Vhs To Pc

[newcomers]

Hi,

I have a fly tc capture card but for some reason it has stopped capturing audio and also, when recording, the quality is very very poor.

My cousin has asked me to transfer his wedding video (pal, im in uk) to dvd. Will I need a tc capture card for this, or someother type of hardware? What would be the best tv card to use and will it record in the same quality as the source?

Many Thanks

[Arachnotron]

I have a fly tc capture card I am not familiar with that card. Do you mean Fly TV? And if so, which model? Try providing a link.

In general, almost any capture device can deliver more quality than VHS tape has to offer, it just depends on how you use it. I suggest you start by reading the Analog Capture Guide (http://www.doom9.org/capture/start.html) which should answer most of your questions.

[Guest]

A simple and effective approach is to use a standalone DVD recorder. When you have low quality source such as VHS, the quality of the resulting product is just fine.

[ppera2]

Originally posted by neuron2
A simple and effective approach is to use a standalone DVD recorder. When you have low quality source such as VHS, the quality of the resulting product is just fine.

Simple means not cheap.

I think that there is many way to improve quality of VHS capture, but not with standalone DVD Recorder.
For price of one stand. DVD Rec you can buy Time Base Corrector, or VHS with built in TBC, what is by me much better investition, especially for someone who has PC... Not to mention some learning meanwhile :)

[Guest]

Originally posted by ppera2
Simple means not cheap. That's manifestly not always the case.

I think that there is many way to improve quality of VHS capture, but not with standalone DVD Recorder. Where did I say anything about improving quality with a DVD recorder?

For price of one stand. DVD Rec you can buy Time Base Corrector, or VHS with built in TBC, what is by me much better investition, especially for someone who has PC... Not to mention some learning meanwhile For the price of a toaster I can buy a butane torch and learn about pyrotechnics; so what? I simply offered an alternative approach, one which may be quite attractive in some applications.

[Arachnotron]

All I wanted to say is that since you need to convert only one tape and already own a capture card, I would try to get that one running instead of spending money on extra hardware.

Chances are what you already have is more than adequate for the job, if you can get it running again.

[ppera2]

Originally posted by neuron2
That's manifestly not always the case.

Where did I say anything about improving quality with a DVD recorder?

For the price of a toaster I can buy a butane torch and learn about pyrotechnics; so what? I simply offered an alternative approach, one which may be quite attractive in some applications.

Simple means not expensive.

Where did I say that you said anything about quality improving (in this thread) ? I simple like to put quality ahead of simplicity.

I thought that this forum is about video conversion :D

[newcomers]

Ok basically, will I be able to do this using a capture card, and what will the quality be like? What program will I need to use and what is the best capture card to buy (anything up to about £80)

Thanks

[ppera2]

There is lot of capture cards on market which are pretty good quality, and price is about 50-80 Euro. Which is best? It is relative, depends from that what who prefer.
I don't know about your current card fly tc, but it probably will do it.

I recommend Virtual Dub 1.66 and some Mjpeg codec for capture. V Dub has histogram, what is very important and many other features like noise prefilter etc.

Main problem by VHS capture is A/V async, what appears by damaged tapes.

If your tapes are in good condition, it will be not problem. But be prepared for problems if you have integrated sound on your MB, then is very likely that you will have some async by longer captures (over half hour) . Solution may be to buy some cheap card, CMedia costs around 7-8 Euro.

Don't expect good results immediately, it requires some experimenting.

[codefish]

@newcomers: For VHS-Caps I personally DISRECOMMEND any BrookTree-Based Card because those are really picky about the source being STABLE which is often NOT true for VHS-Tapes. Cannot tell you what's really recommended though - I have an ATI-Based solution (Radeon VIVO) which drops some frames capturing from VHS, but VDubMod (1.5.10.1) is able to keep the recording in Sync. A working solution, better than BT8x8, but surely not top of the pops for capturing VHS.

Audio can (and IMHO should be) captured using line-in of your soundcard. Have you tried this?