I seem to remember someone mentioning on this board that Vegas is a DV in only, no analog capture features.

I use VirtualVCR for that. Free. As long as you have another capture card /USB input, it should work.

http://virtualvcr.sourceforge.net/

edited: sorry, I just saw that your deck converts it to DV on the fly.

winrock's advice is correct. However, on some cameras (like Sony) you also have to enable the analog pass through. It is a menu item -- I think it is "DV IN" and you set it to "On."

Hey guys, thanks. After turning off device control I was all set.

The new problem is the control track on the 21 year old LP recorded VHS tape is so bad that I get dropped frames when I record directly to Vegas or to DV tape first. My VHS deck has a TBC built in, but that only helps a little.

Man, just one of those days.

The new problem is the control track on the 21 year old LP recorded VHS tape is so bad that I get dropped frames when I record directly to Vegas or to DV tape first.

A few other things to try:

1. Turn of the TBC. Despite all the advice about TBC being a great thing (and it is), depending on what kind of TBC it is, it can cause problems during capture. This is definitely true on my Panasonic PV-S4990.

2. Turning off the TBC probably won't help. Another thing is to try messing with manual tracking. On really old LP recordings, the auto tracking on modern VCRs doesn't always lock in.

3. See if you have a setting for auto correction of LP tapes. I have a JVC SVHS VCR that has such a setting (I think the Philips VCRs are identical). The instructions say to only use it on LP tapes, and only on those where you have tracking problems.

4. I assume you have turned on (or is it off?) the "Edit" control. Sometimes it is called "Dub." This will make the picture look a little noisier, but it will give you all the detail available. It may possibly make the signal easier to capture -- I don't know.

In general, when you start getting dropped frames on capture from old VHS tapes, you should watch during the capture to see where the dropped frames actually occur. If they are mostly at scene transitions, I wouldn't worry too much. If they are at edit transitions (where the tape was actually stopped and then restarted) I wouldn't worry at all. Without flying erase heads (which weren't available twenty-one years ago), there is absolutely no continuity at edit points. You will drop frames at those points and there is nothing you can do about it, but it doesn't matter because the edit is going to be so full of shimmers and other crud that you're going to want to edit stuff out at that point.

So, in closing, see where the dropouts are actually happening, and if they are almost all at edit points, you can relax and not do anything at all.

LP was an abomination -- a mathematical contrivance to introduce something in between SP and SLP to meet the "consumer demands." In short, it just didn't work.

If TBC doesn't work on these tapes, nothing else will. Just live with the drops. Though grainy, my 20 y/o SLP tapes stiil play well and capture with but a few drops.

John, thanks for taking the time to write such a detail response. I think I'm screwed on this, however. It's a 22 minute video on some sort of mechanical study that a client wanted to get transfered to DVD to send to one of their clients. So there is no editing per se. The dropouts start from the moment I hit record in Vegas. When I copy to DV first, I don't get any reported dropouts from Vegas, but the audio is pretty bad. I tried different settings on my JVC S deck, but no dice. I'm actually making them a VHS dub because that looks *okay* in that the audio plays back from the original tape, but doesn't seem to like the digital age.

I need a drink.

You could also try a different deck. The older the deck the better. Any deck made in the last 15 years doesn't have very good LP support.

Perhaps a full frame TBC might work better, try a D8 camera/deck if you can get one.
When things get REALLY bad with VHS on certain things Motion Blur can do wonders (or not!!). I once pulled a talking head back from the dead with this. Only the lips were moving so I masked them with no MB over thhe rest of the frame with lots of MD which killed the noise and the line tearing.
You can do quite a bit with Vegas to restore things but nothing beats first off getting the cleanest possible signal in analogue land.
Bob.

"LP was an abomination -- a mathematical contrivance to introduce something in between SP and SLP to meet the "consumer demands." In short, it just didn't work."

Hmmmm.... I'd think LP would more likely qualify as a "legacy" recording/playback speed, as it actually came before the advent of SLP. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that it was instrumental in winning the format wars with Beta, because it offered additional recording time over Beta, at a time when tapes were very costly.

When I bought my first VCR ($1059) in 1979, they were mechanically-tuned, 2 speed (2 & 4 hour) machines, with a wired remote pause control. And a decent sale price for a single T120 tape was - gulp - $25!!! (And remember, these $ values are in 1970 dollars!) The fact that LP would generally allow you to fit 2 full movies on a tape made the VCR a very good buy, in my estimation.

I do agree, however, that LP on machines made after SLP (and 4-head machines) came along was generally some kind of compromise. As you've no doubt noted, many (most?) VCRs made today won't even record at the LP speed.