fine.

Such captures need a lot of HDD space and the capture really should be on a drive other than the one your OS is on.

Actually, one HDD may not suffice for uncompressed as it is not likely to be fast enough. Then a raid system is needed. Lossless is the way to go.

[LukeS]

I plan on using a Western Digital Carrier Black 2TB drive as the video storage drive. From what I have read uncompressed SD 720x486 8-bit video consumes 22MB/sec. The Western Digital drive can easily handle that with a nice safety margin. Here is a benchmark from a older model drive, newer drivers are even faster: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/2tb-hdd-7200,2430-6.html

I would prefer to capture in lossless format for space, do post processing, then save in a final compressed format for storage and sharing with family. Lagarith seems like a good choice but it seems I am limited to VirtualDUB for this use or compression post capture. If it is faster to run say neat video on uncompressed video over lossless compressed video then it may be a good idea to just keep the video uncompressed until it is ready to final compression and saving.

I think I will probably pick up a blackmagic intensity pro capture card just to make things a little simpler. It allows for audio and video channel gain adjustments. I played around with ChrisTV today and did not like it. The settings seemed very unorganized and duplicate setting seemed to be in different menus.

[usually_quiet]

Thanks for the response guys!!

@DB83: I am running a medium grade workstation. An overclocked i5 750 at 2.7Ghz, P55 chipset, 12 Gb of DDR3-1600, NVIDIA Quadro 2000 (192 CUDA cores), dual color calibrated IPS screens

@jagabo: I will give that software a try today, thanks for the info

One card that stuck out to me was the blackmagic intensity pro, it allows capture in uncompressed format

Blackmagic makes a good product, but the Intensity Pro is overkill for capturing VHS tapes. Also, it is reportedly intolerant of drop-outs and other flaws in that are often present in the signal from a VHS source.

If you can't find a way to get your present capture devices working the way you want, TV cards that can provide uncompressed capture (to be compressed losslessly by Virtualdub) usually rely on software for encoding analog input. Look for that in the product description.

You do not say what OS you are using, but it can make a difference as far as capture device recommendations. The ATI/Diamond TV Wonder HD 600 USB would be a good choice if you use Windows XP 32-bit or Vista 32-bit. It is discontinued by the manufacturer but turn up on ebay fairly often and is not terribly expensive. According to a couple of VideoHelp members, it works well for VHS capture using Virtualdub. Driver installation may more difficult when using this device in a Windows 7 system, but some people do get it to work for them.

Proc-amp controls for capture devices are sometimes not functional in the drivers provided for Windows 7. I don't know why this is true, but I have seen it myself with a TV Wonder 650 PCI-e card. The controls are there, but are gray and unresponsive.

[LukeS]

@usually_quiet, Thanks for the info. I will be using a external Time Base Corrector (have not decided which model yet) and S-video which I think solves the dropout issues on the Blackmagic. From what I have read just using S-Video over composite helps fixes a lot of the dropout issues: http://www.thedigilabs.com/news/Blackmagic-Intensity-Pro-VHS-flicker-problem-solved-1300.aspx

I am running Windows 7 64-Bit, I have to use 64-bit OS to support over 4GB of RAM. I have read good things about the older ATI all in wonder card but most things say you need to run it on a older OS and hardware which is a real downside for me. I wish there was more information out there on the blackmagic, like how much you can fine tune the input audio and video levels. Hmm.. I will have to do more research on the ATI cards before moving buying another card.

[usually_quiet]

@usually_quiet, Thanks for the info. I will be using a external Time Base Corrector (have not decided which model yet) and S-video which I think solves the dropout issues on the Blackmagic. From what I have read just using S-Video over composite helps fixes a lot of the dropout issues: http://www.thedigilabs.com/news/Blackmagic-Intensity-Pro-VHS-flicker-problem-solved-1300.aspx

I am running Windows 7 64-Bit, I have to use 64-bit OS to support over 4GB of RAM. I have read good things about the older ATI all in wonder card but most things say you need to run it on a older OS and hardware which is a real turnoff for me. I wish there was more information out there on the blackmagic, like how much you can fine tune the input audio and video levels. Hmm.. I will have to do more research on the ATI cards before moving buying another card.

I missed the bit about the amount of RAM installed. I remember one of our members saying the ATI/Diamond TV Wonder HD 600 USB worked on a Windows 7 64 bit system too, but I also remember another guy who could not get it working at all a Windows 7 64 bit system. Oh well.

The ATI All-In-Wonder AGP video cards were apparently the greatest thing since sliced bread for video capture. People who have one are fanatical about them. ...but they are definitely not a workable solution for someone with a modern system.

You may have better luck with the better equipment you intend to use for your project, but there is a comment in the article you linked to indicating the solution proposed in the link did not work for that poster. The AverMedia HD DVR PCI-e card has similar issues, but is decent at half the cost of the Blackmagic Intensity Pro. It apparently works well with Virtualdub plus HuffYUV and a capture program known as AmaRecTV http://amamaman.web.infoseek.co.jp/english/amarectv_e.htm pus a differenent lossless codec, Ut Video Codec.

[NJRoadfan]

I missed the bit about the amount of RAM installed. I remember one of our members saying the ATI/Diamond TV Wonder HD 600 USB worked on a Windows 7 64 bit system too, but I also remember another guy who could not get it working at all a Windows 7 64 bit system. Oh well.

I have a TV Wonder HD 600 USB here and it works fine with Windows 7 x64 using v2.0 of the installation CD (posted over on digitalfaq). Procamp controls work as well. Diamond does have a newer driver buried on their site, but its unsigned so one has to disable the driver certification check on bootup. The HD 600 USB uses the Empia EM28xx series analog video capture chip, the same chip found in various "EZCap" branded cables.

LukeS, keep in mind that the JVC SR-S365U does NOT have any built in noise reduction or TBC features. Its just a standard SVHS VCR with time code and external editor control.

[LukeS]

@usually_quiet The AverMedia HD DVR PCI-e is good suggestions, I did not notice that card while looking around. It seems to have some audio sync issues in Vdub: https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/333860-So-how-do-I-use-VirtualDub-to-capture-from-t...-AverTV-HD-DVR
I am still confused if you can actually capture in uncompressed or a lossless format I would prefer to use something other then HuffYUV because the newer formats are faster and use less space.

The Blackmagic Intensity Pro also seems to have it own set of issues when using with Vdub: http://forums.creativecow.net/thread/124/873380 The Blackmagic software seems to be much better then the Avermedia software but I am still not sure if it will have enough flexibility.

I would prefer to get a capture card with decent bundled software that lets me capture uncompressed video and adjust video and audio gain levels. Unfortunately that seems it does not really exist without buying a true pro-grade capture card at a pro-grade price so I may have to use Vdub.

@NJRoadfan Can you capture uncompressed with a USB 2.0 capture devise? That seems to be right at the limit of USB 2.0 bandwidth. Yeah, I realized later that the JVC SR-S365U does not have a TBC, the ebay auction I bought it off of said it did, I should have done more research before I bought it. I been planing either way to get an external TBC. I really hope with the external TBC it will not make too much of a difference that the the VCR does not have one.

[usually_quiet]

@usually_quiet The AverMedia HD DVR PCI-e is good suggestions, I did not notice that card while looking around. It seems to have some audio sync issues in Vdub: https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/333860-So-how-do-I-use-VirtualDub-to-capture-from-t...-AverTV-HD-DVR
I am still confused if you can actually capture in uncompressed or a lossless format I would prefer to use something other then HuffYUV because the newer formats are faster and use less space.

The Blackmagic Intensity Pro also seems to have it own set of issues when using with Vdub: http://forums.creativecow.net/thread/124/873380 The Blackmagic software seems to be much better then the Avermedia software but I am still not sure if it will have enough flexibility.

I would prefer to get a capture card with decent bundled software that lets me capture uncompressed video and adjust video and audio gain levels. Unfortunately that seems it does not really exist without buying a true pro-grade capture card at a pro-grade price so I may have to use Vdub.

@NJRoadfan Can you capture uncompressed with a USB 2.0 capture devise? That seems to be right at the limit of USB 2.0 bandwidth. Yeah, I realized later that the JVC SR-S365U does not have a TBC, the ebay auction I bought it off of said it did, I should have done more research before I bought it. I been planing either way to get an external TBC. I really hope with the external TBC it will not make too much of a difference that the the VCR does not have one.

Not everyone has sync issue with the AverMedia HD DVR PCI-e. If I remember, correctly the problem was eventually solved in the course of that thread. If you are looking for absolute perfection in a video capture device, and capture software, you will likely be disappointed. No matter what you get or how much you spend on it, there could be sync problems.

Capturing uncompressed SD video is generally not a problem with a good quality USB 2.0 capture device and an appropriate USB cable. You do not need to be concerned about using one if it is good quality. The TV Wonder HD 600 USB has a sharpness control, which the AverMedia HD DVR PCI-e does not have.

Line TBCs and full-frame TBCs fix different problems. The consensus is that if you capture enough tapes, you are likely to find a need for both.

[LukeS]

A lot of the hobbyist on the web seem to really favor the ATI all in wonder cards. I read through these threads:
http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/video-capture/392-ati-wonder-hacks.html
http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/video-capture/3200-best-ati-wonder.html

Since I have never tried them I really wonder if they are the best option. I have a AGP motherboard laying around from 2005 with a single core AMD processor (do not remember what speed) and 4GB of ram. I could pick up a ATI AIW AGP card off ebay, slap them in a case and use for a windows XP capture box. Then pull the harddrive and run in on my workstation for editing.

Is that really the best capture setup?? Seems hard to believe at first. I guess that was high time for analog and it makes sense that cards from then will be good at it.

Are the All-In-Wonder cards better then the newer ATI TV Wonder cards?

[lordsmurf]

Is that really the best capture setup?? Seems hard to believe at first. I guess that was high time for analog and it makes sense that cards from then will be good at it.

Precisely.
Tech has gotten worse for analog workflows, not better, in recent years.

[sanlyn]

If it is faster to run say neat video on uncompressed video over lossless compressed video then it may be a good idea to just keep the video uncompressed until it is ready to final compression and saving.

NeatVideo doesn't care if it's compressed or uncompressed, as long as it's RGB and you have decompression codecs installed. Any speed difference is negligible. Internally, NeatVideo will separate fields and work in its own YCbCr anyway. If you use huffyuv, don't use the problematic ffdshow version of huff - it's incompatible with the original dll. If your capture source isn't RGB, use AviSynth for proper RGB conversion; feed that to VirtualDub and load NeatVideo for output (you won't need to make a separate RGB file, most VDub filters work OK with AviSynth input). Almost all old analog sources have RGB color problems that require you to go to RGB anyway to fix. If you need to fix anything in YUV, work YUV first before going to RGB, don't go back and forth.

Don't use NeatVideo's default noise reduction profiles. Read the manual and learn to set your own parameters. The defaults are overkill and just plain awful. If you have Premiere, After Effects, Vegas, etc., NV has plugins for them as well.

I am still confused if you can actually capture in uncompressed or a lossless format I would prefer to use something other then HuffYUV because the newer formats are faster and use less space.

Huffyuv is fast enough to keep pace with lossless real-time capture. The preferred version is the CCESP Patch v.0.2.2 or v.0.2.5. The later "v.2.2" had problems.

I would prefer to get a capture card with decent bundled software that lets me capture uncompressed video and adjust video and audio gain levels.

The best way to do this is with a good proc amp like SignVideo's PA-1. I realize they ain't cheap(!). Some people have used VDub filters on capture to adjust those levels. Works OK, but during capture those are the only filters you should use, to prevent slowdown. The PA-1 with builtin luma meters is the best way, it's difficult to set levels by eye. During capture you can load VDub's histogram to check levels, but turn it off once capture begins. Don't use sharpeners during capture; you'll sharpen analog noise, and you'll be sorry you did.

I realized later that the JVC SR-S365U does not have a TBC, the ebay auction I bought it off of said it did, I should have done more research before I bought it. I been planing either way to get an external TBC. I really hope with the external TBC it will not make too much of a difference that the the VCR does not have one.

For most analog tape sources, you likely need a field-level TBC. It should be in-circuit before any full-frame TBC. If you feed a signal thru a full-frame tbc first, its output has corrected timing; if the field-level tbc comes later, it sees nothing wrong and won't do anything. I use older Toshiba or Panasonic DVD recorders as pass-thru devices for their buiiltin field-level tbc's. Works better than tbc's in consumer VCRs. If your VCR uses composite-only output, those DVD units have excellent s-video converters on output.

Since I have never tried them I really wonder if they are the best option. I have a AGP motherboard laying around from 2005 with a single core AMD processor (do not remember what speed) and 4GB of ram. I could pick up a ATI AIW AGP card off ebay, slap them in a case and use for a windows XP capture box. Then pull the harddrive and run in on my workstation for editing.

7500 and 9600 AIW's on eBay are getting difficult to find. Those I've seen are used. Nothing wrong with that, but read all the info on the eBay listing; some of those used AIW's are PAL-only. Many have no input cables, but they can be found separately. IMO your old AGP mobo and AMD should be no problem; most of the old AIW's would also work with Win98, with the right drivers -- speaking of which, many used AIW's have no setup CD, and the proper drivers are hard to find. Years ago I made a CD with many old drivers. Software on the AMD website tends to go back only so far and likely won't work with old mobo's. You need only the AIW basic driver and capture drivers, you won't need the control panel or MMC. The best of the old drivers range from Catalyst 3.7 to Catalyst 4.5, which are circa 2003-2004.

Is that really the best capture setup?? Seems hard to believe at first. I guess that was high time for analog and it makes sense that cards from then will be good at it.

Are the All-In-Wonder cards better then the newer ATI TV Wonder cards?

For analog source, yes.

[Brad]

Are the All-In-Wonder cards better then the newer ATI TV Wonder cards?

https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/329016-2001-2010-my-capture-cards-comparison-screenshots

[LukeS]

For most analog tape sources, you likely need a field-level TBC. It should be in-circuit before any full-frame TBC. If you feed a signal thru a full-frame tbc first, its output has corrected timing; if the field-level tbc comes later, it sees nothing wrong and won't do anything. I use older Toshiba or Panasonic DVD recorders as pass-thru devices for their buiiltin field-level tbc's. Works better than tbc's in consumer VCRs. If your VCR uses composite-only output, those DVD units have excellent s-video converters on output.

So this brings me to anther thing that is confusing me. Would it be better to feed the s-video out of my JVC SR-S365U VCR through a DVD recorder that removes tearing like the Panasonic DMR-ES10. Then through an external TBC like the DataVideo TBC-100.

OR

Get a VCR with a good internal TBC like the JVC HR-S9xxxU and run that through an external TBC like the DataVideo TBC-100.

Are the All-In-Wonder cards better then the newer ATI TV Wonder cards?

https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/329016-2001-2010-my-capture-cards-comparison-screenshots

Wow, that thread is awesome! Thanks for the link. It seems the ATI WIN 9800 Pro AGP is extreamly similar capture to the ATI TV Wonder 600 USB when you adjust the sharpness down to 0.
http://img841.imageshack.us/img841/2466/sw02dvp642ati9800svideo.png - ATI WIN 9800 Pro AGP default settings
http://img404.imageshack.us/img404/3272/sw02dvp642ati600svideo2.png - ATI TV Wonder 600 USB sharpness tweaked to zero

The ATI TV Wonder 600 USB actually seems better at captureing very fine detail (upper right box with fine vertical lines). I wonder if you raised the sharpness on the ATI AIW 9800 Pro if it will be able to do the same.

-------

I just picked up a ATI All-In-Wonder 2006 Edition and input cable on ebay since it was a reasonable price. I am still open to other options, like the ATI TV Wonder 600 USB, I just wanted to get one while I could.

[Brad]

Responding to thread instead of via PM: I don't believe I tried that since the sharpness controls generally just add edge enhancement, not actual detail.

Someone can correct me if I'm wrong but I think only the 3.58Mhz patch matters for VHS capture since VHS's max resolution is already less than that.

Be sure to do the test captures on your card when it arrives and add them to the thread.

[LukeS]

Responding to thread instead of via PM: I don't believe I tried that since the sharpness controls generally just add edge enhancement, not actual detail.

Someone can correct me if I'm wrong but I think only the 3.58Mhz patch matters for VHS capture since VHS's max resolution is already less than that.

Be sure to do the test captures on your card when it arrives and add them to the thread.

I did not release until after the PM that you were the same user who created that thread . I will post some capture pictures when I get the "beater" capture PCsetup. I may pick up a ATI TV wonder 600 USB off ebay also and see if it works on my current PC, that would save some headache.

[sanlyn]

[QUOTE=LukeS;2115076]

So this brings me to anther thing that is confusing me. Would it be better to feed the s-video out of my JVC SR-S365U VCR through a DVD recorder that removes tearing like the Panasonic DMR-ES10. Then through an external TBC like the DataVideo TBC-100.

Yes. You might not always need the TBC-100 at the same time. Depends on the tape. Test first. Copy protection might require it.

OR

Get a VCR with a good internal TBC like the JVC HR-S9xxxU and run that through an external TBC like the DataVideo TBC-100.

Not better. And has trouble playing less-than-pristine tapes.

[jagabo]

The ATI TV Wonder 600 USB actually seems better at captureing very fine detail (upper right box with fine vertical lines).

I wouldn't take it to mean that. Consider the source is a DVD player -- with 720 pixels across the width of the screen. And the capture device is capturing 720 pixels. If the capture device's pixels happen to line up with the DVD players pixels you will see the alternating black and white vertical lines in that patch. But if the capture device's pixels happen to be 90 degrees out of phase, each of its pixels contains half a black pixel and half a white pixel from the source. So it will be gray instead of black or white, even though it's capturing with the same resolution. So the better performance of the 600 with that DVD player may be more of a coincidence than a reflection of the abilities of the two devices. Capturing from another source the tables could be turned.

In any case, it doesn't matter for VHS capture. The bandwidth of VHS gives it a resolution of only about 350 pixels across the screen -- equivalent to the 3.58 MHz patch, as Vaporeon800 pointed out. As you can see they both look the same there.