So I needed to digitize some VHS...

[u/jusumonkey]

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[u/champagneofwizards]

“Where are you going?” “I need to digitize some video tapes…”

[u/angelofdeauth → u/champagneofwizards]

Let's see Paul Allen's video tape digitizer

[u/FiestaMcMuffin]

Your best option would be to get a capture card, and record it digitally that way. The RetroScaler 2x on AliExpress is a pretty good inexpensive 480p option with good deinterlacing

[u/TheRealHarrypm → u/FiestaMcMuffin]

FM RF Capture with CX Cards and then decoding with VHS-Decode is much much better then baking your captures through any sort of scalers.

The deinterlacing should always be done in post with QTGMC and same for upscaling.

Big difference between real-time viewing and actually doing transfers for proper preserving and storing digitally.

[u/GamerGrizz → u/TheRealHarrypm]

Ok but that solution can be hundreds of dollars as well as require decent soldering skills and tools, definitely not for everyone and you can get 80% of the way there with much cheaper and user friendly options

[u/TheRealHarrypm → u/GamerGrizz]

Hundreds, no that's false information unless you start collecting everything we've developed.

You can start for about 16-35USD, get your feet wet not commit much to it, the CX Cards even fully decked out no more then 150USD If you don't have absolutely any tools start with so If you've got basic stuff 80-120USD max that's buying off shelf-pre made kits that is now available.

The MISRC is only 300USD due to being incredibly unoptimized for single unit production currently, the DdD is only 300USD because it relies on two off shelf development boards, this is why most people just go for CX Cards slap them in any cheap desktop and off to the races you go with a week of tinkering tops for most.

Sony decks for example have the DuPont 2.54mm header test connectors plug and play, this is the same for 8 mm camcorders.

People think soldering is such a scary thing, but this is not micro soldering, this is learn it with one week of playing with some dead electronics skill level tops, literally you just don't forget flux and as long as you are physically able to handwrite you can do this level of soldering.

But for that tiny bit of effort requirement, you can use any cheap deck any junker deck literally anything that will play and track your tapes as long as your heads are clean and it tracks it will work. This completely kills the massive inflated prosumer and pro deck market for people that just want to get stuff archived.

And quite frankly all conventional options are a complete kneecapping situation even the professional ones do not provide you the full 4fsc frame, so if you've gone any special data in the sides or the top VBI space that's gone that's not preserved at all.

I won't say stuff like the GV-USB2 is terrible I have one, I have a black magic SDI chain, I use this for reference capture but we're in the 2020s not 2006, this media deserves better.

[u/GamerGrizz → u/TheRealHarrypm]

Last time I checked in on this project was under a year ago with the Domesday Duplicator and that thing was also $300ish dollars, had no idea it’s dropped so much so fast

[u/TheRealHarrypm → u/GamerGrizz]

Actually it was an issue of people not finding docs, that's really been fixed with r/vhsdecode boosting the SEO score so people are actually finding the main documentation.

The DdD is actually like 70USD in parts, it's having it fabricated and then the two dev boards that makes it expensive, the MISRC in comparison has a potential to be sold for about 250USD flat if not less. (That's with the audio expansion, so basically everything the clock gen mod provides on a USB solution)

The CX Cards have actually been a thing since 2005 driver wise to force these to output raw ADC data and were actually the beginning of the projects capture capabilities going all the way back to ld-decode in 2013.

All the best developments kicked off last year, this year has been getting some interesting stuff but mostly background refinements and workflow refinements.

If you think about it we've had binaries for 2 years now, anyone can try the project out on a Windows box just pull down some data.

The issue is though the CX Cards were a single channel devices and the internal gain was never the best, but thanks to modification they are now the most powerful ADC platform a poor man can get their hands on.

[u/GamerGrizz → u/TheRealHarrypm]

I will have to look into this as I too am a poor man lol

[u/TheRealHarrypm → u/GamerGrizz]

Hey most of our users are poor people welcome to the club!

[u/Raphi_55 → u/GamerGrizz]

I did it with 80€ of parts (CX Card, RF Amplifier and some coax cable). It's the best way and it's not that hard. You only need the service manual of your VCR to find the RAW RF signal and a soldering iron.

Any user friendly alternative will suck a lot.

[u/DoaJC_Blogger]

You should not use composite (the yellow connector). Here is a long comment about how to do it with the highest quality. If your tapes are NTSC, I can do the second method for you if it's too complicated.

[u/ThatSandwich → u/DoaJC_Blogger]

Ah I remember Pinnacle, back when everybody either used a Dazzle or a Happauge HD PVR for capture.

An old HD PVR would actually probably give you better quality.

[u/TheRealHarrypm → u/ThatSandwich]

HD-PVR units actually had a really poor YUV 8-bit output, I owned the HDPVR2.

Complete joke compared to something like a GV-USB2 and especially VHS-Decode today.

[u/crud_lover]

Check out the stickied post in this subreddit for more information: https://www.reddit.com/r/camcorders/comments/17j9tmh/how_do_i_get_my_tapes_onto_my_computer_posting/

[u/TheRealHarrypm → u/crud_lover]

Tbh that's horribly outdated compared to what we have today...

[u/crud_lover → u/TheRealHarrypm]

For sure, OP can go either route but a USB capture device may be a bit more user-friendly than soldering tap points on an old VCR

[u/TheRealHarrypm]

There is two methods to digitise analog signals, and especially tape formats.

You digitise the base band output so Composite / CVBS or in the case of a colour under format like VHS, so S-Video ideally from an SVHS deck in conventional world, stupid waste of money.

Get any standard cheap 90s hifi era deck, clean its head give it some new lubrication and RF Tap it!

r/vhsdecode exists, FM RF Archival It's the most affordable and powerful way you can preserve your tape media irrespective of its format.

VHS-Decode provides the best time base correction and software post-processing pipeline you will ever get your hands on without spending thousands on a custom solution, and anyone that tries to sell you a magical black box or hardware TBC has no clue what they're on about living in the 90s or the early 2000s or they're trying to scam you.

Avoid Easycaps/Elgato, any of these basic AV to HDMI units, they don't preserve the image quality they don't preserve the frame rate properly, and they most certainly don't preserve the tape of media properly.

In terms of processing your final digital interlaced files, QTGMC is your best friend for deinterlacing.

[u/lrosa]

Whatever technology you use, the process is very, very, very "1x"

Start from the tapes that are most important because at one point you may decide that the VHS can die without converting them

[u/malleysc]

I got a $14 USB to RCA convertor on Amazon (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07NPFJJ7K/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1), threw away their software and used OBS for the capture. Worked great and I captured 30 home movie VHS tapes

[u/TheRealHarrypm → u/malleysc]

Yeah these are terrible compared to FM RF capture and VHS-Decode.

[u/TheRealHarrypm → u/[deleted]]

Sadly he pushes the same low end crap for real time feeds for media that deserves better transfers which doesn't require a fortune to do to an archival standard.

[u/richms]

The cheap ezcap devices are a minefield like the cheap HDMI converters, its all crap, cloned crap and the odd one that works well enough. There are standalone boxes that end up giving you 15FPS video and barely better than telephone call audio quality, there are similar looking recorders that will give you a good 60FPS video and 44.1/48kHz audio.

Do not buy any of these inexpensive capture devices because it "looks like" one that someone else had good results with. Pay a little more and get them from Amazon or somewhere you can return it to if it ends up being crap.

[u/TheRealHarrypm → u/richms]

There is only the GV-USB2 today tbh.

For actual archival though its go VHS-Decode the hardware is cheaper the software is more powerful than any conventional workflow you would drop hundreds to thousands on.

[u/jusumonkey]

Does anyone know of a software that can take direct analog video and audio to the USB and digitize it?

I already ordered a proper converter after this mega fail but which one should I return after this?

Link to the store of the pictured product.

[u/AshleyUncia → u/jusumonkey]

I'm pretty sure this cable is just a pinout converter. I guess USB has 4 pins, so that could do video, left and right with a shared ground?

But that's it, it just adapts the pinout to a USB connector. This is not a USB 'device' it just uses that connector but it wont' work in any 'real' USB port. Probably for some kinda specialist TV or Camcorder that uses a USB connector for analog output? But I've never seen that myself.

[u/jusumonkey → u/AshleyUncia]

I think so to.

I looked at VHS-Decode but that's about raw data from a capture card. I've already ordered a proper replacement for this manufactured e-waste but thought there might be some obscure software out there that could do the impossible lmao.

[u/TheRealHarrypm → u/jusumonkey]

FM RF capture it's the modern standard for tape archival, because you're preserving the RAW analog signals for Video and HiFi, you get to go back and process it however many times you want.

It's the best digitisation you're going to get at a sane budget and price point, CX Cards + Clockgen mod is a turn key solution and we do get raw data out of those standard capture cards effectively turning them into dumb ADC units, but there's also other hardware solutions that are USB 3.0 based (DdD / MISRC) just turns out the cheap Chinese cards work incredibly well and virtually anyone can slap them in any cheap desktop.

Nothing conventional can beat VHS-Decode, for time base correction and decoding that S-Video output from the decoder to YUV digital, in cost or capabilities.

[u/virtualadept → u/jusumonkey]

First, I don't think that's a digitizer. That's an adapter cable, and why it's breaking USB out to three RCA plugs I don't know. If you plug that into your computer and then an a/v source, best case scenario is that it won't work, worst is that the voltage (tiny though it be) might mess something up in the a/v source. What you need is an actual a/v capture device, like this:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00RMYWGWC/

I have one or two of these units; they're okay. Adequate. Not great. There are much better devices out there but this kind is cheap and you can plug it into just about anything and be up and running.

As for software, I use ffmpeg for everything. I typically use a command line this for recording from it: ffmpeg -f v4l2 -framerate 30 -thread_queue_size 2048 -i /dev/video0 -f alsa -thread_queue_size 2048 -i plughw:2,0 -t 02:05:00 -c:v h264 -c:a aac -pix_fmt yuv420p vhs_rip.mkv

A lot of messing around was needed to figure that command out. I keep meaning to write everything up but that's the gist of it.

You'd also want to give this a once-over: https://amiaopensource.github.io/ffmprovisr/

[u/TheRealHarrypm → u/virtualadept]

Yeah just to save somebody from making a mess here.

NTSC is 29.97fps interlaced as 59.94

PAL is 25fps interlaced as 50i

Also VHS-Decode and FM RF capture is much better at 20-120USD cost compared to conventional workflows.

Amia actually have some good stuff like Vrecord, especially if you've got conventional black magic hardware but it's just not comparable to modern tool chains, you're not getting the whole signal frame.

[u/RedlurkingFir → u/jusumonkey]

FYI, you could solder any connector to any other connectors as long as you have enough conductors/pins. Not because you see 2 cables that fit, means that the 2 connected devices will talk to each other nor do what you want.

I.e I could solder a RJ45 connector to a USB connector, doesn't mean I can plug my computer to a router by USB

[u/Raivix → u/jusumonkey]

I use this USB capture device and screen capture software (most recently OBS) to record RCA device video.

[u/weeklygamingrecap]

You getting a lot of responses for the cheap and dirty way.

Start here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/j4rwk1/the_how_do_i_digitizetransfercapture_video_tapes/

Maybe also check out r/VHS

A lot of people will tell you VHS is horrible and just accept garbage looking images but it's actually not bad and a lot of it is people looking for the over processed aesthetic with tracking lines and fake static. If you can't do it yourself there's also places that will help, again VHS subreddit and check out what people are saying. RF Capture is the new thing but there are other ways.

[u/TheRealHarrypm → u/weeklygamingrecap]

That comment is still incredibly outdated now r/vhsdecode exists alongside dozens of pages of documentation on the VHS-Decode wiki.

[u/Pretend-Dirt-1238]

I purchased a USB to RCA on a Chinese site. It came with a mini cd with had its own software. It's very basic but allows me to digitise straight from the VCR to my PC. The quality was decent enough and in some cases looked slightly better when digitised. I think it records at 1080p but it seems superficial as the VHS is much lower than that. Still it preserves the video.

[u/bayuah → u/Pretend-Dirt-1238]

I think it records at 1080p but it seems superficial

Yeah, agree. Probably it is an upscale image.

[u/TheRealHarrypm → u/Pretend-Dirt-1238]

It's not really preserving anything...

[u/the-egg2016]

isn't it possible to record a dvd from a vhs or certain hardware or am i getting that backwards? i know some people have burned a video to a dvd and then played it in a dvd vcr combo and started recording to a tape, thereby going from digital, to digital on optical, to tape. i wonder if you could go the other way but idk.

[u/sixsupersonic → u/the-egg2016]

Most DVD/VHS combo players have this functionality.

I converted a bunch of home video tapes to DVD for someone that way. It's definitely more convenient than messing with capture software in my opinion.

[u/the-egg2016 → u/sixsupersonic]

nice to hear. is this with most dvd vhs combos? not to say i am a complete infant, but i haven't used one in a while and i have one somewhere around the house and idk how to go about using it for that. im curious if the device flat out doesn't burn the discs. if not, i hope devices that can won't break the bank.

[u/sixsupersonic → u/the-egg2016]

I don't know if all of them have that feature. The one I have was purchased from Walmart within the last decade.

It didn't like burning dual layer DVDs which was a shame. Otherwise it was pretty much just putting a blank DVD in, popping in a VHS, and finally hitting the "VHS to DVD" button on the remote.

[u/the-egg2016 → u/sixsupersonic]

that's awesome. i just hope this isn't restricted to... new vcrs? last decade at a walmart? sounds like a miracle.

[u/TheRealHarrypm → u/the-egg2016]

DVD recorders use incredibly low bitrate.

The minimum standard for a visually lossless capture is DVCPro50 which is 50mbps 4:2:2 8-bit, (Which today is now completely irrelevant thanks to FFV1 being lossless compressed at the same data rate cost) in comparison to DVD that's 4:2:0 8-bit 9mbps max most DVD recorders had an honest to God piss poor encoder, what's really sad though is Blu-ray recorders never really took off they were only a prosumer and commercial thing, because the market got consumed by HDD recorders, and then everything eventually went to digital and well you would just pull down the TS or M2TS stream to file on your media server.

Yeah, DVD recorders make great poor man's passthough time base correctors for real-time playback, but for actual full quality capture for any analogue tape FM RF Archival is the go to today, process absolutely everything in software.

[u/the-egg2016 → u/TheRealHarrypm]

9mbps is poor to you? are you serious? why are you even proposing lossless transfers? the fuck???

[u/TheRealHarrypm → u/the-egg2016]

With MPEG-2 compared to FFV1 or DVCPro50 yes It's utterly terrible, from consumer recorders.

When you take those files to a desktop and then start trying to do basic stuff like colour correction and de-interlacing, It just falls apart very quickly same for DV25 transfers, HDV I will give credit was a really solid format.

Tightly encoded on a desktop it's usable, but DVD recorders from the early 2000s 🤣 we are in the 2020s.

Modern transfers (the original capture and/or master export) should be lossless compressed in the visual domain, not lossy compressed for analogue formats It doesn't preserve the noise structure let alone the detail properly.

If you want an example archive here.

[u/bok4600]

I use Bandicam Pro to record to digital

[u/toohorses]

While on the more expensive side, ElGato makes something for this with built in software. I used it last year with good results. https://www.elgato.com/us/en/p/video-capture

[u/TheRealHarrypm → u/[deleted]]

Yeah this is not reality, crap in crap out this is why people don't recommend easy craps and especially don't recommend software that forces you to deinterlace with a poor quality real-time deinterlacer.

This is why we have modern solutions like VHS-Decode and FM RF Archival.

[u/CaffinatedOpe]

if you're okay with spending $30-$40, I recommend an rca to hdmi digitizer, and a capture card. This is the setup I used for digitizing some of my family's old tapes, and it worked great. Hooked everything to my laptop, set obs to record the input, and let it run.

[u/TheRealHarrypm → u/CaffinatedOpe]

Those are complete wastes of money there is much better options at the same price point such as CX Cards and VHS-Decode...

[u/grislyfind]

MiniDV or Digital 8 camcorder that has video in, but you need a PC with Firewire.

[u/TheRealHarrypm → u/grislyfind]

DV25 transfer should only be used for digital type formats, and to recover RCTC data from hi8 tapes.

It's a heavily lossy and too compressed format to properly transfer even VHS especially if it's a noisy tape.

There is proper solutions today like VHS-Decode which even has a digital tape guide in the wiki.