Simple VHS Capture Questions

[mostly_useless]

I'm completely new to capturing and have some very basic questions. I'm sorry if these seem stupid to you, but I've read conflicting information in various places.

1) I want to capture VHS to a computer with the picture looking not better, but pretty much exactly the same as the original video. Is this possible?

2) Most people say you should capture VHS at 352 x 480, because you can't get higher quality. It sounds like a small pixel range to me, does this mean if I played back the resulting video file on a big TV it would look way worse than watching the original VHS on the same TV?

3) I have an "ION Video2PC" RCA to USB capturing device. Will this be able to capture VHS at optimal quality, or do I need a new PC with a graphics card? I only need to capture VHS, so no point investing in a card and system if I can get VHS quality with what I have.

Thankyou!

[Deter]

It is pretty simple with your standard VHS player on playback you are pretty much going to get crap quality.

Been doing this for a while, point blank VHS has too many errors, Betamax you should be able to get a good picture with a normal machine. However you still may need some extra hardware, aka TBC.

PC Capture don't like it, too many problems. What video format do u capture in? Dropped frames? Audio / Video Sync ?

Do you need to edit the videos? The end product is for what? To watch on TV and DVD?

Analog to Digital is more complex than simple answers.

VCR to USB to Computer to DVD or Whatever = Mistake

Half D1? If you know how to get the correct bit-rates on normal res, why capture to half d1.

[themaster1]

It's possible to get better results than what your player output raw if you:
- capture lossless, yuy2 color space
- clean noise, defects of all kind
- encode in x264, interlaced

It require time and knowledge ... that's all

[TimA-C]

Hi Mostly,

Unless you're prepared to spend literally hundreds of hours reading, capturing, tweaking, encoding, comparing, more reading, re-capturing, re-tweaking, re-encoding, comparing, etc. etc. etc. to get results that might look slightly better than your tapes do when watching them directly on your TV then I'd recommend that you either find someone who can do the transfer for you for a reasonable fee or, if you want a little more control or have too many tapes and not a big enough budget, buy/borrow a DVD recorder and record your VHS tapes onto that. You can rip the DVD(s) onto your PC for additional editing, tweaking, authoring to DVD/Bluray with nice menus etc. Again, there are plenty of posts with suggestions & recommendations for equipment, cabling, and settings.

If you are prepared to put in the time then I suggest you start playing with the equipment you already have and make a few test captures at different settings and see how you get on. Once you've got some results then you'll be better placed to start asking more specific questions.

Good luck & have fun!

[JVRaines]

1) I want to capture VHS to a computer with the picture looking not better, but pretty much exactly the same as the original video. Is this possible?

Yes, it is possible. You need to use a codec and settings that are equal to or better than the performance of your tape and tape deck.

2) Most people say you should capture VHS at 352 x 480, because you can't get higher quality. It sounds like a small pixel range to me, does this mean if I played back the resulting video file on a big TV it would look way worse than watching the original VHS on the same TV?

Yes, all else being equal 352 x 480 will capture all the detail VHS is capable of. However, if you plan to do any further processing (or it's even a remote possibility), it's safer to capture at 720 x 480.

3) I have an "ION Video2PC" RCA to USB capturing device. Will this be able to capture VHS at optimal quality, or do I need a new PC with a graphics card? I only need to capture VHS, so no point investing in a card and system if I can get VHS quality with what I have.

That really depends on the quality of the compression that ION performs. Its output appears to be MPEG-2, which can look anything from terrible to fantastic depending on the settings (which you probably can't access) and the implementation. Why not buy one from a seller with return privileges and try it out?

P.S. Use the s-video connection on the ION if you have s-video out of your VCR. There is a substantial improvement over the composite RCA connection.