VHS [And other Analog Formats] and computers (re: capturing)

[RUN FOR YOUR LIVES]

I'm trying to figure out how to get video footage off my VHS tapes [and back on, for A-Kon submission]. What hardware is reccommended?

[jonmartensen]

So you want to transfer from one VHS tape to another?

That would simply require to tape decks. Play a tape in one, and record it with the other.

[SS5_Majin_Bebi]

So you want to transfer from one VHS tape to another?

That would simply require to tape decks. Play a tape in one, and record it with the other.

Nooo, he wants to capture his footage, make an AMV, and then run THAT back to VHS. For the capturing, get a capture card (obviously)

For getting the footage back to VHS, you have a few options. Either getting a video card with Video-Out, hooking that to a VCR, putting a tape in, hitting "Record" and pushing the play button on your media file, or making a VCD or SVCD of your file/s, getting a DVD player, connecting it to a VCR, pushing "Play" on the DVD player and "Record" on the VCR. (this is alot easier with DVD+VCR combos, they have a "Copy" button, and its an Internal process which means....no annoying cables all over the place! )

[jonmartensen]

Ohhh. If you get a capture card, make sure you also have video out on it.

The SVCD method doesn't give as good a quallity.

[tomj]

I'm trying to figure out how to get video footage off my VHS tapes [and back on, for A-Kon submission]. What hardware is reccommended?

Older: if you can find a Pinnacle/Miro DC30 or Matrox G400 Marvel (not one any later, but any G-series Marvel or Millennium graphics card with Rainbow Runner add-on, or indeed *any* Matrox card with the Rainbow Runner), these will serve you well. They are MJPEG capture cards, dealing with de/compression on the card (up to a point) which means basic cuts editing is lossless, and if you capture at around 1.5-2MB sec then recompression for effects shouldn't be too painful, though compositing involving fades and/or black levels will leave visible artifacts behind. You should be able to find one of these cheap. Caveat: though Matrox have apparently sorted drivers out for Win2K and XP, Pinnacle never did, and for long-form capture, or even capture that isn't likely to drop frames, you'll need Win98, as Miro only did Video for Windows drivers for that OS, and VirtualDub doesn't support the DirectShow interface that newer cards use. Moreover the DC30 doesn't, I believe, have drivers that work with any application apart from their own, under Win2K.

Newer: a number of graphics cards (such as recent ATIs) come with video capture and if your CPU is fast enough you can use either Pegasys' MJPEG codec or HuffYUV to compress while you're capturing. A *lot* of CPU power will be needed for that. Alternatively, many cards also offer MPEG de/compression - but bear in mind that if they capture IBP MPEG (ie. with keyframes and two different types of delta frames) then *any* editing is going involve one recompression on output, and compositing will become two or three generations. MPEG is lossy and intended for distribution only, so your kilometreage *will* vary.

Newest: if you have Firewire, and either have disk space to burn or are intending to only capture short segments (which is what I used to do with the Marvel I had, since I didn't have much disk space) then you can use one of the standalone DV codecs, such as the Canopus ADVC100 to compress video externally to the DV format. This has the same generational advantage that MJPEG has - cuts are lossless. The quality is fixed, at 720x480 for NTSC, and pretty damn good, though any fine detail may well suffer as the codec struggles with the noise of VHS.

HTH. HAND.

[RUN FOR YOUR LIVES]

And I should be able to find most of this stuff in any Circuit City, Radioshack, Best Buy, ect?

[tomj]

And I should be able to find most of this stuff in any Circuit City, Radioshack, Best Buy, ect?

I can't tell if that's sarcasm or not. I answered the question you asked - if what you meant was "What should I get that's easy to source?" I'd have answered that.

If it wasn't sarcasm - you will find the cheap and cheerful graphics cards in the sorts of places you mention, possibly along with the Canopus devices. The rest you'll have to hunt for, and probably get second-hand.

[RUN FOR YOUR LIVES]

I wasn't being sarcastic, just making sure. Arigato for your qassistance.

[tomj]

I wasn't being sarcastic, just making sure. Arigato for your qassistance.

Ah. In that case you're welcome. ^_^