capture software for VHS transfers

williamconifer wrote on 2/8/2004, 5:41 PM
Greets,

I'm going to be doing some VHS to DVD transfers and need to quick, down and dirty approach. I need to be able to time the capture so it stops after an hour and a half. any ideas?

What about software that captures to MP2? is that around and how reliable is it?

The key to all of this is to have as little contact and time involved in the transfer. This is in lieu of a standalone DVD recorder.

Any thoughts or ideas?

jack

Comments

Jsnkc wrote on 2/8/2004, 7:07 PM
Kind of an expensive solution ($1400) but I have a Canopus Amber MPEG-2 capture card that would work great in this kind of situation. It has analog inputs and will allow you to se the capture time so you don't have to be there to stop it. I just chewcked the Canopus site and it looks like it's called the MVRD2200 now.
RalphM wrote on 2/8/2004, 7:19 PM
My inclination would be direct capture to a stand-alone recorder, but you have decided against that.

As far as timing the capture, Scenalyzer has the ability to time the capture. Automatic MP2 (MPEG2?), no idea.....
williamconifer wrote on 2/8/2004, 7:44 PM
Standalone is something I will probablly move to after I test the market a bit. Are there any standalones that allow for a down and dirty menu system to be built and still burn to a DVD-R?

Jack
farss wrote on 2/9/2004, 12:06 AM
All of them do that and just about everywhere you look someone is offering to do just this for less than the next guy.
I've taken the opposite tack, building a reputation for tape to DVD transfers where the DVD look better than what the client saw off the VHS tape.
I've spent a fair bit on good gear and it takes more time to do the job right and I use archive grade DVD media.
williamconifer wrote on 2/9/2004, 5:27 AM
"building a reputation for tape to DVD transfers where the DVD look better than what the client saw off the VHS tape."

That is the way that I am I am heading. I want to have budget transfer deal and a "cleaned up" higher quality deal. I call it scrubbing the noise. I use the plugin Smart Smoother that really helps. Any other tips? like for color correction?

What's the difference between an Archival DVD and a Inkjet top Ritek G04?

thanks
jack
corug7 wrote on 2/9/2004, 7:14 AM
Sony VAIO computers come with software called "Click to DVD." I have never used mine, so I don't know what kind of quality it will offer, but it must offer mpeg2 encoding on the fly. I also don't know if you can get it as a stand alone product. You might check it out.
johnmeyer wrote on 2/9/2004, 8:34 AM
Smartsmoother can kill a lot of detail because it is a spatial smoother. You might instead try some of the temporal smoothers available for Virtualdub and AVIsynth. Finally chroma noise is actually one of the most prevalent forms of noise in old VHS tapes (and 8mm) and can be almost completely removed, with very little artifacting, using one of the chroma removal Virtualdub or AVISynth tools.

Some ideas for how to use these filters can be found here:

Filters 1

You can also look in this thread, although the multiple capture technique is a bit overkill for anything not headed for the national archives (although I have to say that it IS the ultimate way to improve capture without introducing artifacts). Here's that thread:

My "ultimate" VHS tape restoration recipe

Some other noise reduction posts:

Noise reduction

Finally, here are the settings I now use as a starting point. However, since I posted this, I have generally found that the smart smoother takes way too long, and does nothing except make the resulting video seem out of focus, so I no longer use it. Also, I occassionally move the noise reduction from Dark 6, Light 10, up to Dark 8, Light 12. You can go much higher than that for selected scenes, but if you bump it up and "set it and forget it," you will start finding artifacts in motion scenes that get pretty annoying.

Noise reduction settings