Hi all, I'm new here and on a mission to digitize my old VHS collection. I am trying out a Startech USB3HDCAP capture device courtesy of Amazon and while the captures look good, I'm not sure I'm getting the correct colours. I've been reading forum posts for hours and hours and while I'm getting there, I'm still quite confused.

I'm using VirtualDub 1.9.11 with HuffYUV to capture in YUY2 720x480. Here is a short sample you can download of my raw capture:
https://1drv.ms/v/s!AlkRBo6N_faku2IY2si6iFmO-eyf?e=3NTb9o

My issue is that while the capture driver is telling me the signal color range is "limited 16-235" the VirtualDub histogram indicates there are values above and below acceptable values.

Image
[Attachment 67964 - Click to enlarge]

If I run the capture through AVIsynth using the following script, I get output with highlighted areas that are outside the limited values.

Code:
video="D:\VHS Captures\StarTech Test 3.avi"
SetFilterMTMode("QTGMC",2) 
FFmpegSource2(video, atrack=1)
AssumeTFF()
QTGMC(preset="Faster", EdiThreads=5)
TemporalDegrain2(degrainTR=1) # in YUY2
Spline64Resize(960,720,6,2,-6,-6)
Prefetch(18)
TurnRight().Histogram().TurnLeft()
Overlay(last, BlankClip(last, color=$0000ff), mask=mt_binarize(15).Invert()) # highlight Y<16 with  blue
Overlay(last, BlankClip(last, color=$ff00ff), mask=mt_binarize(235)) # highlight Y>235 with magenta
Image
[Attachment 67965 - Click to enlarge]

The histogram shows actual data below 16 and above 235 so it doesn't look like those values have simply blown over and disappeared. Is there a way to convert using AviSynth to get the data back into the proper range? Or does it even matter.. is my capture fine? End goal is to play back on a computer or upload to YouTube, and my understanding I don't really want limited colour values for that.. or do I? Please help me understand the whole YUY2 vs RGB and limited color space thing, and am I capturing the correct signal or should I be doing something different?

Also still learning AviSynth so any suggestions or even better, a sample avs script applied to my file with your recommendations, would be awesome. I plan to use FFmpeg to encode the AviSynth script to H.264 to ensure I can be consistent in my workflow. I've already created a batch file to do this part but again, any FFmpeg options you can recommend would be much appreciated.

Thanks!