Need help digitzing VHS tapes

[Lazarus23]

I bought this cheap Chinese capture converter and the problem with it is that it's losing me a lot of frames (~10% of footage) and the audio captured is of terrible quality.

The tapes are not damaged and are in good condition, plays perfectly on tv.

I tried using many different capture software like virtualdub, virtual vcr, software that came in the disk, etc.. Same results.

Do you guys know a better hardware solution? I really need highest quality possible.

[ItsTheDuckAgain]

had the same problem ages ago - this was the solution: Diamond Video Capture VC500

[Lazarus23]

1 hour ago, ItsTheDuckAgain said:

had the same problem ages ago - this was the solution: Diamond Video Capture VC500

Damn 35 bucks on amazon.

 

Need more opinions.

[.spider.]

Did you try ffmpeg?

[Unimportant]

Dropped frames could be related to:

-Too aggressive compression for your CPU. To save disk space, many capture applications compress the video on the fly, your system must be able to keep up. Try a lower compression, or no compression at all like we did back in the day, but that puts a bigger load on the hard disk, which brings us to...

-Storage system not keeping up. Is your hard disk fast enough to keep writing everything away in real time ? Are there no other processes using the hard disk? 

 

Or, it could just be a crappy capture device...

[Lazarus23]

7 hours ago, Unimportant said:

Dropped frames could be related to:

-Too aggressive compression for your CPU. To save disk space, many capture applications compress the video on the fly, your system must be able to keep up. Try a lower compression, or no compression at all like we did back in the day, but that puts a bigger load on the hard disk, which brings us to...

-Storage system not keeping up. Is your hard disk fast enough to keep writing everything away in real time ? Are there no other processes using the hard disk? 

 

Or, it could just be a crappy capture device...

It's just a crappy capture device, I have a high end gaming pc with ssd so slow system isn't an issue. The device captures lossless as default so no compression.

[Lazarus23]

9 hours ago, .spider. said:

Did you try ffmpeg?

Yes, same results.

[Donut417]

On 2/16/2017 at 8:15 AM, Lazarus23 said:

I bought this cheap Chinese capture converter and the problem with it is that it's losing me a lot of frames (~10% of footage) and the audio captured is of terrible quality.

The tapes are not damaged and are in good condition, plays perfectly on tv.

I tried using many different capture software like virtualdub, virtual vcr, software that came in the disk, etc.. Same results.

Do you guys know a better hardware solution? I really need highest quality possible.

What are on the tapes? Family Videos or Copyrighted movies? If its Family videos then you can look at a service like Yes Video. I used to work at Sams Club and this was the service we used when people needed videos digitized. I dont remember costs and it can take a hot min for them to do it, but it might be a better way. 

[.spider.]

On 2/19/2017 at 8:03 PM, Lazarus23 said:

Yes, same results.

Did you increase the rtbufsize? 

[Lazarus23]

On 2017-03-18 at 5:05 AM, Donut417 said:

What are on the tapes? Family Videos or Copyrighted movies? If its Family videos then you can look at a service like Yes Video. I used to work at Sams Club and this was the service we used when people needed videos digitized. I dont remember costs and it can take a hot min for them to do it, but it might be a better way. 

it's family videos, I don't live in US though.

[Lazarus23]

On 2017-03-18 at 9:13 AM, .spider. said:

Did you increase the rtbufsize? 

Not sure if I really had that option..

[.spider.]

4 hours ago, Lazarus23 said:

Not sure if I really had that option..

I don't know why not.

Should work with all direct show devices and you just have to add something like "-rtbufsize 800000000" to your existing command line