Capturing VHS

[LMotlow]

Did you tell VirtualDub your video source input (composite? s-video?).

[buyabook]

yup, that's what i needed to do. I was also able to install catalyst media center using lordsmurfs download for ati 600.

[buyabook]

vaporeon800 mentionned i should set the sharpness to 0 because the ati 600 stick defaults to 2. Are there any other settings I should set a default to before I start capturing all my tapes?

[buyabook]

What do I install if I want to capture to MPEG2 with a bitrate of 25,000 in VirtualDub? I captured 50 seconds using YUY2 YUV 4:2:2, and the file amounted to 1 gigabyte. That file size is too big.

[jagabo]

VirtualDub supports external encoders and muxers. There's a big thread here about how to use that ability.

https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/367446-Virtualdub-External-Encoder-feature?highligh...ternal+encoder

If can live with MPEG 2 in AVI you can use an old build of ffdshow. Most of its encoders were removed a few years ago.

[buyabook]

I find it really odd that there isn't a popular default format that people capture to in order to limit the file size of their original capture. For example, when I was capturing my Hi8 tapes, I found it very easy & convenient to capture to DV-AVI using a handycam (13 gigs/hour) and then converting the files to H.264 with an mv4 file extension. Those H.264 files are good quality and I can play them on my samsung widescreen TV via wifi. Shouldn't there be a popular standard capture format (like DV-AVI) that people use in order to capture their VHS instead of using YUY2 YUV 4:2:2 which spends 1 gig/min.?

[jagabo]

DV (cedocida), MJPEG, x264vfw (very short GOP or all I frame).

[Brad]

Shouldn't there be a popular standard capture format (like DV-AVI) that people use in order to capture their VHS instead of using YUY2 YUV 4:2:2 which spends 1 gig/min.?

Read the posts in this thread. No one ever told you to capture uncompressed YUY2. Your own posts mentioned lossless codecs and lossy alternatives.

And let's not forget your first post.

3 terabyte drive (disk space is not an issue, I can purchase more if needed)
...
The purpose of the project is to ARCHIVE(disk space not an issue)

[buyabook]

i was following directions in this guide: http://www.doom9.org/index.html?/capture/capturing_vdub.html which was graciously provided by a very helpful member.

As for that first post, I wrote that almost a 1.5 years ago prior to capturing anything at all. 1.5 years later, I have witnessed my handycam captures on my TV, which look fantastic and they cost me only 13 gigs/hour to archive DV-AVI captures. I am very satisfied with the output.

This is why I asked what are the popular formats that people use to capture their vhs while maintaining a low bit rate (~13 gigs/hours.) If this isn't common due to the fact that VHS is much more different beast than hi8 when it comes to capturing, than I will simply capture compressed YUY2 (as soon as I figure out how to do this).

If I need to spend another 200-300$ on another 4-6 terabyte hard drive, I can do it. It's just something that I want to avoid if I can get away with it, seeing as my hi8 captures are awesome and I used less disk space than I forecasted.

By the way, I am very thankful for the help I am getting on this form. I showed my vids to my family friends last weekend and they were absolutely floored when they witnessed footage from almost 25 years ago.

I really wish there were up to date guides that apply to the group of us who want to archive our footage and then convert it to a viewable format for our TVs.

[manono]

This is why I asked what are the popular formats that people use to capture their vhs while maintaining a low bit rate (~13 gigs/hours.)

Hehe, if 13GB per hour is the magic number, then DV-AVI will do the job. It's what I usually use for my VHS tapes. As long as you understand it's lossy. Or MPEG-2 at whatever bitrate is required to achieve 13GB/hour. Lossless and compressed (Lagarith or UTVideo Codec or HuffYUV, for example) might cost you 40GB/hour, while lossless uncompressed might be twice that.

I really wish there were up to date guides that apply to the group of us who want to archive our footage and then convert it to a viewable format for our TVs.

The process really hasn't changed a whole lot over the years, so any older but well-written guide should do. That Doom9 guide you referenced is over 11 years old.

[buyabook]

Do most people capture VHS lossless compressed ? And if they do which route do most people they take (Lagarith or UTVideo Codec or HuffYUV,) for archiving purposes? I really don't see myself sitting down and editing this footage in the near future (if ever.) I just want to archive, convert to a TV friendly format and watch the captures.

[buyabook]

it doesn't have to be 13 gigs, I just threw that out there as my point of reference because that is what I am familiar with. It can be more, I just don't want to capture at 30 gigs/hour if I don't need to. I looked at some of my VHS tapes and I noticed that I have duplicate VHS footage that I have already captured through my hi8 footage. I will not capture those VHS tapes and therefore my total vhs tapes to capture will decrease from 70 tapes. I am really concerned with what most people do for archiving as I am certain that most people are not buying tons of hard drives if they don't need to.

[manono]

I think most people use DVD recorders. I've seen too many crappy DVDs made from VHS tapes run through DVD recorders over the years to think anything different. Most people either don't know how to do it better, or don't care about quality, or both.

Do most people capture VHS lossless compressed ?

I don't know about 'most'. Many here do. I've had a lot of audio synch problems when capping lossless so I use my Canopus much of the time to cap as DV-AVI and never have any audio synch problems. If you want the best quality and plan on doing restoration work after the capture, then arguably you'll get the best results capping lossless. But, as I said, most of the time (not all the time) I cap as DV-AVI. Others will give different answers and different experiences. All my intermediate work is lossless using Lagarith.

I don't really archive, though, but capture, improve, make DVDs and MP4s, and call it done.

[LMotlow]

As manono says, many people do record VHS to MPEG (especially if they have no sense of visual discrimination whatever or truly don't care). Many cap VHS to DV-AVI, sometimes out of the mistaken notion that it makes VHS "look more digital". It just makes VHS look like it has more artifacts than it starts with since most people don't realize that analog doesn't have digital artifacts, but it's easy to blame VHS for lossy compression hickies. Most of it's impossible to clean up.

Usually, most people don't care. I hear lots of folks say they see no difference. I don't believe them.

[buyabook]

can i cap to DV-AVI if I am using an ATI 600 usb stick?

[jagabo]

can i cap to DV-AVI if I am using an ATI 600 usb stick?

Of course you can. Why do you think I put it in the list in post #67?

[buyabook]

true, i should have better phrased that question to ask how do I capture to it? After installing the huffyuv codec from the forum, I figure I have to install Cedocida and select it under my video--> compression settings.

I captured a 2 hour tape but I now have 28 2 gig files even though I defined a spill drive and clicked enable multisegment captures. What do I need to do in order to end up with one file for every 2 hour tape I capture. I followed those steps from the http://www.doom9.org/index.html?/capture/capturing_vdub.html guide.

Also, I started my capture at night and fell asleep. When I woke up, the application was still capturing. Is there any settings that automatically stop the capture once the tape has finished playing.

[jagabo]

I captured a 2 hour tape but I now have 28 2 gig files even though I defined a spill drive and clicked enable multisegment captures. What do I need to do in order to end up with one file for every 2 hour tape I capture.

Isn't that what you have?

Also, I started my capture at night and fell asleep. When I woke up, the application was still capturing. Is there any settings that automatically stop the capture once the tape has finished playing.

Capture -> Stop Conditions

[buyabook]

i want one 54 gig AVi file instead of 28 2 gig files

I captured a 2 hour tape but I now have 28 2 gig files even though I defined a spill drive and clicked enable multisegment captures. What do I need to do in order to end up with one file for every 2 hour tape I capture.

Isn't that what you have?

cool, i'll take a look at stop conditions.

Also, I started my capture at night and fell asleep. When I woke up, the application was still capturing. Is there any settings that automatically stop the capture once the tape has finished playing.
Capture -> Stop Conditions

[jagabo]

i want one 54 gig AVi file instead of 28 2 gig files

Sorry, I misread your post. I though you said you had a 28.2 gig file -- partly because two hours of DV would be about that size.

If I recall correctly, to get a single file: Capture -> Capture Drives... enter zero in the "Try not to create AVI files larger than ____" option.

[Brad]

I captured a 2 hour tape but I now have 28 2 gig files even though I defined a spill drive and clicked enable multisegment captures.

It's not "even though" you did that. It's because you did that. By default you will get one large file. So just disable multisegment captures.

The 2GB limitation referred to in that guide doesn't actually apply to the type of AVI file that VirtualDub creates by default. If the guide was ever correct about that, it's wrong nowadays.

[buyabook]

should i also remove the spill drive? Any other guides that are more up to date?

[Brad]

According to that guide, disabling multisegment automatically turns off the spill drive function.

[buyabook]

Any quick way to combine all 28 files into one AVI file? I don't want to capture the same VHS tape again.

[jagabo]

You can open the first file in VirtualDub as usual. Then select File -> Append AVI Segment and select the second file. VirtualDub will then automatically append all sequentially numbered segments. Be sure to Set Video -> Direct Stream Copy, then File -> Save as AVI. With 56 GB of files it won't be "quick" but it will be easy for you.

[buyabook]

One of my vhs captures dropped 10,000 frames for a two hour tape. I am thinking this is what members refer to as bad tapes. I am looking into purchasing a used TBC-1000 in order to solve this problem. Also, for one of my captures, I was having trouble opening the source file in handbrake. It remained at 20%, while I was loading the source file and there is a possibility that the file is still loading (currently away from my desk.) For my Hi-8 captures, it normally took 5-10 seconds to load each file into handbrake and I had no issue converting to MP4.

[buyabook]

Now that I have a captured file. I want to trim the end of the tape that I don't need. In order to do this, I set a start and end frame for the capture I wanted to keep and clicked save as avi but the total time estimated is showing 1 hours and 32 minutes. Is there a faster way to trim files if I just want to get rid of the static at the end of the capture?

[Brad]

You just want Save As AVI, not Save Segmented AVI. This won't affect the time it takes, but you said you want one complete file.

You want to use Direct Stream Copy for both video and audio for simple cuts like this, unless you're doing further processing at the same time.

It's essentially a file copy operation. You speed it up the same way you would speed up any file transfer:
- Write to a different hard drive than the one you're reading from.
- Use a faster storage technology, like SSD.

[buyabook]

Any quick way to append multiple M4V files into one file? I tried to do it in virtual dub but it said that M4V was an unsupported file type.

[buyabook]

should i be cleaning up the vhs tapes prior to capturing?