I've inherited around 50 old S-VHS (Super VHS) tapes from my family and I'm looking forward to digitizing them. While I've come across several YouTube tutorials on VHS-to-digital conversion, I'm struggling to locate one that focuses on S-Video transfers. I'm familiar with the budget adapters on Amazon and the Elgato dongles, but my aim is to achieve the highest possible quality. At the moment, I'm equipped with a n S-VHS player and an Elgato HD60 X. My initial idea was to route from the S-Video output to one of the StarTech upscalers, but feedback about these devices is mixed. My eventual plan is to use the OBS Software for deinterlacing the footage. Has anyone tried this setup or can share insights?
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What is the best way to convert S-VHS (analog) to digital?
- Thread starter Pbwj
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I am currently using a bulk standard USB dongle to capture my VHS. I purchased one that specifically works with mac computers. The software I used for the mac is OBS and it works well BUT for the best quality for VHS transfer to digital (computer) I am lucky enough to have kept one of my old desktop computers that has a dedicated TV/Capture card in it made by Hauppauge and in my opinion it has produced the best quality output.
Using OBS in the mac gives me so much more control over the VHS capture but for me personally I am more interested in the closest one to one copy of VHS and the PCI capture card does that perfectly for me, more so than a usb dongle could. I do know there are many many video capture devices out there and have not had the need to buy many of them over the years because I still have a video capture device that works very well and serves my purpose hence why I have not bought anything newer or up to date.
If I want to enhance my VHS captured video someone many years ago put me onto a video/picture enhance company called Topaz Labs. I tried a demo of the software and was blown away at the quality of the VHS video, it super enhanced it. I was amazed. I have tried other video enhancers but have not found anything that comes close to Topaz Labs. The only downside is their AI enhance software is very expensive and as yet have not be able to afford it but one of these days I will and will then be converting a lot of old VHS converted video's
oh and remember, when doing analog to digital conversions, the volume level is ALWAYS reduced because of the way analog to digital works.
Using OBS in the mac gives me so much more control over the VHS capture but for me personally I am more interested in the closest one to one copy of VHS and the PCI capture card does that perfectly for me, more so than a usb dongle could. I do know there are many many video capture devices out there and have not had the need to buy many of them over the years because I still have a video capture device that works very well and serves my purpose hence why I have not bought anything newer or up to date.
If I want to enhance my VHS captured video someone many years ago put me onto a video/picture enhance company called Topaz Labs. I tried a demo of the software and was blown away at the quality of the VHS video, it super enhanced it. I was amazed. I have tried other video enhancers but have not found anything that comes close to Topaz Labs. The only downside is their AI enhance software is very expensive and as yet have not be able to afford it but one of these days I will and will then be converting a lot of old VHS converted video's
oh and remember, when doing analog to digital conversions, the volume level is ALWAYS reduced because of the way analog to digital works.
I do have a spare old Mac Pro that has a firewire input. However, to pass analog to the firewire input I would need a capture device that has analog in and Firewire out. I found such device like Canopus ADVC-100 but seems to not support OS X+. I also heard about XRGB-mini Framemeister, which I could technically use with my Elgato HD60 but it doesn't seem to support Macs. The search continues...
That is why for VHS capture I specifically went for a windows based computer because there just way way much more video capture hardware and software that supports windows than it does the mac. Don't get me wrong, there is hardware and software that is mac supported but is costs way way much more than windows hardware and software for the same video quality results.
My current mac machine I use for VHS transfer is a 2015 iMac i5 using a mac supported USB video capture dongle I got from Amazon and using the freely available OBS software to record the video capture.
The USB Elgato Video Capture dongle should do it, keeping in mind you'll need to also used the included app for the capture process. Alternatively, if you can find an older Canon or Sony DV camcorder that has S-video input/output and analog-to-digital passthrough, you could also use that, connected to the Mac via FireWire (if it's a 2012-present Mac, this will probably require a FireWire-to-Thunderbolt adapter, also may need to be daisy-chained to a Thunderbolt 2-to-3 adapter). Then you can import the footage using iMovie or Final Cut Pro or any other Mac video software supporting DV capture. I have a Sony DCR-TRV320 Digital8 camcorder that allows analog-to-digital passthrough via S-Video (and if you have analog Video8 or Hi-8 cassettes you can digitize those using the Digital8 camcorder through the FireWire connection with virtually no hassle).