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Post by Richard Neil Wright on Oct 23, 2014 12:58:28 GMT
Hi Everyone,
This is off-topic and technical help request!
I do miss the Doctor Who restoration team tech forum - wish they would bring it back for questions like this!
So, I have a large amount of old tape format's to convert, Vhs, SVhs, U-Matic, Betacam and some old Philips tapes as well.
At this time I am running a 10.5 Gzh Windows 7 system with 16GB of ram and a 1 Gig graphics card.
What is the best way of transferring these tapes? I have the output machines for each format.
I have tried using a standard £35 USB dongle and some software that came with it. However, I seem to be having problems in that there are constant frame skips and the transfer quality is not wonderful.
Is there a better (probably more expensive) way of doing the transfers....I am looking to get the best possilbe quality from each format as the material I am transferring is going to be edited into a video project. Also - would I need a Time Base Corrector to ensure a better transfer ?
Although this is off-topic, some of the Philips tapes I have not checked yet are labelled as containing early C4 material... I will update you if anything interesting turns up!
Thanks in Advance, Richard
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Post by Rob Moss on Oct 23, 2014 13:44:49 GMT
Can't help with the technical queries, but please consider these points when you transfer the tapes:
1. Log what's on each tape.
2. Keep all the tapes - if you don't want them yourself, consider donating them to Kaleidoscope, particularly if you are unable to get a particularly good transfer
3. As you transfer them, be sure to archive uncompressed video files - storing them as DVD-video adds compression that will only emphasise any picture artefacts
4. Tell us what you find!
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Post by Richard Neil Wright on Oct 23, 2014 13:55:27 GMT
Hi Rob,
Indeed - all be logged, tapes will be kept until they are all transferred and then I will let you guys know what I find - and I hope to find a good home for the old tapes!
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Post by Richard Neil Wright on Oct 23, 2014 13:57:03 GMT
I have also just found in my loft about 80 old betamax Doctor Who off air recordings! It looks like they are from 1980 until about 1983. So I will check these tapes for any interesting clips, trailers and bits!
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Post by Peter Stirling on Oct 23, 2014 14:38:10 GMT
I am very surprised you having trouble with a powerful system like you have.
The dongle may not be of sufficient quality and/or something in the USB system maybe hindering it? and suggest you try a plug in PCI card -those made by Aver or Happuage are usually very good and are usually well under a £100.(depending on the extra bells and whistles they may have)..but the basic one is more than sufficient. Professional capture cards are of course also available in the £100 plus range
The timebase corrector was a necessity in broadcast to match videotape with other inputs such as camera and captions, because videotape was electronically quite wobbly compared to say the stable outputs of a camera.
Adding a timebase corrector into your system can do no harm,but if its from the 20th Century it may need other feeds like 'sync in' which domestic recorders don't have.... but many modern software and cards can keep the rubbish at bay anyway?
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Post by Rob Moss on Oct 23, 2014 14:43:37 GMT
I know that this isn't much help, and that a TBC "built in" to a SVHS deck hardly even counts, but I used to find that on my old Panasonic deck, even slightly poor recordings would often stutter and drop frames on playback when the TBC was on, but would play back faultlessly when it was turned off. So, if you can borrow one to test, do, because it may make things worse.
Anyone with more knowledge than me, please chip in if I'm talking rubbish!
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RWels
Member
Posts: 2,861
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Post by RWels on Oct 23, 2014 15:14:47 GMT
You probably already played around with the software settings? Fields, frame rate, bitrate...
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 24, 2014 8:32:33 GMT
I know that this isn't much help, and that a TBC "built in" to a SVHS deck hardly even counts, but I used to find that on my old Panasonic deck, even slightly poor recordings would often stutter and drop frames on playback when the TBC was on, but would play back faultlessly when it was turned off. So, if you can borrow one to test, do, because it may make things worse. Anyone with more knowledge than me, please chip in if I'm talking rubbish! I had one which did the same thing, Rob. It would try and compensate for a bad bit of tape by freezing on the previous "good" frame until the faulty section had passed (but meaning that the picture suddenly freezes for a second or two). Turning it off got rid of this, although you might see a brief glitch (which is less intrusive, in my opinion). |
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Post by Peter Stirling on Oct 24, 2014 10:37:43 GMT
Just remembered I used one of these once (also USB based) www.maplin.co.uk/p/honestech-vhs-to-dvd-70-deluxe-a80quand it was absolutely brilliant, on not a particularly powerful computer either. The only thing is, you are limited to producing a DVD standard when you might want other file formats- but at least you have it on DVD. The other point to remember is that whenever you buy a dongle,card,box or whatever go straight to the manu site and get the latest software for it as that may cause stuttering etc problems with old drivers |
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Post by tjhilton on Oct 25, 2014 2:29:50 GMT
I found having a TBC has been essential in digitising old VHS and Beta tapes. Prior to having one, my capturing software would simply skip over frames it didn't like. Which is OK in some ways, but terrible if you were hoping to synch the vision to alternate sound sources. My TBC, when encountering bad sections, will simply freeze one of the fields while leaving the other field running free, which is a PITA, because I have to go back and de-interlace individual frames. But I don't know of any other way around it.
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Post by markboulton on Oct 29, 2014 20:42:35 GMT
Just remembered I used one of these once (also USB based) www.maplin.co.uk/p/honestech-vhs-to-dvd-70-deluxe-a80quand it was absolutely brilliant, on not a particularly powerful computer either. The only thing is, you are limited to producing a DVD standard when you might want other file formats- but at least you have it on DVD. The other point to remember is that whenever you buy a dongle,card,box or whatever go straight to the manu site and get the latest software for it as that may cause stuttering etc problems with old drivers I've been using a Climax Digital device fire a few months, which is pretty good except for a tendency to produce a venetian blinds effect on shot changes. So I thought I'd try "upgrading" to the aforementioned Honestech device last night. It went straight back to Maplin this morning. It was utter rubbish. The lowest bitrate I've ever seen, and incapable of anything other than 360x288 capture, gleefully ignoring whatever resolution/quality settings chosen in the menus. Both with the drivers supplied in the box and the revised ones downloaded from their website. Wouldn't touch it with a barge pole. |
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Post by markboulton on Oct 29, 2014 20:46:46 GMT
Not only that, uninstalling its drivers to return to the ones used by my Climax Digital dongle was less than easy. A number of times I kept finding my computer wanted to use drivers for a "Grabtech AV350" for my Climax instead of its own. It took several attempts to reinstall the correct ones in such a way that these Grabtech ones wouldn't automatically install whenever I plugged the device in.
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Post by Marty Schultz on Oct 29, 2014 23:05:09 GMT
I too would advise you to get a 'proper' capture card with decent inputs. Invariably USB dongles etc are for quick captures for the home market. Drivers are not regularly updated etc The simple fact that you are transferring u-matic + philips indicates your pretty serious. If you're serious the equipment needs to be serious- unfortunately cards = money - as always.
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Post by Peter Stirling on Oct 31, 2014 8:03:44 GMT
Just remembered I used one of these once (also USB based) www.maplin.co.uk/p/honestech-vhs-to-dvd-70-deluxe-a80quand it was absolutely brilliant, on not a particularly powerful computer either. The only thing is, you are limited to producing a DVD standard when you might want other file formats- but at least you have it on DVD. The other point to remember is that whenever you buy a dongle,card,box or whatever go straight to the manu site and get the latest software for it as that may cause stuttering etc problems with old drivers I've been using a Climax Digital device fire a few months, which is pretty good except for a tendency to produce a venetian blinds effect on shot changes. So I thought I'd try "upgrading" to the aforementioned Honestech device last night. It went straight back to Maplin this morning. It was utter rubbish. The lowest bitrate I've ever seen, and incapable of anything other than 360x288 capture, gleefully ignoring whatever resolution/quality settings chosen in the menus. Both with the drivers supplied in the box and the revised ones downloaded from their website. Wouldn't touch it with a barge pole. Well I don't know what you expect for £25? but as an efficient way of transferring to a reliably running DVD I thought it was rather good. Its sometime since I used it but am pretty sure we got a 720 resolution out of it, but maybe because we were using a video program with the Honestech as a capture driver and not the software supplied?. |
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Post by markboulton on Oct 31, 2014 17:47:51 GMT
Well, for £25 one should still expect half decent quality, not something that looks like RealPlayer from 1996! The Climax was also £25...And its quality is better than a standalone DVD recorder apart from its inability to trigger an i-frame on shot changes.
Why shouldn't I expect decent quality from something that claims to be "A powerful and effortless video conversion solution" and the "U.S. #1 best Seller"?
Not quite sure why you paint me as a strange character for wanting a half decent product? I suspect Roxio's £25 offering would have been decent too.
And for the record, I fed the Honestech as a capture device through other programs too, and it made no difference to the results.
I actually concluded the capturing software from Honestech was actually the best I'd come across so far, but it was the hardware at fault. Not the software.
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