Looking for a good (freeware) video capture software

[technicality1]

I tried the earlier version from the link provided, tried Debut and all seemed good on both my laptops. However, I tried the software again after several days on my older laptop, went to do a test capture in MPEG2 and a message appeared saying "This is a trial demo version of Debut Capture software professional for evaluation use only: please buy the program now to use this feature". Why is it saying this?. also tried other formats and the message still appears. It appears that by re-installing it solves the problem; bit of a pain though.

I wonder if anyone can help me with another issue. I decided to use Debut to connect the laptop up to a TV to record from the TV using the scart-to-composite cable connected to the capture device. Works good with inputting video, however, no audio is received. Is there another connection I need to use?.

[pippas]

Th MPG2 capture option is only available on the copy I have here for use with the paid version - the basic free version seems limited pretty much to AVI capture.

I'm not sure that capturing as MPEG2 in real time is a good idea anyway? -- I tried that using the Arcsoft software that came with my EZcap device - very disappointed with the quality of the results.

I quickly moved onto using Grass Valley HQX, and then converting the resultant AVI to whatever final format I wanted after editing...much better results..

[technicality1]

The free version of Debut I have won't even allow me to capture in avi in the device capture option. Anyone know why this is?. Debut is one big pain to be honest despite it being able to capture video without the audio becoming out of sync. Virtualdub on the otherhand, from the times I've used it, seems to be prone to sync issues. The Arcsoft program that came with the capture device worked perfectly as regarding frame rate/syncing, the downside is that it detects false macrovision on badly worn tapes, and a large portion of the VHS tapes I have have some degree of glitch, jittering or jumping issues. That's selling a product that isn't doing as it should do IMO. You can't win.

[TimA-C]

Which version of Debut are you running? I tried the version that Pippas recommended earlier in this thread, and it worked fine with my Hauppauge USB Live2. Then I stupidly tried the latest version of Debut which screwed everything up, including AmarecTV. I uninstalled Debut and rolled Windows back to an earlier Restore Point - one made before I installed Debut the first time - which fixed the problems I was having. Reinstalling the earlier version of Debut then worked. You might get away without rolling Windows back to an earlier Restore Point or you might need to try one of the free, more thorough Uninstaller utils - I've had success with Revo in the past.

Good Luck.

p.s. Did you try AmarecTV v3.00 or v3.10 'cos I'm running 3.10 (upgraded from 3.00) and I've never had to purchase Amarec's own codec.

[pippas]

Debut is one big pain to be honest despite it being able to capture video without the audio becoming out of sync.

As TimA-C suggests, try AmarecTV instead. As he pointed out in post #53 you don't have to use their codec...

[DB83]

Debut is one big pain to be honest despite it being able to capture video without the audio becoming out of sync.

As TimA-C suggests, try AmarecTV instead. As he pointed out in post #53 you don't have to use their codec...

And the OP has already been told that way back in reply #25.

[pippas]

Debut is one big pain to be honest despite it being able to capture video without the audio becoming out of sync.

As TimA-C suggests, try AmarecTV instead. As he pointed out in post #53 you don't have to use their codec...

And the OP has already been told that way back in reply #25.

The first suggestion in this thread to try Amarec goes back as far as post #10... I guess we can keep on trying to get the message through?..

[DB83]

^^ Indeed. But then reply #24 from the OP stated he had tried it >> and came up with the codec issue. Hence the response.

But we can only lead to water and not force the drink

[TimA-C]

Maybe technicality1 subscribes to the first law of Italian driving, "What's-a behind me is not important."? (Award yourself 10 points if you know which film that quote came from.)

p.s. The version of AmarecTV here on VideoHelp is 2.31. If you go to the .com page for AmarecTV (it's in Japanese) and go to the 5th section down in the main window and click on the download link link (look at the address in your browser's status bar as you put the cursor over a link) you'll find a link to download version 3.10 in a .zip file - it runs in English on my English versions of Windows 10. It looks like version 4 or above might need the proprietary codec.

[DB83]

^^ I cheated and used the power of Google.

From 'The Gumball Rally'. Don't recall actually seeing that film but then cars are not my thing. But I did enjoy (more than once) 'The Great Race'

[TimA-C]

Ah, Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon, the beautiful and talented Natalie Wood AND Peter Falk all in the one film, what's not to like and enjoy more than just once? (With all the mechanical failures this year, I keep looking for a Peter Falk/Eric Sykes type character skulking around Lewis Hamilton's side of the Mercedes F1 garage! )

[usually_quiet]

I liked both of the above, plus "It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World".

I like AmaRecTV for capture too.

[pippas]

(With all the mechanical failures this year, I keep looking for a Peter Falk/Eric Sykes type character skulking around Lewis Hamilton's side of the Mercedes F1 garage! )

Or maybe Muttley?...

[TimA-C]

Was that Spencer Tracey's last film? That's a film a haven't seen in a long time.

[DB83]

^^ More cheating According to IMDB Tracey's last film was 'Guess who's Coming to Dinner'

As for the Wacky Races comment, was not that series - brilliant - based on The Great Race ?

BTW if the OP comes back, he will do his brain in

[TimA-C]

I always thought that the Wacky Races were more influenced by Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines & Monte Carlo or Bust (who's alternative title was "Those Daring Young Men in their Jaunty Jalopies) The Stop the Pigeon spin-off was definitely influenced by Those Magnificent men. DD & Muttley were always getting ahead of the other racers so that they could set up elaborate traps etc. that never worked properly, if only they'd just kept going and forgot about the dirty tricks then they probably would have won every wacky race . . . but it wouldn't have been nearly as much as much fun!

[Jagradang]

This thread has been a goldmine! I have just purchased the ClimaxDigital capture device and was struglling with the bundled software.

I managed to get AmaRecTV setup and caputre working however I found 2 issues.
1. If i set th eDevice config to "PAL", exit the application and then open it again - The device configuration reverts back to NTSC_M, which is annoying but i can live with setting it up each time
2. Second issue and more annoying the bottom of the capture flickers with green lines and doesn't capture properly. The top (3/4 work well)

I'm capture to 720x576 PAL_I.

I've tried all sorts of configs but none seem to work. Has anyone else faced this issue?

[JVRaines]

Yeah, that's annoying. I think remembering the setting is the responsibility of the device driver, not the application. Are you using the latest driver? Maybe they have fixed it.

Green lines or fields are often indicative of an OS display driver problem. Try different options in Advanced/Video Renderer Setting.

[Polsom]

I'm going to add on my 2 cents here, it appears the OP is able to have their device work with VirtualDub which IMO is a perfectly fine / capable solution for any sort of capture. The only trade off I have found when using it is the Audio Sync problem which is very prevalent however I must exaggerate that this isn't a problem with the software itself.

With all of the variances / differences in combinations of different hardware it's next to impossible to recommend settings that will offer a "perfect" solution for your needs. From what I've read the best option with Virtual Dub is to capture uncompressed video with HuffYUV and audio with PCM which is uncompressed, this is best as it negates any encoding bottlenecks that are presented by your PC hardware; obviously this means you will need a large HDD to store data but at roughly 100GB for 1 SP VHS tape this can be managed quite easily.

I've personally never dealt with any of the other recommended software as I've never needed to, once you can get VirtualDub configured to work with your given hardware you shouldn't run into any issues with capture. It took me personally nearly 10 full captures of 1 SP tape to iron out any defects / issues in the capture and this was combined with adding new hardware into the capture chain.

If you are just going to be using a cheap USB2.0 capture device connected right into a VCR or equivalent (Beta etc.) deck you are probably going to have issues with sync and quality regardless of what software you use. Unless the software was bundled with the device and designed specifically to handle VHS sources (which is unlikely) then I can't see any way to easily overcome your issues.

VirtualDub has options to configure just about anything you can think of and the majority of the "problem solving" options can be configured in the timing tab. I have discussed the process on other forums with plenty of other people and usually it all comes back to the hardware that you are using, don't blame the software for issues with the capture because most of the time it's not the problem.

So the TLDR here would be: Spend more time configuring VirtualDub properly, should this not work invest in better quality hardware to play your tapes. Both of which are covered extensively on this forum.

[TimA-C]

Quote: "From what I've read the best option with Virtual Dub is to capture uncompressed video with HuffYUV and audio with Lagarith..." Huh? Both HuffYUV and Lagarith are video codecs not audio codecs. You'd be better off capturing with video compression set to HuffYUV or Lagarith or UT Video and leave the audio as uncompressed to convert later. The admittedly limited equipment options I've used would tend to suggest that if your device will capture in Virtualdub then it'll probably work in AmarecTV, and that you'll want to use AmarecTV v3.10 or earlier as the later versions require the purchase of a proprietary codec.

As JVRaines suggests, make sure that you're running the latest driver(s) for your capture device. I'd also suggest that you make sure that you're running the latest versions of whichever codec(s) you choose to use. (There was a new version of UT Video released recently). Try a very short test capture with both video & audio uncompressed to see if all works OK, if it does then start experimenting with some of the recommended lossless or lossy codecs to find the one that suits your needs.

[Polsom]

You'd be better off capturing with video compression set to HuffYUV or Lagarith or UT Video and leave the audio as uncompressed to convert later.

My apologies disregard the statement about Lagarith I've never used it and don't know much about it, what I meant to type was HuffYUV for video and PCM (Uncompressed) for audio. That combo is perfect for most post cleanup processes or even just de-interlace and H.264 encode, I've been using this method on a few captures now with great success.

[LMotlow]

My apologies disregard the statement about Lagarith I've never used it and don't know much about it, what I meant to type was HuffYUV for video and PCM (Uncompressed) for audio. That combo is perfect for most post cleanup processes or even just de-interlace and H.264 encode, I've been using this method on a few captures now with great success.

Lagarith is used the same way you use huffyuv. I'd stay with huffyuv for capture, it eats less CPU power than Lagarith for capture. But if your cleanup involves saving lossless working files to YV12, note that huffyuv won't compress YV12. Huff works with YUY2 and RGB only. Lagarith can compress YV12, YUY2, and RGB.

[Polsom]

But if your cleanup involves saving lossless working files to YV12, note that huffyuv won't compress YV12. Huff works with YUY2 and RGB only. Lagarith can compress YV12, YUY2, and RGB.

Well I have been capturing to YUY2 fine for a while but now that you mention about the conversion to YV12 I believe using StaxRip, FFVideoSource converts the final result to YV12, although I haven't run into issues doing it this way does this mean that I'm not properly compressing my final results?