Old Analog Tape to Digital

fanningp wrote on 6/26/2002, 12:43 PM

Hi Everyone....

All these discussions about D to A and A to D jolted me into a question. I have a VERY old VHS tape of flight ops, news storys, commissioning material that I edited together in the TV station aboard the carrier THEODORE ROOSEVELT way back around 1989.

I want to save this material and edit it even further (and possible edit out my ex wife :)).

Trouble is.....I get MASSIVE amounts of dropped frames. I have a Gateway P4 with plenty of DEDICATED disk, defrag regularly, and don't have anything running that doesn't need to be there in the background. I am using a Dazzle Hollywood Bridge to do the conversion.

Any recommendations on the direction I should go with this tape?

Pete

Comments

CharlesUK wrote on 6/26/2002, 1:17 PM

Hi Pete
Here in the UK there have been mixed results with the bridge,some good some bad.

If you have access to a DV camera \ vcr with analogue in, make a DV copy and try that,i've done over a 100+ hours of footage for clients here,not one bad feedback (touch wood)
regards
Charles

fanningp wrote on 6/26/2002, 1:22 PM

Hmmm...you've given me an idea.......something to try anyway....Thanks!

Pete

Former user wrote on 6/26/2002, 2:46 PM

A bad quality older tape will cause a lot of dropped frames. If possible, dub the tapes to another tape through a time base corrector (some vcr's have them) and see if you can load the copies.

Dave T2

fanningp wrote on 6/26/2002, 5:11 PM

Yeah...duh....Charles pointed that out to me as well.....Hellllo....I need to wake up :)

Pete

Chienworks wrote on 6/26/2002, 5:11 PM

Or better yet, if at all possible, connect a TBC between the VCR and the Dazzle without dubbing to another copy. Also look into the Canopus ADVC-100 converter, reported to be vastly superior to the Dazzle unit.

rwsjr wrote on 6/26/2002, 5:24 PM

I successfully converted a video tape from 1982 with my my Canopus ADVC 100. The resulting quality was equal to the input. The original tape was recorded in LP mode and is showing its age. However, overall, it's not that bad.

On a side note, this was the first VHS tape I ever purchased--it cost $15.00 and I used it quite a bit until I recorded something I wanted to keep. The tape once held the orignial broadcast of Super Bowl XVI.

Good luck

SonyDennis wrote on 6/27/2002, 9:34 AM

In the manual to the the PROMAX DA-MAX+ they talk about different settings depending on how bad your source material is. You can loosen up the sync settings to accept bad old VHS but there's some tradeoff. If you have a pro deck going into it, they recommend tightening up the sync settings so you don't have the tradeoff (perhapd it was color fidelity, I don't remember).

So, the suggestion to insert a TBC is right-on, most likely your A/D box is losing sync and tossing the frame. A different A/D box might also do a better job.

Also, be aware that the Dazzle creates bogus timecode, which used to confuse VidCap. In 3.0b, we've changed VidCap to ignore timecode when device control is disabled. In other words, you might not actually have dropped frames, but some might have been reported. Inspect the actual captured video and see how it looks.

///d@

jboy wrote on 6/27/2002, 3:09 PM

I believe analog tapes are automatically time base corrected when they go thru the A/D transcoding process in a DV camera. That's why my Hi-8 tapes look better played on my dig8 than they do on the camera they were shot on. Unless you have tons of bucks to burn, dig8 cameras offer the same qualitative transcoding abilities as all the devices under discussioon, plus you get a very versatile camcorder for only a few hundred dollars more.