Problem with Converting old VHS Tapes

[GOPS]

I have been capturing Video for the past 2 years without any hassles.
I use ATI-AIW128-Pro on P4 with WinXP. Recently, I have been trying to convert some of my old VHS ( 10years old ) cassettes to MPEG, using my ATI-AIW128Pro & ATI MMC7.1 . The tapes are very valuable to me and they play very well on my TV. But the video display on the computer screen is terribly distorted .
I suspected the VCR and bought a new VCR and TV as well . But there is no improvement for the display on Computer screen. I tried to pass the signals through my TV and connect the TV outputs to ATI card. Still no improvement . How do I overcome this problem ? Anyone knows how to get these Tapes converted ?

[Stansell]

Are the tapes commerical tapes or home grown?

If they are commercial, they may have macrovision protection on them. This would make them look fine on a TV, but cause problems when capturing.

I'm not sure what you can do if this is the problem, but I would suggest searching for "macrovision" in the board.

Also, if the problem is not macrovision related, I suggest trying to capture to AVI files first (using Virtual Dub and HuffYUV) and then convert to MPEG using TMPGEnc. You may be able to find a filter for VirtualDub to clean up the video some.

What types of problems are you seeing - you didn't say.

[crunchsite]

I do not know if this will help or make things more confusing, but I am having a smiliar problem. I have the 64mg version of the AIW card, and some tapes play in black and white and scrambled as though they will not track. These tapes are not commerical, but they are not old, brand new tapes are recorded on and very good quality when viewed on a TV. I have tried all the work arounds the first genteleman who posted tried, to no avail.

I have been capturing Video for the past 2 years without any hassles.
I use ATI-AIW128-Pro on P4 with WinXP. Recently, I have been trying to convert some of my old VHS ( 10years old ) cassettes to MPEG, using my ATI-AIW128Pro & ATI MMC7.1 . The tapes are very valuable to me and they play very well on my TV. But the video display on the computer screen is terribly distorted .
I suspected the VCR and bought a new VCR and TV as well . But there is no improvement for the display on Computer screen. I tried to pass the signals through my TV and connect the TV outputs to ATI card. Still no improvement . How do I overcome this problem ? Anyone knows how to get these Tapes converted ?

[GOPS]

These are all home videos recorded on my old VCR. I could not
find any solutions from ATI . And I heard that the VCR's have something to do with the video capture. It is something related to tracking or whatever . The old VCR had a manual tracking, while the new ones have digital tracking & the TV set seems to be ignoring such problems . I have attached a sample screen shot at : http://www.gops.org/images/ati.jpg

[ckdexterhn1]

It seems to be a problem related to ATI cards, and how sensitive they are to frequency changes in older tapes. What I've had to do is re-recorded the old tapes to new S-VHS tapes, which cuts down the picture jumps considerably, and keeps the picture quality. Then do the video capture from the new tapes.

[Raen]

Are you using RCA input or SVHS? I would assume yer using RCA. Try playing with the RCA cords, sometimes being near power outlets and power supply units with cheaper wires can cause all sorts of distortion. Might also look into getting monster input wires that are insulated against power supplies and such. Try hooking up the vcr to the tv tuner or if its already hooked up that way hook it up using RCA wires. See if there are any differences

[darkelf]

The manual tracking can make a big difference. Add to that your ATI card (which I also own and have observed similar issues), will give you the distortion you see on your screen.

My solution was easy, I still had a VCR in relatively good shape with manual tracking.

You may be able to find/borrow an older VCR that would suit your tasks (or maybe rent/buy a new SVHS deck I suppose). My videos were in mono, home videos from 15-20 years ago, and I was able to get suprisingly good caps (I did take the Huffy/AVI option tho, not MPEG) from a 14 year old VCR and one wet head cleaning tape. Considering the source material it turned out fairly well.

Two best-option senarios: redub to SVHS (one more generational loss of signal, but the capture will go alot smoother) *or* find an older Pro-AV quality deck on eBay. They have *lots* of knobs to adjust. Friend of mine picked up a good pro BetaMax unit to get thru his beta TV recordings from back in the day. Depending on the volume of movies you need to get thru it could be worth it. Failing that give your library a call and see if they rent out A/V equipment, they might have something that you could use.

[Blackout]

what you need is a TBC...Time Base Convertor. Your problems with the capture of old video tapes will be gone forever. Trust me. Do some searches on TBC....



Cheers,
Blackout

[Rond66]

Will using a RCA to S-Video Signal Converter really improve the transfer quality? Ie: RadioShack's Catalog #: 15-1238?

[bpjenn]

TBC
http://www.videoguys.com/datavid.htm#tbc1000

[Redd]

Will using a RCA to S-Video Signal Converter really improve the transfer quality? Ie: RadioShack's Catalog #: 15-1238?

I did try and use a converter but my picture changed from color to black & white in capture mode.
Hmmm.

[darkelf]

On the face of it, an S-Video to Composite adapter should not make the signal "cleaner", it just comes into the cap card separately. Since they came out of the VCR as composite the quality increase IMHO wouldn't be much better than letting the cap card do it for you.

The B/W you are experiencing is common when I plug my 'old' VCR (with only composite connections to my S-VIDEO port on my cap card (with similar adapter). Dunno if the VCR is to blame or the cap card can't figure it out, but something is fubared in the conversion.

BTW: I agree with the T.B.C. option. If you have some $$$ to throw around, this is hands-down the best option. An SVHS VCR may be cheaper, and borrowing/finding an old vcr has headaches of its own.

hope this helps...

[MrKGB]

I had similar problem with my old avermedia card : it was dropping about 30% frames when I was capturing old VHS.
I bought Winfast TV2000 Deluxe for $55 and the problem is gone!
So I suggest to borrow (from friend or shop ) a different capture card and try to capture.