Capturing NTSC

[pete671]

I live in a PAL TV area (UK) but have a VCR which can play NTSC tapes. I play NTSC tapes via my TV and everything is great. I run the same tapes via one of my capture cards and they are in black and white!

I have 2 capture cards on different hardware profiles - one for an old VFW driver based card (ATM Moviestar) and one for ATI AIW Radeon (never again) which uses WDM drivers. The software for each card is MGI Videowave and ATI TV (using composite signal) respectively.

Both cards capture PAL tapes correctly (thought the older card knocks spots off of the ATI card in terms of quality) but won't capture the NTSC in colour even though I select NTSC in the capture software. The old card actually displays the NTSC tape in colour (when set to PAL!) but only for the top 3/4 of the screen and the capture has noise bars all over it.

Any ideas?

Thanks everyone.

[Deisel Weisel]

Your U.K. VCR, when playing an NTSC tape, isn't actually outputting pure NTSC. It's outputting a hybrid 'PAL60', which your TV can cope with but your capture set-up cannot. You need to find another capture set-up that will cope with PAL60, or get a genuine NTSC VCR (from the U.S.), to output pure NTSC.

[kitty]

Yes PAL and NTSC have different frequencies at which the insert the color information. Some gear knows how to adjust if they find the color info in the wrong place like PAL60 gear. Most likely capture cards do not as not much time is put in driver development by most every major manufacturer (my opinion).

[pete671]

Hi,

Just a quick thank you to you 2 guys for taking the time to respond and the concise information.

Regards

Pete.

[boathouse]

The problem is that PAL60 is a hybrid standard, and the card drivers are only tuned to expect pure NTSC or PAL50. From the cards point of view, PAL60 appears to be NTSC (since it's running at 60Hz) but the colour is encoded using the standard PAL format - so it tries to capture it as pure NTSC and we end up with no colour!

Have you come up with a solution since your forum post? Here are some possible ideas:

* Buy an NTSC player - probably need to have it shipped from the US - and maybe buy a voltage converter.

* Some UK VCR's will output in pure NTSC or convert to real PAL50, like the top of the range Samsung, but it's expensive.

* Does anyone know of a capture card that will recognise PAL60?

* There might be a video converter/filter available that will convert PAL60 to PAL50?

[pete671]

I haven't been able to progress this any further I am afraid - looks like a 'true' NTSC VCR is the only solution.

There is a 'PAL60' capture option (Settings/Video Format) in Version 3.1.0 of DScaler but unfortunately I still wasn't able to capture properly using this option. I intend playing a bit more with various settings in this program but I'm not holding my breath despite the extensive options available within this VGood freeware product. I suppose it is all down to the underlying capture drivers which just reinforces my negative opinion of some of these manufacturers.

If I manage to crack this I'll post.

Regards

Pete Y.

[boathouse]

I managed to solve the problem by buying one of these standards convertors:

http://www.dc1000.org/Ace.htm

although it was an expensive solution! This device will convert between any TV format and so I'm using it to change PAL60 into standard PAL50. Capturing now works very well and you can also improve the video (especially vhs) using the filters.

The most cost effective solution would be to buy an NTSC VCR from the states. Many US online retailers won't ship to the UK, however you could bid for a VCR on www.ebay.com, since many of those sellers are happy to ship.

Hidden costs to watch out for are:

Duty & VAT applied in the UK. Also Parcelforce will kindly charge you an extra £13 for bringing the package through customs.

The US shipping on a VCR, typically 7KG, would be $65 for 4-10 day delivery, you can check this here www.usps.com

Plus when you receive the VCR you'd probably have to buy a 240-110v converter from Maplin for £20.

As you can see I've researched this in depth!

There are a couple of other solutions. Samsung make a multi standard VCR, available in the UK, which can play back in any standard. Although it's more expensive than my standard's convertor!

I have heard that Thomson make a VCR in the UK which will playback in pure NTSC. I haven't looked into this option, but it's worth checking out.

[offline]

Try Dscaler

http://deinterlace.sourceforge.net/

[pete671]

Tried DScaler v3.1.0 without too much luck (see previous post) but if anybody has been able to crack this I'd be V Interested.

Also, if people are looking for NTSC/PAL converters or US VCRs then in addition to the site 'Boathouse' recommends, the following site also looks hopeful:-

http://www.world-import.com/converter-vcr.htm

I mention this 'cos even the cheapo VCRs appear to be dual voltage thus saving on the Maplin gizmo.

Pete Y

PS Hey 'Boathouse' you really have given this a lot of research, thanks for passing this on.

[offline]

Many pro video shops in PAL countries can get you a NTSC vcr cheap
if you ask nicely. You would be suprised at the demand! I would never
buy a world vcr.

I got a JVC stereo NTSC vcr with editiing for $70 Australian. The manual
was a joke as it was destined for the mexican market. As a bonus my
Spanish improved while I was waiting for JVC to post an Anglo version

While I run an enhancer, a TBC, a colour corrector and
a multiformat transcoder - the plain old NTSC vhs is my saviour when
it comes to US or Japanese source video.

[pete671]

If anybody is interested I'm now able to get vidcaps from my NTSC Compatible VCR (aka PAL60). Here is how I did it though my terminology might be a bit off:-

1. Get a card with a newish BT878 chipset - I bought a Hauppage WinTV which is cheap. (Having said that the quality of it's vidcaps puts my much more expensive ATI AIW Crap to shame)
2. Use DScaler and set the Video Format to PAL60.
3. Press the 'L' key (Still Capture) for beautiful TIF images which can be re-formatted later into JPEGS if space is a consideration.

My old cards didn't work because:-

a) The VFW card had an old chipset
b) The ATI AIW uses WDM drivers and is junk anyway (NEVER AGAIN!!!)

A big thanks to the guys at DScaler for such a great program and to Hauppauge for an excellent cheapo card.

Thanx to all who helped.