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Thanks LemMotlow for your extensive and informative reply. I am now looking into the Diamond multimedia VC500 video card you recommended. I still have some questions though.

Originally Posted by LemMotlow

Your source, as you described it, is not DV AVI. It'sanalog tape. Completely different systems. Most of us outgrew Pinnacle many years ago. And DV source itself is never captured. It's transferred 1:1 with Firewire and is never re-encoded as a capture. That's two lossy strikes against your so-called "quality" from the very start. However, if convenience and the push-button route is major priority, you're better off with DV and Pinnacle. Priorities of quality will have to wait for another day.

In this context, by source I meant the output of the cam corder to my PC. But I probably misunderstood the concept of the pass-through. I thought that by using a DV cam corder pass-through, the cam corder would convert the analogue signal to DV avi quite like as if it would be recording, and output that DV avi signal to my PC as if It’d be playing a DV cassette.

Is it correct or incorrect to state that the cam corder does output DV avi? Or, if not analogue, is it more of a format-less on the fly digital interpretation of the analogue input, which is inaccurate? In either case I take it from your reply that the cam corder doesn’t do a good job because it doesn’t deal with interpreting the messy analogue VHS-signals very well.

I will look into whether the cam corder is capable of outputting analogue, just to check.

Originally Posted by LemMotlow

VirtualDub, AmarecTV. Those are the most popular. If you've never seen either, VDub represents a completely different world of detailed control over more aspects of video capture than you ever imagined. Likely you'll learn a great deal more about video than you would with DV and Pinnacle.

I'm playing around with AmarecTV 2.3.1 now together with Lagarith, because many people recommend it for capturing to losless YUY2. However I haven't been able to capture with it yet, I keep getting 'Can not support colorspace by video codec'. It shows the visual throughput and Lagarith is recognized fine so I'm still looking for the cause, maybe it's because of the cam corder.

I've used VDub often for re-encoding but it always eluded me that you can also capture with it. I will give it a try for sure. Quite a few people on forums prefer AmarecTV though, saying VDub causes audio sync issues and produces ‘flaky’ videos.

Originally Posted by LemMotlow

Offhand it sounds as if you're looking for ease and convenience, an absence of any need for cleanup, and a perfect capture that looks like DVD instead of like VHS tape. It won't happen. Without work, VHS always looks like VHS. DV just makes it look a little worse and makes it easier to blame the source for the results.

As for the convenience, for me this is mainly about doing the initial capture. I don’t mind long re-encoding sessions afterwards (even days for a single one). But getting out my VCR and hooking everything up is pretty invasive to my living space so I'd like to keep that time as limited as possible.

But well, once I have a capture card that wouldn’t necessarily differ a lot from using the cam corder. A long time ago I tended to use a Hauppage TV card to capture, but that always was a hassle and the quality disappointing. But a card like you suggested might be less troublesome.

Originally Posted by LemMotlow

There are a few good capture cards around that are optimized for analog source and can be used with software mentioned above for lossless capture. The Diamond multimedia VC500 has been a favorite for many years, is still made today, and sells for a fraction of its original price.

This card I take it is a genuine card and not this
Diamond VC500 USB 2.0 One Touch VHS to DVD Video Capture Device? I’ll search for a card some more because the device I linked looks rather cheap with low-quality connectors and I doubt it is the one you mean. But of course maybe I am mistaken.

Originally Posted by LemMotlow

Looks like your camera has what you need for lossless. but it won't last long if you keep using that abrasive "cleaning" tape.

The cleaning tape is for cleaning the heads of my VHS, because my understanding is that old tapes can leave a lot of dirt and tape particles on those heads. Should I not use it? I have to put three drops of cleaning fluid in the cassette, play it, and then wait for a couple of minutes before playing an actual tape. I always wait ten minutes just to be sure so that all leftovers of the fluid have evaporated.

For as long as I don’t have a capture card I will continue to hobby some more with the cam corder. But when I get one I will get back to you with the results. Thanks again!