I know this is pretty stupid, but I had wanted to first check some video tapes I've got on the way from Japan - thing is, region difference with the tapes being NTSC and my I'm in a PAL region (Australia) so can't exactly check properly on my old, old VCR (which may not even work still by now). Would anyone have any recommendations? I'd like to convert a couple later on once I've gone through the 30 or so tapes but I've no idea how exactly to go about it. If anyone had any recommended capture stuff or anything of the sort, I'd really appreciate it if it was either posted or sent via PM to me as I'm stumped on this one.
You HAVE to have a machine that will do NTSC playback - no two ways about it. Whether that's an imported machine from Japan or a later PAL machine that supports NTSC playback (they were usually marked as such) is up to you. Any capture card will get some sort of picture off it - you'd get reasonable results from an old, cheap WinTV type card. Just connect an S-video cable between the VCR and capture card. You could use composite, but the results won't be as good. If you want to capture modern stuff (e.g. 360), then you could invest in something like the Hauppauge HD PVR. Here are some results: Overview (VHS) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2Zbv5KJHuI VHS http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmx6riwReuU Xbox 360 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCz5qj1AwJ0
Heh, us Americans could built a boat raiding enough thrift shops for NTSC machines and no one would miss them.
Ah, thank you Retro. I had asked Keiji about it and he had found a piece mentioning that using a PAL one supporting NTSC wouldn't be likely to be supported with most capture cards so it's looking like I'll have to import a VCR from America. I'm just stuck with a laptop currently as my computer got trashed a while ago and I haven't felt like building a new one yet (seeing as I'm probably moving over to America at some point - bit redundant to do it here in Australia), do you think that using something like the WinTV ones you mentioned that the end result would be decent enough for me to upscale the video slightly? I'm really only needing to capture 2 to possibly 5 (unless I come across a few more promo tapes relative to my interest) tapes to document and include in a media section for my work-in-progress site.
Yeah I doubt Japan or America will be much difference at entry level. Assuming the Japanese have fancier luxury players but I have no idea about VCR models!
I personally use a DVD recorder to copy any VHS tape I own. It's a lot easier to do it that way (for me at least) and then you can just copy the .VOBs to your computer and re-encode if necessary.
I used to like the Panasonic VCR's back in the day, they always seemed to beat JVC at their own game. Have a look out for any cheap S-VHS machines as they're more likely to play NTSC tapes, plus they'll have an S-Video output and useful features like a digital timebase corrector (TBC). I don't think any of the PAL machines will reproduce true NTSC (NTSC 3.58MHz), more likely a modified version of NTSC (NTSC 4.43MHz) to make the colour information compatible with older TV's. There were a few 'World Standard' VCR's which convert the signal to whatever you want, but these are still expensive and not really worth bothering with unless you are copying a lot of tapes.
Me and Dot50Cal both used specific types of LG DVD/VHS combo drives. They produce pretty darned good (and clean) results when transferring from VHS to DVD. Only thing they don't like is SECAM, but NTSC/PAL differences is not a problem (can get a bit dicky with macrovision protected stuff). (It'll also record NTSC footage as NTSC, rather than converting the framerate and scaling the res.) The LG combo drives also have a built in hardware deinterlacer, but it's only used for playback (of course). Either way, if you don't like DVD quality or get stopped by Macrovision, most models of these drives have component out, but the more recent ones also had HDMI, so you can leech off the (optional) deinterlacer and everything if you're going that route. All VHS footage I've ever put up on facebook or elsewhere has been done directly with the unit itself and ripped from the DVD transfer. Only thing I can recommend as a better alternative is if you find one of those studio VHS players with either S-video or component out and a manual tracking wheel and all that jazz. Some of those can produce some pretty delicious picture from analog sources if you know how to play around with them properly.
If you don't mind Lamont, I'd like to post what I mentioned to you over PM. I want to contribute to this topic for others to get some ideas too. I used AVerMedia HDDVR PCI-Express, an HD capture device that I installed into my PC. It comes with a dongle that I can connect a Composite, S-Video, or Component cable source to. I found it at Newegg.com for about $100 US dollars. I'm getting my moneys worth, but so far it's got some issues. For one it's got no hardware encoder, which means capturing is done entirely through the CPU, and you need a strong one (preferably a quad/multi-core processor, which I have) to attain good capturing performance. The other is interlacing, but it's not a huge deal since you can use other programs to record with. If you're interested, give the card a look. Though you may want to read through the feedback on that particular card. Someone posted that there are some DVD/VCR combos with HDMI ports in them wouldn't let him capture, citing some copy protection or other bullshit. That blows my mind. I once used those EasyCap USB devices before for my mid-earlier videos in the past, but they went crappy after a while so I had to switch to something more flexible and tangible. That HDDVR is something else.
Ah, so one like this one would probably be perfectly fine? http://dicksmith.com.au/product/GH6905/lg-dvd-recorder-amp-vhs-combo-rc689d That's what I was thinking about buying before, but I just wasn't sure if it would do the trick or not.
This is the VCR model I've used for the last 9 years: I realize that post to AU is a pain, but, buying a high-quality NTSC VCR and a low cost capture card may be the best short term option, financially. It would cost you less than a third of the potential cost of the linked combo machine above. If you capture directly to your laptop (I do so with mine, and it is a relatively low power machine), you can convert the video to PAL, then burn to DVD, if you like. As for capture cards, as I have mentioned elsewhere, I can't recommend the Adaptec Gamebridge enough. Very inexpensive, and it does the job.
I don't know if this was recommended yet or not, but you REALLY want to invest in a Time Base Corrector. Even if the capture card claims to have one, get an external TBC anyway. You'll thank me later.
Alright, since it seems to be a toss-up between getting another VCR and a capture card or using a combo - which would probably be the least fiddly or inexpensive to deal with? Inexpensive is to me anything $300 or less. I'd expect crazy shipping prices for here considering I do buy a bit of stuff online - I just haven't currently got a ton of tapes to convert unless I find more relative ones (Other CT marketing or E3, TGS VHS tapes) so at the moment I'd just be needing it for two marketing tapes and possibly one ex-rental movie from Japan if the information I found was correct about there being marketing on it too. Just I've also got other stuff to do for my site, so it would be preferable to get this done a bit easier so I can work on the other stuff without worrying that I need to check everything non-stop. So I'm kinda leaning towards either the combo (so I could just let it run) but I'm not sure as to how common macrovision or other copy protection issues are when thinking about those or picking up the capture card that GrindheadJim has brought up. The issue is, a couple of the products mentioned on here I haven't really been able to find (save for the capture cards) online so I'm at a slight loss as to what to go with and how many things I would need to sort out (including a TBC) too.
Well, when considering fiddling, the question to ask is: do you want to have to mess with converting the DVDs to movie files? To me, that's a real pain. To you, it may not be. As for the NTSC to PAL conversion, depending on your Tape to Digital method, your conversion method may end up being software based, which may lower the cost. If you're going to be doing this for years to come, a TBC may be a good investment. I know a lot of people that have had combo decks go belly up on them, so, that's why I have never owned one. I say do a little research on the decks (combo or otherwise) you want, and then just go on a hunt. If you need help searching US-based sellers, send me a PM. I'll be glad to help.
Well, I'm perfectly fine with converting files from DVDs - I've had to do that enough with promotional discs so that isn't a problem for me. I was thinking that a cheap combo may be preferable just for that I'm not sure if my laptop would work fine with a capture card though I was also wondering - how much does that Adaptec Gamebridge one you mentioned end up using on your own one? I'm just currently using a Vista 32 one at the moment, when I got my laptop back from being repaired I found they had installed it as that instead of reinstalling it as 64 on there after the entire thing to say the least - fried and melted the external plastic shell. So unless I can find something to work with what I currently have to work with, then I'd be looking at getting essentially any sort of NTSC combo. I know it probably seems like I'm being fussy, just want to be sure before I put any money towards anything at the moment. >_<;
No worries,mate. My lap top is a 2009 Dell Inspiron 1525, dual core 2.1 ghz with 4gb RAM. I run this thing at less than 30% impact on my system, and that's with the lid shut. I love this little thing. Plus, the software that comes with it, while a little bulky, works fine, especially on 32 bit OS's. I do think that the Gamebridge will solve a lot of your problems, but, later on, a combo would serve you well, also. For now, though, the Gamebridge will probably save you a lot of hassle. Here is a guy selling a complete, used set at a good price. He's offering free shipping to US, so, international might not be so bad. Run a search for "game bridge", rather than gamebridge, for better results.
I've owned a game bridge for approximately five years now and it's great for what it does. This is a pretty poor example of the quality. It's 240P because of youtube's past limitations but I guess its a starter It's a very small device and gets good quality video. Very handy however there are limitations. It will NOT record PAL 60HZ. Period. There is no known fix for this. The software also has issues on Windows Vista. I found that it caused it blue screen. It may work in Windows 7 (I haven't tested it) I paid £15 posted for mine brand new. Granted this was years ago and as such price may have gone up.
The Vista issues apparently have solid workarounds these days. As for the PAL 60HZ, I had no idea. Thanks for the follow up - I'd hate to have uninentionally misled him.
