VHS Capture For DVD Burning & Digital Files

[Anthony AV]

Hi,

Firstly guys apologies... having browsed through this forum I fully appreciate questions like this have been asked and answered a million times. My problem is that reading through I'm getting so many conflicting options/hardware and software variations etc I'm very overwhelmed with the volume of information and a bit confused by the number of differing opinions. I figured it was best to just ask you guys specific to the set up I have got and maybe you can help me achieve the best outcome!?

Basically I digitize VHS tapes, UK PAL. Sometimes I will be asked to burn to DVD, other times I need to provide them as digital files... so my question is taking both outcomes into consideration. I had a basic set up until recently. I initially was using:

VCR JVC HR-S9600 (Scart Out) > (Scart In) HD Video Converter (HDMI Out) > (HDMI In) Elgato HD 60 X (USB Out) > (USB In To Laptop) Either OBS or Elgato 4K Capture Utility.

I was getting OK results, passable but I wasn't achieving the quality that I really wanted to get. Ideally I wanted to get lossless capture, to really deliver the highest quality results.

I have recently ungraded my rig... I was upgrading my computer so ended up buying a high powered system, I had bottleneck problems/dropped frames etc with my old laptop as you can imagine.

What I am using now set up wise is:

PC: Windows 11Home, Intel i7-14700K, 64.0 GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 Ti Graphics Card, 3 TB SSD.

My work flow is this:

JVC HR-S9600 VCR (S Video Out/Audio Phono Out With TBC) > (S Video/Audio Phono In To AV Breakout Cable) STARTECH USB3HDCAP USB 3.0 HDMI/DVI/VGA/Component HD Video Recorder, 1080p 60fps > PC via USB Using VirtualDub

I done a test recording and noticed issues that I thought would have been resolved with the new set up. I haven't seen a huge increase in video quality from my old set up. The best way I can describe it as a bit of an amateur is that it doesn't appear to be the quality that I remember VHS looked when played on a TV years ago. The writing for example on the movie intro credits has white shadow/ghosting and the image quality seems noisy/compressed or something (forgive me for not having the correct terms). I know it's very very likely that I might not be using the best capture program, or that my VirtualDub is not optimised or configured properly for what I want to achieve results wise. My hardware I trust is good enough to allow me to get good results, so I'm hoping someone on here will be able to help me configure/set up Virtual Dub to get great results... or maybe advise me on a different piece of software that will do it. Virtual Dub seems highly recommended though?

I'm in the UK... so its PAL I'll be working with.

Sorry for the long post... but I didn't want to ask a question without providing as much information as possible so you have an idea of what I'm working with. Basically.... how can I achieve high quality results with the set up I have?

Thank you guys! Hope you can help!

[cholla]

I will leave assessment of your hardware & software to the expert members here.

My comment is what your remember about watching VHS many years ago.
It was made for & looked better on the CRT TVs of the time.
I assume you are not viewing the VHS tape on a CRT TV.

One thing is watch the VHS tape played to the TV you have with the VCR.
How is the quality?
You should be getting close to that when done correctly.
( I will probably get corrected on that comment).

[Darryl In Canada]

If I understand correctly, your old capture device and new capture device were RCA-to-HDMI digitizers. I don't know for sure, but they might have even had the same chips inside that do the digitizing. And they both upscaled the video and deinterlaced it. I don't have inside knowledge or experience about either, but I suspect they are about the same quality.

If you wanted to try something truly different, then I would suggest one of the (good) SD capture devices, like the Hauppage 610 USB-Live or the IO-Data GV-USB2, or the (older) ATI TV Wonder 600. The chip inside these devices are different (from each other and front the HDMI digitizers) so you may see more of a difference. As importantly, you can capture the deinterlaced video (which is good) in the source SD resolution (which is good). And then you can use software to deinterlace and upscale.

I'm almost certain you will notice a differnce is using this SD capture device method. But there are more steps in post, so you'll need to consider your time.

In all cases, however, the VHS footage will never look the same as people remember it on a CRT television. The best we can do is digitize it with equipment that doesn't mess with the colours too much, and doesn't introduct artifacts. The ghosting you described is a type of artifact. Somethings the problem is VCR and you might need to fiddle with the tape head alignment or some such things. Google "ghosting VHS" and you may find a solution to that specific issue.

Regarding outputing to DVD-Video, that format works well with interlaced video content. All the more reason to capture interlaced video. You could simply take the raw interlaced video, export to MPEG-2 interlaced, and use a DVD authoring software to prepare it and burn it onto a DVD disc.

[Alwyn]

What a rig! I'm jealous.

The Startech is a great digitiser (as good as the GV-USB2) with a great VCR. I have one and use it often. Just capture at 576i and 25 frames per second and do all the deinterlacing/frame doubling and upsizing (if you want) after.

Well-captured and processed VHS tapes will look as good as the VCR played directly to a TV.

new capture device were RCA-to-HDMI digitizers.

No, it's USB. It can capture HDMI.

[Anthony AV]

Guys, thanks for taking the time to get back to me! I appreciate the help!

What a rig! I'm jealous.

The Startech is a great digitiser (as good as the GV-USB2) with a great VCR. I have one and use it often. Just capture at 576i and 29.97 frames per second and do all the deinterlacing/frame doubling and upsizing (if you want) after.

Well-captured and processed VHS tapes will look as good as the VCR played directly to a TV.

new capture device were RCA-to-HDMI digitizers.

No, it's USB. It can capture HDMI.

Alwyn, I'm in the UK so work with PAL... can you just clarify suggested setting as I assume in your reply you were talking about NTSC?

Thanks again guys!

[Alwyn]

Anthony, sorry about that, yes, brain fart on my part, 576i and 25fps for you. I've amended my post above.