Issues with Capturing D-VHS Through Thunderbolt 3 Port on Windows 10

[Ajace1000]

Hey, all! As the saying goes: long-time lurker, first-time poster.

I've seen several threads on several sites that sort of relate to this topic (HDV/DV capture on Windows 10, D-VHS capture on Windows XP/7, etc.), so I've been attempting to piece it all together to make a somewhat-coherent guide, but I'm having some issues. Perhaps someone can help me fill in the gaps? My sources are this guide (installing FireWire legacy driver), this video (necessary adapters/cables), and this post (copying "mstape" driver to C:\Windows\System32\drivers).

And before we go any further, yes, I know Windows 10 isn't ideal for this stuff. However, I don't have any Windows XP machines, and working ones are becoming increasingly harder to find. I've done research regarding using an XP virtual machine, but none of these VM programs have FireWire support, which is kind of frustrating. So, since Windows 10 is Microsoft's last OS (and support for Windows 7 ended a year ago, and soon there will be no working XP/7 machines left in the world, and...), I want to see if I can get this to work, for my sake and the sake of future videophiles.

Here's a list of the equipment I'm using:

• Lenovo ThinkPad T490s | Windows 10 Pro 64-bit | Version 20H2 | Build 19042.685 | Intel Core i7-8565U CPU @ 1.80GHz | 8.00 GB RAM
• JVC HM-DT100U
• Apple Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 2 adapter
• Apple Thunderbolt 2 to FireWire 800 adapter
• Pasow FireWire 800 9-pin to FireWire 400 6-pin cable
• StarTech FireWire 400 6-pin to FireWire 400 4-pin adapter

All of my adapters, cables, and ports seem to work, as both "1394 OHCI Compliant Host Controller (Legacy)" (adapter/cable chain) and "61883 Class Bus Device" (D-VHS player) appear in Device Manager; I'm just having trouble getting Windows/HDVSplit to recognize the D-VHS player as an AV/C or imaging device. However, I did see this post on the AVS Forum that claims a bad cable will cause the device to appear as "61883" and not "AV/C." Is this true?




I've also made sure that the "msdv" and "mstape" drivers are in C:\Windows\System32\drivers.



There are a couple of things I haven't tried yet, such as this post (uninstall/reinstall drivers) and this post (changing permission of DirectShow "Preferred" key). I'll take a look at these and will hopefully have an answer as to whether they worked or not by the end of the week.

Perhaps this is a futile effort, I don't know. All else fails, I buy a $20 FireWire card, figure out a way to install Linux, and run dvgrab or something. But I'd rather not do that, because I'm stubborn and I really want to see if this works.

[dellsam34]

You are doing it all wrong my friend and that is because you are ignoring a simple fact that D-VHS is neither DV nor HDV not even D1 standard, It's MPEG-2 SD or full HD 1920x1080. I wish I could have saved you all this headache.
I don't know about MAC but in Windows the only OS I could make to work with D-VHS is Win 7. Oh and you cannot transfer pre-recorded D-VHS tapes due to digital copy protection and you cannot capture analog tapes with Macrovision, only home recorded tapes.

CapDVHS is the software for transferring videos, VLC works as well.

[Ajace1000]

Ah, I didn't realize that. Damn. I'll have to keep an eye out for a dedicated XP or 7 machine, then. Thanks for your reply!

It's a shame CapDVHS doesn't have a modern 64-bit equivalent. Do you know if anyone's attempted something like that before?

[dellsam34]

CapDVHS works on my 64bit machine, just not Win 10, though you can give it a try, It just didn't work on my Win10 machine.

[Cornucopia]

If you have a license for Win7, consider the possibility of Dual Booting.
2 partitions on boot drive - 1 partition is dedicated to Win7, the other dedicated to Win10. You choose your boot partition between BIOS initialization and OS startup. Look up the tutorials on how to do this properly - note that in my experience, one always had to start by loading Win7 on a baremetal machine and then add the Win10 installation afterwards as if you did it in reverse Win7 would wipe the Win10 partition (as it has no understanding of such a "future" OS).

This would allow you to devote proper apps & compatible drivers specifically to Win7 for such times as you need to do legacy tasks (like this) and the drivers would be fully supported as it is running natively not in a VM, but at other times would run Win10 for most up-to-date apps and increased modern security.

I have a similar setup with my home workstation.
It's a bit of work to setup, but once done, you don't have to think about it much. Just boot, choose and go.

Scott