Recording and editing VHS video on PC

[SaltyDuke]

Hello

Just a quick general question. I have some home VHS tapes i'm looking to edit together on my computer. I would like to know what kind of hardware people would recommend to do this. I guess i need the following:

A "VHS-to-PC-recorder" and...
A video editing software package

Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated

Thanx a million
TheSaltyDuke

 

[micker377]

They make regular set-ups to do this (includes hardware and software), $80 - $100. You can get internal or USB. Go to your local electronics store and see what they have, or do a Google search on "video to PC". A lot would depend on what computer and video you have. (High speed CPU, high res video card, BIG hard drive).

 

[felixc]

You have to know first that the output of a VHS player can be very hard to digitize, unless you have high quality recordings, and a high quality tape player. You may have "sync jitter" that makes it impossible for a PC-type of equipment to properly digitize it.
If it happens, there are places that can still do the transfer to digital, using "time base correctors" to reestablish a better sync signal. These people can probably save your files in MPEG2 format, so any commercial edition paclkage like Pinnacle Studio could be used to edit and create your own veiwable DVDs from the files.
If you think that the video quality is good enough, then a good product to digitize on a PC is the ATI AllInWonder Radeon9600XT. It comes along with a version of the Pinnacle Studio edition software so you have everything in the box. In addition you get a rather good graphics performance.

 

[dakota81]

Avoid ATi cards like the plaque if you want quality recordings. I cannot stress that enough, I have tried ATi hardware (both their TV Wonder & latest AIW cards) and have found them to be very dissapointing.

Do yourself a favor and get a Hauppauge WinTV PVR card, the price and quality cannot be beat. Hauppauge does not have the most user-friendly software, but the quality difference between them & ATi cards will convince you to learn the Hauppauge software.

And really, once you get the mpeg file recorded, you can then use any editing software you choose.

 

[felixc]

Sorry to read that Dakota81 had problems with a late AIW. My setup works very, very well. It never crashes, I can record in mpeg2 format easily with no dropped frames, and the video quality is very good. Transfers from a Hi-8 camera in S-video show virtually no loss.
The Hauppage PVR had a good reputation too. I would favor it over a TV-Wonder too. These two product are not in the same category as an AIW.

Add-on TV cards put more srain on the system hardware because they use the PCI bus instead of the AGP. More system bandwidth is wasted with PCI transfers. In addition, TV viewing add another continuous stream of data through the system chipset, from the TV card to the VGA card. Integrated graphics/TV cards totally bypass the system bus for TV viewing. Reducing the odds for incompatibilities with other adapters in the system.

In any case a company with bad quality products will not survive long in the PC market. This is a benefit of competition.

 

[norty303]

I have to agree with felixc, I use an ATI vivo card and I haven't had any issues with the recording from either my DV camcorder or VHS machine (both via a composite input) In fact I'd prepared myself for the worst when i compared the recording against the firewire connector of my camcorder and was pleasantly surprised

 

[biggal]

http://www.canopus.us/US/products/ADVC-100/pm_advc-100.asp

Works like a champ !

 

[dakota81]

felixc you really do not know anything about the Hauppauge line of cards, and your post clearly shows it. Full hardware based encoding cards such as the Hauppauge card use up minimal resources on the computer. The mpeg encoding is done on the card itself instead of the raw data being transfered to main memory and the cpu having to encode the video. That translates into better recording performance over ATi's partial hardware encoding methods.

And, the main goal of this topic is for recording, not playback performance. If you want to debate playback performance all you want, go ahead. But if you want to get superior quality recordings, avoid ATi products, it's that simple.

I have made many recordings with the TV Wonder, TV Wonder VE, & AIW 9000 Pro, as well as the Hauppauge WinTV PVR 250 that I recommend. There is no contest on which card produces the better video quality. Search some reviews on google for some more opinions.

 

[felixc]

I'm sorry to irritate you Dakota81. My point of view is not the one of a user, although I do video edition. I used to design graphics cards (with video overlay) and now I design motherboards. I have been involved with MPEG encoders and decoder chips as well. Can you tell what encoder is used on the WinTV PVR? I'd be curious to analyze its specs. Besides the marketing claims, a full hardware encoder still does require overhead, in addition to the 5Mbps that the Mpeg2 stream has to carry over the PCI bus.
I understand that you did not like the AIW9000. The AIW9000 Pro is not what I call a late design. The good designs start with the 9600, with a newer generation of encoder hardware. Yes you're right, the TVWonders are to be avoided.
As the hardware decoders disappeared when the system power became high enough, the same fate happens to the encoders. The reason is simple, some portions of the algorithms are fixed, some others are not and can always be optimized and improved for a better image. The partial encoding of chips like those used on the AIW (or Matrox Marvel, or the GeForce one) applies to the fixed portions of the algorithms. A hardware encoder is a chip where the functional budget is limited, by its production cost and by its useable silicon area. Another difference, bugs can be fixed on software algorithms. With hardware parts, you have to live with the bugs. Believe me, there are bugs in these chips, and a good portion of the software overhead is to handle these bugs.
I recently recommended a WinTV PVR to a friend and he is very happy with it.
Cheers.

 

[cdogg]

felixc,

Great information! I just want to add that one still very popular advantage to having a hardware encoder is "real-time" editing. For example, the Matrox X.10 and X.100 series work hand-in-hand with applications such as Adobe Premiere Pro to produce Real-time effects. If you plan on doing a lot of editing, this can save the end user days if not weeks of rendering time, since it's handled mostly by the card.

But yes, as you pointed out, even hardware-based encoding relies on some overhead from the CPU and main system memory. Tests with the Matrox X.100 cards show a significant improvement in performance when going from a 1.8GHz 400MHz FSB to a 2.8GHz 800MHz FSB P4.

Of course the biggest determining factor is price. If you don't have $600-$1000 to shell out, then Hauppauge (or even the cheaper ATI AIW) are going to look more attractive.


~cdogg
[tab]"All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind";
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[felixc]

Thanks for completing the picture cdogg.
If you do a lot of video editing, what the Matrox X100 offers is a great capacity to quickly preview your effects thanks to the on-board hardware. (but this hardware isn't the MPEG encoding hardware, it is at the other end of the process, where it processes the video output to apply the transitions effects) Such a board allows to do the post production job much more quickly than just a frame buffer, and with much more chances that what you preview will be close to the final result on a DVD for example. This output processing hardware almost does not exist on boards like an AllInWonder of an Nvidia PersonalCinema. The dual and even triple displays on a single board setup are a great plus to work quickly, too, not talking about easier setup. I am pretty sure that the final rendering is still done with the computer though, so the rendering time is still much dependent on the main processor speed. Anyway, unless you're in a real rush, you will start a rendering before going to bed.
So all things serve their market, in their price range, with a corresponding feature set.
Then it remains to determine how serious you are about it, meaning how much $$$ you're ready to put in it.

 

[dakota81]

The point I was trying to make is I have used a wide range of cards and in a side by side comparison, the Hauppauge card produces much cleaner, crisper video with less pixalation during motion than ATi products.

The system I have my WinTV card in is a Via EPIA-M10000, which is roughly equivalent to a Celeron 600MHz system. The harddrive is a 5400rpm drive. When recording, the cpu usage is ~45%, and the harddrive is barely accessed. For such a slow performance cpu compared to today's powerhouses, that is very good.

And yeah, the Matrox x.10 & x.100 cards are good for real-time editing, but you're going to pay a lot for them too.

Over the years I have spent a lot of money on different video recording cards, you can add a GeForce FX5600 vivo to that list too, and the WinTV card (just $135) was such a relief when I purchased it, and I do feel that others should have the benifit of not making bad purchases like I went through. With the price difference being so small between an AIW and a WinTV card...