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VHS to digital
- Thread starter Tech198
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You do not need a TV tuner, just something with RCA inputs. Check out something like the ADVC 110. Note that it requires Firewire. Also you should be aware that, no matter what, the quality will never look better than VHS, since that is the originating format.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814144214
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814144214
S-VHS Can Make a Big Difference
You should definitely capture over firewire. I've tried bunches of USB adapters and they compress the video to MPEG on capture in most cases. MPEG is alright for delivery, but encoding in realtime at the consumer level is shoddy at best.
Using a VCR that supports S-VHS and has SVideo output will drastically improve your digital conversion. SVideo separates your Luminance and Chroma channels to effectively double the bandwidth for your Video signal.
The ADVC110 is nice, but if you're looking for the best bang for buck, the ADVC300 includes line timebase correction that I've found makes your VHS material look much better on big screen TVs. The ADVC300 also holds it's value well when sold used, so you can pick one up, use it for your capture job, then sell it on ebay for $50.00 less.
You should definitely capture over firewire. I've tried bunches of USB adapters and they compress the video to MPEG on capture in most cases. MPEG is alright for delivery, but encoding in realtime at the consumer level is shoddy at best.
Using a VCR that supports S-VHS and has SVideo output will drastically improve your digital conversion. SVideo separates your Luminance and Chroma channels to effectively double the bandwidth for your Video signal.
The ADVC110 is nice, but if you're looking for the best bang for buck, the ADVC300 includes line timebase correction that I've found makes your VHS material look much better on big screen TVs. The ADVC300 also holds it's value well when sold used, so you can pick one up, use it for your capture job, then sell it on ebay for $50.00 less.
What recordings do you want to convert? Are they truly interlaced needing 3:2 pulldown (the case of 24p movies broadcast as 29.97p in NTSC countries) or full deinterlacing (TV shows, direct TV sport broadcasts, docus, recordings you've made with your video camera etc. - mostly everything not a traditional 24p movie).
If you do need deinterlacing, just make sure you don't use any kind of on-the-fly deinterlacing because they all suck (blend / odd / even / drop-frame). Better, convert to an interlaced-friendly format like the above-recommended DV and run a proper deinterlacer (e.g., AviSynth's TempGuassMC_beta(), MCBob, TempGaussMC, and Yadifmod+NNEDI. Let me know if you need more info on proper(!) deinterlacing.)