Weird image when capturing home videos

[phriq]

Good Morning,

I am new to the forum and new to home video for the most part. I am working on converting all our old home videos (VHS-C and more importantly, HI-8) to digital. I have a Hauppauge HD PVR that I am using. I use s-video direct from the camcorder to the PVR and then RCA audio from a 1/8" jack from the camcorder to component audio inputs in the PVR. All seems to work, but every so often, especially after a change in scenes, I get weird blurry lines going through the video. I have attached a image of what I see.

I am not sure what is causing this. It sometimes corrects after another change of scene, but often will continue through the end of the video. I have used another Diamond capture device as well and have seen the same problem. Using the ArcSoft TotalMedia Extreme software to capture from my PVR. Any suggestions would be appreciated! Thanks!

[JVRaines]

Loss of horizontal synchronization. Video ADCs vary in their ability to follow timing irregularities in the analog signal. Put a Panasonic DMR-ES10 or 15 between the camcorder and the PVR.

[phriq]

So I assume that piece of equipment is acting as something to clean the signal prior to it going to my PVR? Are there options that do not require such an expensive piece of equipment? The 10 used is around $100 and the 15 is much more.

[JVRaines]

I don't know where you're shopping, but there are a bunch of 15s for less than $100 on eBay right now.

[phriq]

Would you be able to explain how the piece of equipment will correct my issue?

[JVRaines]

These models have particularly robust timebase correction and frame synchronization in the analog domain. Panasonic correctly foresaw that their product would be a flop if everyone who tried to turn a VHS tape into a DVD had the same problem as you.

[phriq]

I am not trying to convert to DVD, simply looking for digital on the computer. Have a Plex server I share them on with my family.

[JVRaines]

The medium, DVD or digital file, is irrelevant to my explanation. The recorder will condition your analog signal either way.

[usually_quiet]

Never mind.

[jagabo]

If I remember correctly, that's the HD PVR's Macrovision detection kicking in (intentionally garbling the picture). Macrovision is the signal on commercial VHS tapes that prevents copying content from tape to tape. The HD PVR 's Macrovision detection circuit is oversensitive to time base errors common on VHS tapes. It often falsely kicks in on home made tapes. The HD PVR is also prone to locking up when you FF or RW VHS tapes. It has to be power cycled to get it working again. And if that's not enough, capturing with h.264 compression will lose detail and introduce compression artifacts. It's a bad choice for VHS capture.

An ES10/15 may help as it cleans up the horizontal and vertical time base before the video gets to the HD PVR. But those DVD recorders are designed to pass true Macrovision signals through. Even if you invest in another capture device time base correction is essential to getting a good picture from VHS.

[phriq]

Are there other pieces of hardware or software that would be able to bypass this issue. I have noticed that this does not only happen at same place if I attempt multiple times. But I am hesitant to record a tape multiples times and edit together because I don't want to lose even more quality by re-encoding video more than it has to. Would the devices mentioned before possibly solve this issue? or are there better capture devices or software that do not process the video as a protected medium?

[jagabo]

There are very few capture devices that ignore true Macrovision (some of the old ADVC DV capture devices, for example). But some are more prone to false Macrovision detection than others. The aforementioned DVD recorders may clean up the signal enough to prevent false detection. A video clarifier/stabilizer might work too. For example:

http://www.xdimax.com/grex/grex.html

[JVRaines]

[nevermind]

[Eric-jan]

The Panasonic ES35V will defeat MacroVision in progressive mode...