What's the best hardware to digitize S-VHS with?

Matt Pacini · February 17, 2005

I've got a heap of S-VHS tapes I need to digitize into my computer.

I don't want to spend a ton of cash to do it, and it doesn't have to look terrific, just pretty good.

What's a good device for doing this?

Or would it be cheaper to just take in the 12 or so tapes & have them transferred to DV or DVCAM?

Matt Pacini

February 17, 2005

Any old standard def capture card should do the trick for you.

scour ebay for tv-in video cards. ?

February 22, 2005

Any old standard def capture card should do the trick for you.
scour ebay for tv-in video cards. ?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

If these are old tapes, you might want a VCR with built-in TBC or ideally a JVC with Digipure Technology ($249 from ecost). Otherwise you might get waving verticals and flagging.

Sean Morris · February 22, 2005

Matt,

A lot of the "older" analogue cards have very limited suport for the new OS's

like Win2000, XP, so if you considering purchasing a second hand card i'd check

the driver support first on the web, rather than having to install a old copy of

Win98!..

Another option you could buy a S'VHS machine and then copy

the footage across to your mini DV deck / camera?

Cheers

Sean Morris

Glenn Hanns · February 22, 2005

I've got a heap of S-VHS tapes I need to digitize into my computer.
I don't want to spend a ton of cash to do it, and it doesn't have to look terrific, just pretty good.

What's a good device for doing this?

Or would it be cheaper to just take in the 12 or so tapes & have them transferred to DV or DVCAM?

Matt Pacini

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You can feed your S VHS composite RCA into your camcorder and loop through into your computer via fire wire. You need to set your DV into RECORD mode.

Glenn.

David Landelle · February 22, 2005

I've got a heap of S-VHS tapes I need to digitize into my computer.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Well any card with a BT848 or BT878 should do the trick, provided that it has a mini din Y/C connector (better than composite if you have SVHS tapes)

miro pctv, pinnacle pctv, ads tech, hauppauge

you can find some for less than 40$ in europe (in supermarkets).

Check-out VIRTUALDUB site to get a cool software.

You may also get a generic driver from sourceforge if the one provided does not handle full resolution (720x488 if you wish NTSC) to put on top of the original driver.

To do real time encoding you need a fast CPU (like P4-2,4) and take a codec that fits your requirements (links on virtualdub site).

You may also check out "winpvr" boards a bit more expensive, but with hardware accelerated hw (200$)

Hope this helps !

David