Best VCR for Video Capture?

[dmk1974]

Hello,

I want to transfer a lot of home VHS tapes (not S-VHS) to DVD using my ATI AIW 7500 video card and HP DVD200i DVD+RW drive. I just wanted to see if there is a recommended VCR that would give me the best video quality during capture. It may not matter much, but I thought I'd check.

Thanks!

[jester7]

A few features that might help are:
Time Base Corrector & Digital Noise Reduction (cleans up signal a little)
S-Video outs (if your card has S-vid ins, that is).

JVS's SVHS machines have these, and I find them useful on some tapes.

[Fozzee]

Hi
If u want to connect to the svideo socket on your tv card you can get a scart adapter for the video which the cable will plug into.
Cheers
Fozz

[binkyaut]

I personally have had the best luck if I can playback with the same VCR that I used to record the tapes. It seems that if I switch decks I can start running into tracking issues and audio issues, and that the picture sometimes will have color issues between different brands of VCRs. And always try to go with SVHS if you can. Even though your tapes aren't in SVHS - using the S-Video cable can help to clean up the picture a little bit.

[thxkid]

stay with JVC they are about the best and I have owned Sony, Toshiba, RCA, Sanyo, Awai, Hitachi and JVC has given me the least trouble, use a SVHS if its possible they sell for $149 new or they do have 4 head hifi stereo that is Quasi-VHS for about $70, but now SVHS out on it.
Oh yes, no VCR below $400 is gonna have TBC on it, JVC's do on some of their SVHS but your looking at $500-$1000. Plus most TBC on any video device below $500-700 is gonna just be a 3-4 line corrector only, to exspensive to put a full frame TBC on anything less than a $1000.
I ran into some capturing problems on mine because even my $400 SVHS JVC's don't have TBC on it so some video's would be jerky.
Since buying a DVD recorder(s) Panasonic DMR-E20 and E10 which have full frame TBC on them, video tape actually look better on DVD than the original tape, of course this is recording in the 1 hour (9800 bitrate) mode.

[jester7]

My JVC HRS7600U was $280 or so, and the HRS7900 looks to be about the same kind of critter. I don't know all the details of time base correction, and it doesn't help all tapes, but it helps out quite a few.

[ROBO1964]

You want a couple features:

I have had 4 VCR's.

1.) You want to have S-Video out if at all possible for best picture.

2.) You want to have one that has a fast rewind so you can find what you want to record. My old one used to take 5 minutes to rewind a full tape. My new one takes 30 seconds. Thats a big difference.

3.) You want a quiet running machine. Some machines are so noisy you have to turn up the sound to drown out the noise.


With that said, in general, the more money you spend the better the quality will be as they have filters and such. My SVHS monster VCR does the best in standard mode of any VCR I have and it cost the most. What I did was go to the store and look at what they have in your price range with the fetures you want. Write doen the brands and model number and then come home and do a web search for reviews. I did that and found several I was looking at with serious problems. Then you should be OK.

[sterno]

I personally have had the best luck if I can playback with the same VCR that I used to record the tapes. It seems that if I switch decks I can start running into tracking issues and audio issues, and that the picture sometimes will have color issues between different brands of VCRs.

Yeah, that's usually because the magnetic heads end up aligned a little differently on the tape from one VCR to the next. So if you use the same VCR the tape and heads are misaligned in the same way and the data comes off the same as it went on, but if you use a different VCR they may be aligned just a little bit differently. The bigger the difference, the more interference you'll see.

[vhelp]

evening dmk1974,

I have 3 VCRs:
* Sony ($70)
* JVC (S-VHS w/ S-VIDEO/RCA in/out) ($190)
* Sharp ($220)

My two cents worth is this:
* if you are using yours for Home-Made movies. . .
* if you are using yours for store-bought moives, then a 2 head
is all you'll need for capturing and encoding. But, a 4 head
would be better if you are going to record from cable or satalite
for later offsetting to captur/encoding projects.

There is a lot of hype about going the S-Video route, but I
personally think it's a lot of hogwash hype! I've tried it a number of
times using my JVC (above) but it turned out to be the rose of them
all.
It's between my Sony vs. Sharp, which is the better one (quality'wise)
after capturing and then finally, encoding from, yielding best final
quality for VCD/SVCD ect.
Currently, I'm using my Sharp as it seems to yield the best overall
quality according to my eyes, and plus, it's the one hooked up to my
capture card (WinTV GO) on my 2nd PC.
The only problem I have with (ALL) my VCR capturing is the amount of
line noise that I can see in my AVI play in vdub. I believe it is
caused by too many boxes/wires I have laying around and interconnected
and possibly my AC has noise or bad square-wave which causes line
noise too. So far, I haven't ben able to get rid of it.
So, factor that in also, when you buy VCR and testing it w/ some capturing.
It may not be your test VCR, but rather your line noise that will effect
your capturing quality, hence your final encode quality.

This weekend, I will try and devote some time to yet another S-VIDEO
trial and error for best quality vs. my Composite RCA captures.
I'm not talking about recorded tapes from cable or satalite and then
capturing from those tapes via VCR. I'm talking about store bought movies
and capturing from those. So, factor that in to my equation here. I
don't really care about recorded tapes, only store bought tapes, as that
is why I have bought several VCRs for.

Well, the above was all based on my experience.

-vhelp

[dmk1974]

Wow! Lots of great responses guys. I looked at some online review at the circuitcity.com site and users responses aren't all that great for their highest priced models.

My usage would be to dedicate this VCR for dumping years of home movies into the PC for transfer to DVD+R. I just want the quality to be at least as good as the original tapes so they won't degrade and I can edit them maybe a little too.

Any preferred model numbers for currently available models?

[kwag]

The only problem I have with (ALL) my VCR capturing is the amount of
line noise that I can see in my AVI play in vdub. I believe it is
caused by too many boxes/wires I have laying around and interconnected
and possibly my AC has noise or bad square-wave which causes line
noise too. So far, I haven't ben able to get rid of it.

-vhelp

Put some large ferrite beads at each end of your capture cable. Problem solved. If you still have noise, then the noise is being induced electromagnetically into your capture card. Not by wires.

-kwag

[vhelp]

evening kwag,

sorry, don't know WHAT ferrite beads are or look like or where to get it
4that matter!

But, I do notice those sqiggly lines even on my TV, when there is no
signal or for ie, when my DVD player (apex) is in screen-saver mode, and
you look at the black screen, you can see the lines, though not as bad
as in my captures from VCR.

I believe that maybe that VCR, when I capture from it, it highlites or
magnifies those lines cuase of the limited or low resolution of VHS.

If this post helps those out some, make note of this flaw when you do
VHS endeavors.

I will be doing another VHS capture/encode project this weekend. I started
doing this a few weeks ago as an escape or get-away from the weeks hard
work i put into the co. I work for. I needed an outlet or something to
look forward to by time friday rolls around. I always look forward to
going out on my Friday's lunch brake and do some VHS Movie hunting. Makes
me feel good. Then, I can look forward to my capturing project that
evening. It's fun! I love looking forward to this every Friday. You all
may adopt this idea or not. At $5 a movie, I can afford it - it's my
hobby/entertainment!!
And, tomorrow, I'm getting Chicken RUN. Boy, can't wait! he, he...

kwag,
again, WHATs ferrite beads??
depending on your response, and if I should try it out ($$) and it
satisifies my lines issue, I'll post back here maybe, so that dmk1974**
can take this into consideration in his VHS endeavors
Also, might post a sample clip. Just haven't decided, VCD or SVCD, or
maybe CVD? oh boy. I can't wait - TGIF !!

-vhelp

PS: clicked wrong IE page, and posted wrong **name, he, he...

[kwag]

kwag,
again, WHATs ferrite beads??
depending on your response, and if I should try it out ($$) and it
satisifies my lines issue, I'll post back here maybe, so that dmk1974**
can take this into consideration in his VHS endeavors

A ferrite bead ( or core ) is an electro magnetic interference supressor. You can get some small ones at Radio Shack. If you look at the end of your VGA cable, you'll see it has a large round object, about an inch or so from the 15 pin connector. That's a ferrite bead inside the cable.
Here, a picture is worth a thousand words
http://www.howstuffworks.com/question352.htm

-kwag

[Ego_Shredder]

I would say that JVC and Panasonic make the best quality VCR's. My sister has a Panasonic that is 16 years old and has been used for countless thousands of hours - it is usually on for a few hours every single day. I currently use an AKAI model, which is very nice also and my PC captures pretty well from it.


On a slightly different note, could anyone offer any help or advice on VHS tapes that seem impossible to capture without losing nearly every frame? I can capture most tapes very easily using my Celeron 1.2GHz (overclocked to 1.4GHz), 512MB, 80GB ATA-133 7200rpm, WinTV FM PCI. I capture at 480 x 576, 24Bit colour, 44.1/16 uncompressed audio using the PicVideo M-JPEG codec 18 Quality. This uses about 30% of my CPU's power.


Normally I drop about 1 frame every 4 minutes, sometimes less. I understand this is to do with keeping video and audio in sync. Certain VHS tapes though, cause complete frame loss and then a crash. I have tried numerous codecs, settings, uncompressed formats etc etc, with no luck. I'm trying to backup my entire VHS collection to VideoCD to preserve it from further degradation.


Can anyone offer any clues as to why certain tapes just fail miserably? Some tapes that were extremely poor TV reception, actually captured easily, yet some tapes that look far better....fail!


Cheers,

Ego

[VoodooStones]

Be carefull some ATI cards are not compatible with a few VCR. I'm using a multi-system VCR Toshiba and it doesn't work...All images are jumping or you get double image...

[Allan55]

Hi,

Robo1964 said

Not only am I perfect but I'm Canadian too!

which is redundant!

As far as VCRs go,

I use (10-12-year old) editing decks (Sony, but I doubt the brand matters) because their drive mechanisms and electronics are far superior to anything I've seen since.

Allan

[Allan55]

Hi,

Another suggestion for tapes:

Always FF-REW-FF-REW... fully before capturing. This relieves stresses and ("micro")-jerkyness in the tapes. -- We used to do this regularily with computer tapes (old computer used lots of tapes because a 40 MB drive cost around $250,000 (yes 1/4 million). In fact many shops regularily did this even if the tape hadn't been used for a while because all tapes will tighten-up all by themselves especially when start-stop activity happens.

Allan

[vhelp]

Afternoon all.

RE: Line Noise during VCR capturing.

Ok, in reference to the Ferrite Beads issue, and to not cause any
confusion w/ this original poster question, I have gone and started a
new post on just this subject alone. I will add my findings here to help
w/ the dicision making of orginal's poster question, if answer(s) are
avaialble.

Jump on over here for the discussion on Line Noise during VCR
capturing.
--> Line Noise - mostly from VCR sources, but Satalite/DVD too.

-vhelp

[SatStorm]

I love sharp VCRs, in my opinion they reproduce the best possible quality
Thompson, Jvc and phillips newest VCR models, are the same brand with different label. The software and the hardware are indenticall.
TBC helps a LOT if you intend to encode to CVD/SVCD. That way you prevent field order swaps through the playback, which creates a statering FX with SVCD/CVD
For VHS to VCD or low resolution xSVCD (like sefy's SxVCD), TBC helps only against picture tremble, noticable only in old tapes or tapes not written in the same vcr