VHS to HDD conversions

[congamabongo]

Hi,

I heard good things about this forum from a mate who pointed me in your direction, he said you guys might be able to help.

I've just inherited a Video archive of around 300 VHS cassettes and I've been asked to transfer them all to a non-deteriorating format, I've got 2.5TB and reckon that going straight to HDD would be best.

I'm attempting to use Virtual Dub's USB capture feature, I've downloaded FFDShow, but the codecs found with the program are not showing up in Virtual Dub for some reason

I've also done a few tests trying to capture the VHS in AVI / PCM format and the Audio and Vidio are out of sync.

Ideally I'd like to capture the VHS directly to MPEG4 / MP3.

Any input would be appreciated,

Aide

[soup]

What operating system is this being done on?

[congamabongo]

I have XP Home edition installed at the moment.

Computer Specs:
Intel Dual Core @ 2.8Ghz
4GB DDR2 RAM
NVIDIA Gforce 8400
2.5 TB HDD
Kaiser Baas RCA to USB cable.

[soup]

I have done a few GBs lately of VHS to HDD & have been using a product from ADSTech called VideoXpress. RCA jacks out from my VCR & USB on to my HDD. I am not saying it's the best, so please check around, but I am using it & can say it's doing the job for me. Unfortunately I wish some of my original source VHS were better quality, but that's life.

http://www.adstech.com/products/USBAV-191-EF/intro/USBAV_191_intro.asp?pid=USBAV-192-EF

This is the output:

[drfsupercenter]

I honestly recommend buying a set-top DVD recorder.

VHS is a lossy format by nature - and even a brand new never-played tape will not even have the same resolution as a DVD. So really, you're "over encoding" by trying these crazy formats...

Plus, I've noticed a thing I'll refer to as "VHS Wobble" when trying to use a capture device - basically, the bottom part of the screen shakes as the tape plays. It's happened both on home-made tapes and factory ones. And with numerous capture cards. DVD recorders don't have this problem - and that way it's already in the DVD format... all you'd need to do is author a menu or something if you want it to look professional.

[soup]

Plus, I've noticed a thing I'll refer to as "VHS Wobble" when trying to use a capture device - basically, the bottom part of the screen shakes as the tape plays. It's happened both on home-made tapes and factory ones

Never had it happen on the 200+ GBs I have done so far. If you are expecting Dvd quality though from a VHS starting point, you will be disappointed.

[drfsupercenter]

Hmm... Maybe it depends on your capture hardware.

With a Hauppauge WinTV PCI card, it would always shake... if I can find a sample clip I will. I just like using a DVD recorder better, as doing it to AVI will often mess with the frame rate and interlacing and can make weird results - and it's pretty easy to turn DVD into whatever format you want once it's already in DVD form.

[congamabongo]

I've got something similar to Video Express.

The softwares that came with the Kaiser Bass RCA to USB were called Power Director and Power Producer, the programs were very limiting and I could only capture the video in AVI or Mpeg2 and the Audio in PCM, the file size was a massive 120gb for 3 hours capture and for that I didn't even get Audio and Video to sync up!

I can see that you (Soup) got a 1.33min file down to 4.12GiB, it looks like a major improvement on my effort.
But I've seen 2 hour movies that are nearly DVD quality at 750mb and I'm convinced that it's possible to get the VHS down to a similar size, especially since I'm only capturing VHS quality.

[congamabongo]

I honestly recommend buying a set-top DVD recorder.

VHS is a lossy format by nature - and even a brand new never-played tape will not even have the same resolution as a DVD. So really, you're "over encoding" by trying these crazy formats...

Plus, I've noticed a thing I'll refer to as "VHS Wobble" when trying to use a capture device - basically, the bottom part of the screen shakes as the tape plays. It's happened both on home-made tapes and factory ones. And with numerous capture cards. DVD recorders don't have this problem - and that way it's already in the DVD format... all you'd need to do is author a menu or something if you want it to look professional.

I have an LG DVD burner which was meant to serve the purpose of burning the VHS to DVD but the DVDs only worked on the LG and no other players, I also had a Panasonic VHS with DVD burner and it kept sucking my VHSs in and not giving them back, it couldn't be repaired.
I really haven't had much luck
So I thought the I would try and put everything straight to HDD, (Discs will probably be obsolete in the future anyway) my aim was to store about 300 VHS straight to the 2.5 Tb of HDD.
My main concern is still getting the Audio and Video to Sync up and to cut the size right down, one mate advised that I could store 8 hours of Movie in under 5gb using h264/mp3 compression.

Thanks

[dazuk1972]

Hi,

I heard good things about this forum from a mate who pointed me in your direction, he said you guys might be able to help.

I've just inherited a Video archive of around 300 VHS cassettes and I've been asked to transfer them all to a non-deteriorating format, I've got 2.5TB and reckon that going straight to HDD would be best.

I'm attempting to use Virtual Dub's USB capture feature, I've downloaded FFDShow, but the codecs found with the program are not showing up in Virtual Dub for some reason

I've also done a few tests trying to capture the VHS in AVI / PCM format and the Audio and Vidio are out of sync.

Ideally I'd like to capture the VHS directly to MPEG4 / MP3.

Any input would be appreciated,

Aide

I know this isn't very helpful and money is involved. I think it's better to transfer from VHS to DVD with a DVD recorder or to make things less cluttered, a video and DVD recorder both conbined. If you want to edit better you can always put the DVD in your PC drive and rip to AVI with Magic DVD Ripper. I use that when I want to re-edit some of my home movies after putting them to DVD. That way I don't have to edit the whole lot again from scratch. I can just edit out the odd bit or edit in the odd bit.

[drfsupercenter]

I have an LG DVD burner which was meant to serve the purpose of burning the VHS to DVD but the DVDs only worked on the LG and no other players, I also had a Panasonic VHS with DVD burner and it kept sucking my VHSs in and not giving them back, it couldn't be repaired.
I really haven't had much luck
So I thought the I would try and put everything straight to HDD, (Discs will probably be obsolete in the future anyway) my aim was to store about 300 VHS straight to the 2.5 Tb of HDD.
My main concern is still getting the Audio and Video to Sync up and to cut the size right down, one mate advised that I could store 8 hours of Movie in under 5gb using h264/mp3 compression.

Ew, I hate those VHS-DVD combo machines... I'm talking about a standalone DVD recorder (they sell them here for under $100 now, and some of them even do 1080p upscaling), and you plug in a VCR using the RCA cables.

To each his own... I just thought I'd let you know that I've never had any luck recording VHS straight to my hard drive.

[congamabongo]

It's sad to think that I might have to wave the white flag and convert these VHS to DVD instead of HDD, but wouldn't the problems I'm having with Audio and Video Sync, and Codecs not showing up in Virtual Dub be universal to any USB capture or even other capture formats?

[drfsupercenter]

With USB, yes.

But that's another reason why they aren't good for VHS. Recording VHS to DVD should be in sync... unless the tape itself is messed up (in which case it will obviously fail regardless where you record it)

And really, once it's on a DVD, just open that VOB, run a simple deinterlace and resize, and you should be able to make any format AVI you want - as if you just captured it in that format to start.

[pfloyd]

I bought a device called dazzle years ago and it works great for transfering VHS to DVD.
One in fits to the VCR (3 rca jacks) and the other USB.

One thing, when you transfer from VHS to DVD or HardDrive, the quality is no better than the VHS tape itself. Unless you have access to a studio, they look as the do on tape.

Hope this helps.

Look on Newegg. They probably have some hardware to help you.

[drfsupercenter]

EWWW

Dazzle USB devices SUCK! I had one, called the DVC-90, that plugs in with USB and has the RCA ports... that thing dropped half the frames it took in! The result looked like a slideshow! LOL

I strongly stand by my suggestion to use a set-top DVD recorder, as those will never have memory or frame dropping issues like computers do... and it's going from interlaced to interlaced, unlike the computer which can cause issues in that area...