VHS capture, which software?

[ppera2]

I looked similar threads here, but didn't see that someone has similar experiences like me.

Main problem by capturing bad VHS tapes is frame dropping. I tried couple programs and concluded that they handle dropped frames in 2 general ways:
1: When drop occurs, program decreases average fps
2: -||- , program constructs missing frame from previous (next) frame or by blending both. Framerate remains

Of course second way is much better, A/V sync will be good even after lot of missed frames.
By first way we will have A/V async, especially by longer captures. It can be lowered by 'Change fps to..." in V Dub, but it will be not good during whole shot, because drops occur not is same intervals and amount.

In first group is: Iuvcr, Virual Dub, and surprising VirtualVCR, which claims that handles A/V async well. It decreases framerate in same way as ordinary V Dub by capture framedrops).

In second grup is Win DVR, it maintains A/V sync very well, even by bad tapes, and framerate stays at 25 (PAL).

Any experiences with other capturing programs - only with VHS capture ?

[Kika]

If your Capture-Card is one with the BT-8x8-Chip, you can use VirtualDub and BT-Tweaker (needs the old DLLs from an early DScaler).
Than you can tweak the Top-Border to prevent Drops.

An other way is to decrease the vertical Resolution. In PAL-World, use 568 instead of 576, in NTSC-World, try it with 472.

[ppera2]

I tried tweaked BT drivers from Iulabs site, also tried btwmdriver (freeware), but there is lot of problems with them. It worked couple times, but framedrop is same as with Pinnacle drivers.

Other thing: how can I decrease vertical Resolution? No capture driver or program which will allow such values - at least I don't know about it.

[scharfis_brain]

in virtualdub use the "custom resoltion"-dialogue

[rays888]

Your question is directed at software but you might consider the hardware root-cause.
S/W
I have not had much luck or spent enough time with Virtual Dub to comment on it's merits. I know there is a menu option for AVI capture, but I have never been successful in the few times I’ve tried grabbing DV from my Firewire port. (That may be a dumb statement or might have a simple answer. Any help appreciated.)

I can say that I finally took the load off of my 1.2 Gig Athlon with the purchase of a Canopus ADVC-100. Prior to that I was using an ATI AIW with its bundled ULEAD Video Studio s/w. Because this s/w was attempting to compress directly to MPEG2 on the fly, I could never get a clean capture much above 480 x 480. At higher resolutions I had many dropped frames. There was no loss of audio sync but the captured image appeared to freeze briefly at random intervals. I had similar problems / symptoms even with the Canopus box when I attempted to capture using Sonic’s MyDVD s/w that came bundled with my Cendyne (Pioneer –104) DVD burner. It finally dawned on me that the files created by MyDVD were Mpeg – meaning that even with the DV feed, my processor was still being overloaded trying to compress on the fly. By capturing DV using other software that created less demanding AVI captures, I no longer had any dropped frames.
H/W
Can you successfully capture 'good tapes' with no dropped frames?
What kind of capture hardware are you using?
Are your capture problems related to resolution? - i.e. Can you capture the bad tapes at lower - say 352 x 480 resolution but are dropping frames at 752 x 480?
Are dropped frames the only symptom or do you also see flagging of the video at the top of the picture?

I have found that some capture devices are better at grabbing old VHS recordings than others. There are also devices on the market called Time Base Correctors (TBC) that help restore and stabilize the sync on older, deteriorated tapes. There are stand-alone boxes and embedded TBC’s in some Industrial quality VHS machines. The Panasonic SVHS AG-1980P is a good example of that class of machine and I have successfully used it to capture old tapes that were problematic for my AIW Analog capture card. Unfortunately I changed two variables - the TBC and the Capture device – so I can’t say for certain that the TBC was solely responsible for the clean capture my second time around.
Also, I book-marked a site that was given on one of these discussion groups that provides specs on a relatively inexpensive ($300 US) stand-alone TBC.
FYI it is at:

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

[ppera2]

rays888:

Computer & capture card is enough fast for full PAL res. capture without any dropped frame for hours. It can be AVI capture, Mpeg2, all work very well. Card is Pinnacle PCTV Pro. I had ATI Radeon VIVO too, and it worked also very well in full PAL res.
When capturing from VHS it's irrelevant what resolution is, framedrop occurs when video signal is bad.

Flagging occurs sometimes, but more often is case that tape is damaged, what causes sync. pulse loss. I think that my video recorder is not enough good for this job (it's too old). Better video and TBC would be good solution for sure, only money is problem :-)

What is interesting that my old Voodoo 3 3500 card handles bad tapes much better than BT 878 card (considering frame drops). But it has his limits of resolution, and upper part is often shifted to right by VHS capture.

Kika:

I solved BT Tweaker - worked only in Win 98 with some VFW BT 8x8 driver. Nice thing is that we can set borderless pic. Need to test more vertical adjust with bad tapes, how it will affect framedrop...

Bad thing is that I can't use more Pinnacle software - nothing helps - cleaning registry, deinstalling all BT related drivers etc.
Luckily I have XP too...