I guess someone deleted the 'unrippable vhs list.'

oh, well, this one is on what equipment/tools/programs/settings/tips/tactics/etc people use for capturing video.
As dvd's seem to becoming the standard, pushing vhs captures out, i suspect some of the lesser known old movies/obscure titles, and low budget films will unlikely see thier place on a dvd.
Video captures can be a tricky process. I have a 'set' way of doing it after trying a few different settings and cards, computers and video devices.


THE LOST ART OF VIDEO CAPTURING

captureing computer
hp p4
2.73gigahertz
512mb ram
4x 80 gig hard drives (its not all porn)

Source of Video
Standard 4 head vcr
coaxl cable (i dont use that for capture)
*rf cables (1 gold plated video, 2-(stereo) gold plated audio).
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The better quality connection from video source to capture card, the better. Gold plated have the least resistance/interferance than cheap cables. The length of the cable can be a problem, as longer cables tend to have more resistance.
S-video is usually the better, while coaxl tends to be the worst.
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no svideo(i would use this instead, but my vcr doesnt have it).

I used to capture from my dvd-player(my previous computer wasnt powerfull enough to rip).
same as above, but it had a s-video. Capturing from a dvd player has a better picture quality than from a vhs. A dvd rip is still considerably better quality than a capture from a dvdplayer.

and an ATI all in wonder radeon 7500
(i like all-in-wonder cards because off all the built in features/abilities. they range from $100-$500 or so). Decent ones that ive bought/used are around $200.

my current capture settings-
720x480
29.97xx Fps(ntsc)
~about 2mb/sec mpeg 1 video
48000hz pcm uncompressed audio

this ends up with a file around 2-2.5 gigs for a 90minute capture.

Most package capture card's own software works the best, as its built (usually) specifically for that card. The ati card's native software may take some tweaking. Major problems occur with Soundblaster cards, and make sure to update the audio cards drivers. Ive had 80% frame loss, just because of outdated/corrupted soundcard drivers.

I try to not have any background programs running, and all the maintanance programs disabled, so they dont pop up and ruin the capture.

'remote assistant' in windows xp (start-programs-(systemtools?)-remote assistant. I use remote assistant frequently(its nifty), so i moved it to an easier to access location. When its open, you may have to maximize the screen, as the system configuration utility is on the bottom left hand side. When thats opened, just tab to 'boot' and set it the way you want it (read the help file.) Mine is set to have options at boot-up on which setting to use.

After capturing, i open the file in virtual-dub.
It will take a minute or so, depending on computer speed, ram, etc, while the mpeg file is 'parsing'.
I usually do a divx 5.ox 2-pass encode.
Editing out the not needed areas, then using a bit-rate calculator put in the length of the movie and what audio settings to use, it will give a kbps to put into the divx5.0x settings for each pass.

Entering this for the first pass and having 'direct stream copy' set in audio, i 'file- 'save as avi', label it soemthing like,'movie-1-firstpass' and check the box below to have it process later. This adds it to the 'job contol' screen.
The second pass,
go to video-compression-select divx5.0x, change the drop-down box to 'nth pass', then 'ok' close that window.
Now to audio
Got to 'audio'- select 'full processing mode', then 'compression'. I usually use mpeg-layer3, between 56k/sec up to 96k/sec 48000hz mp3. Its about what your standards are, i cant really tell much of a difference, others may.
Here is also were i like to increase the volume. Many captures have low volume, do to the input used on the sound card, or the settings windows has for the audio input. under 'volume', i make it around 150-200%. Too much increase causes bad distortion and makes it sound like it was recorded off a telephone.
then to finish, go to 'file' -save as avi -name it, make sure to put a check in the box to send it to the job control to run later. Running a 2pass on just the second pass wont work that well.

now to start encoding-
go to 'file'- near the bottom is 'job control', select that. A screen should have the two jobs. select the first one and run it. the second job should start automatically when the first is done.

This may take a few hours.
When done, its a good idea to check not only the quality, but to see if the audio syncs completely thru. divx low motion codecs have always had problems with this for me. Using a free program like 'avi info' by Terabits(?) had made it easy to fix.(i'll post a link if i find it)



any other cappers have tips/tactics/tools?

Well I use the different format, that being the DV Bridge --> firewire.
These come out with a DV compressed avi file, and for 90mins your looking at about 10-20GB depending on the scene. If you own a digital camera/ make movies, this is the format you will be handling.

I own a Dazzle Hollywood DV-Bridge. Picked it up for ?100 (it was stock clearance down from ?250). It's for solely capturing video consisting of red/yellow/blue, firewire/1934 and S-VHS inputs. I have to say using gold plated wires results in a notable quality increase (i use standard wires for the output to tv whilst previewing )



If your wanting a video capture solution, DV bridges are a good choice, particularly if you have a DV camera.

Firstly, about codecs. As I have a dazzle bridge, it was their DV codec that came with the software. I wouldn't recommend using it. Instead use "Adaptec DVsoft Codec". It's been proven in tests practically universally to be the best DV codec available. I've added a codec pack with practically all the stuff you'll ever need here:
http://www.dead-donkey.com/modules.php? ... etit&lid=7
Warning: Make sure you know what your doing

The setup I have is Euro-Scart to composite (gold plated) in the front of the DV-bridge. Round the back of it I have some cheap wires so I can get a preview on my TV. Firewire then links the bridge to my audigy card (it has firewire).

For capturing I don't use my native bridge software, I wasn't very impressed with it and found that Pinnacle Studio 7 was much better:
(seems version 8 is now out)
Pinnacle_Studio_v8.1_Multilanguage_please_visit_www.freewarez2000.h3.to_.rar
When you get your setup right, you'll be able to capture with no loss of frames. Make sure all your avi settings are correct, you want a Type-2 avi. If you use another application for capturing, remember you need a type-2 avi file if you want to do anything with it in programs like virtual dub. To convert between formats, use this tool:
ADVanced_DV_File_Converter_Pro_v1.23-PARADOX.tar

If you have the option to change from the native format on the fly, don't do it. Capture in your bridges native format (DV in most cases) and then recompress later.

Remember to close down all background apps, especially messenger or trillian. When capturing metallica a window popped up which played havoc. You can leave emule running but be careful. If you only have one disc, then don't use any tool that writes to it. if you don't have much ram, I'd close everything. You may also want to Ctrl-alt-del and set the process priority to high just in case.

This should output a DV compatible avi. I have ntfs so filesize is not a problem. if this is not an option I'm afraid your going to have to use another program to capture to split your file into 2gb chunks.


I will have an DV avi file:
720x576 (PAL)
25fps (PAL)
PCM Audio
48000 Hz uncompressed audio
20GB for 60 mins approx.


Once I have my capture I have two different steps depending on what I'm wanting. Firstly, I'll use TMPGenc if I want to make a dvd, use the PAL high quality profile and follow the wizards. If I'm making an Avi, i'll use gknot. Do as you would do a DVD-rip, but load the avi file and not a DVD2avi project. Crop off black boarders and resize to the appropriate resolution. I use decomb to deinterlace the video and then also use convolution3d + undot to clean the source up (you can add them when you get to saving the project before encode). As i use gknot all the appropriate bitrate calculators are present and it's easy to xvid compress



If you get errors about YUY, use:



and the finished article looks like this (bare in mind this was my first xvid rip)





--
ps. I deleted the unrippable vhs thread. There was a few responses that all you need is a decent macrovision decoder box, and then you can copy anything. Look in the back of an electrical magazine

[ Add all 2 links to your ed2k client ]

hehe,
your way of capping seems strange and disturbing. I got lost about 4 sentences in. no firewire.
oh, well, ive dug myself a nice rut.
allthough im going to check out that pinnacle. I almost always stop at the first thing that works.

as for the uncopyable movies,
i had meant non-macrovision protection schemes. Ive seen the copy boxes(up close). i was wondering about variants of macrovision, or the other forms of anti-copy on vhs. macrovision is supposed to be the most used, but i think there are a few that use a different technique.

yeah most of that applies to capturing AVIs, the all-in-one's do mpeg.

I'd use the gknot method on your rips if you want notable quality improvements. undot cleans up the picture a lot, and convolution3d is a must

I've a pinnacle card which at first I thought was crappy compared to my old Asus V3800 TNT captures, but after a few updates Pinnacle did good.

a 90 minute movie in 768x576 in 25fps gets around 11GIG at 2000kb/s and 44khz 16bit PCM sound.

which should be good. After some divx compression I can easily fit it on 1 CD.


Monkeysmasher, why would you capture in 30fps? it's a waste of frames if you ask me, or does it look better.... I never try it actually.

And for a VHS, capturing in 44khz is too much. It's an anolog signal. I'm not sure if a VHS gets 44khz sound in 16bit.

Tell me more master, tell me more! *Bows*

hehe, i cap at 29.97xx fps, that is the format in my country. a lot of 25fps look jittery/jerky to me, i would guess because my tv isnt PAL.

i'm no master, i rarely try any way new and usually dont vary once i find a way that works.
usually my capture file is about 2.5 gigs, it doesnt seem any better if i cap in less compressed codec or higher bitrate. i tend to go quantity first, quality would be no where near a dvd rip anyway, and i used to try to do 10 movies a day when i went on a capspree.

i have been having some troubles with my capturing, mostly audio. i think ive fixed it after spending the last 20 hours messing with it.

*de-stickied and moved*

I guess this is the place to post this now.

Anyway I want to pick up on something you said:

That's fine for tv shows, however, I hope this isn't how you capture from VHS or from tv-movies?!?

The problem is, with movies the trasnmission is rarely 29.97xxfps, its actually 23.xfps, all your doing here is making it juttery as your capturing identical frames several times to bump up the framerate. (as with the pal jutteriness, this is a big problem for some people [infact a bigger proportion as 25fps and 23fps is what they are used to])

Movies are normally broadcast at natural framerate, not at NTSC camera rate (which you get for tv shows, but less often nowadays, only cheap shows are done at 29.97xxfps). All the proper series and movies are 23.xfps, meaning your wasting a lot of data on useless frames, reducing the overall video quality of your rip. You'll also experience deynched audio which you seem to have pointed out.

Or were you referring to something else?

AS for the PAL jerkiness, a very small percentage find this the case, so you maybe in this group, however, this is only in PAL to NTSC effect, proper PAL sources should appear fine in playback (and actually better quality). All in all, your probably right about it being your tv, but I'd also say its poor ripping.

Give my league of gentlemen a whirl, they are true PAL 25fps. If they appear jerky then its your noggin, if not its your peepers

Spud "Recently Acquired a VCR Manual" Destroyer