Viability of cheap VHS capture

[crissrudd4554]

I did take your suggestion and reduced the volume on the device. No dice. The little static noise is still there. However, I do have the samples ready, 5 all together. I have them saved as a folder so if anyone is interested PM me.

[Evit]

Upload a piece on youtube or vimeo, wherever. Let us hear it

[crissrudd4554]

Well they're audio files so a video's kinda useless plus I don't want the quality affected so screw it I'm just gonna share the folder here. Im gonna be deleting these files at some point in the future anyways. Anyways I used the opening credit music from a Phantom of the Opera tape I've been capturing. The 'buzz' or whatever may be hard to detect at first but if you listen carefully, especially when compared to the first two which don't have it, it shouldn't be hard time to spot, hopefully. TIP: Listening with headphones/earphones might be helpful. NOTE: Unless noted I made no alterations or adjustments to these files.

https://1drv.ms/f/s!Ao7ljwxhBJ_mgUNUmUzKeMwQY0I_

Sample1: Captured with Honestech VHS to DVD 3.0. No static.

Sample2: Captured with EyeTV Hybrid. No static.

Sample3: Captured with Roxio Easy VHS to DVD. Static.

Sample4: Captured with Dazzle USB Capture, part of Pinnacle Studios. Static.

Sample5: Same captured file as Sample4 but with volume lowered. Static is still faintly heard.

[crissrudd4554]

Did anyone listen to the samples? Is it ok that I delete them?

[Feallan]

I did, but I can't help you much. I've had a weird problem with similar noise (but much, much less severe) when I tried to record audio and video simultaneously from my VCR using SCART adapter->S-Video->Easycap device -> AmarecTV program for video, and RCA (separate audio out on the VCR) -> Line In on Xonar DG -> Audacity for audio. Merely having the adapter connected to the VCR added continuous static sound to the capture for some reason. Nothing terrible, but ultimately I had to record audio and video separately to get best results.

[crissrudd4554]

Word of advice. Don't contact Corel Support. I've been going for the last week or so with someone who is absolutely clueless. All I was trying to figure out if there was anyway at all if I could record my tapes with Pinnacle Studios (2016 version) with Dazzle doing the video while capturing the audio with VIDBOX. He asked me about the DxDiag text which I sent him, he asked about my speakers which I told him is not the problem. On Friday I sent him a response about screengrabs I had sent that I thought may detail the problem and asked if he received them. His response today was something like 'we are still awaiting feedback or a response for your ticket. Has the problem been resolved, etc.' and I'm like 'you didn't answer my question. Is there someone who CAN help me or can I break this off now??'. Big waste of time.

[MrBrown]

Seems as if the support is just to resolve problems, and not to help being creative...

I listened to your samples. Did not seem to be a problem with the loudness itself, complete different kind of missound.
Next weekend at home I may try to make one of the "better" samples louder, like the worse samples, because I think the missound is also in the more silent samples, just lesser noticiable, because the whole sample is not the same volume level.

Normally I would advise to use not the hardware branded software, so you may use a different input hardware device, then the video input.
I have soem cheap Video Grabbing USB stick, but I never was happy with the audio quality, so I just used my normal Sound Card as input device, just using the USB for video.

I stick on VirtualDub, because it saves the most raw version of the input, leaving all decisions of filtering such to myself, and not an automated process. Maybe thats why your virtualdub results seem to be such "not so well quality", because it has no kind of post processing done.

[crissrudd4554]

Thank you for listening to the samples. I forgot to mention I had actually taken them down a few days ago but anyways today I took another shot of recording the video and audio with Pinnacle Studios while also recording the sound with Audacity. The problem I feared I might face with this I ultimately did. The two do not sync together properly. So I can keep this mind but unlikely I'll take that route. At this stage my best bet is likely gonna be Pinnacle Studios (2016 version) with 2016 Dazzle or Roxio VHS to DVD (2012 version), Pinnacle Studios (2008 version) version with Dazzle (2016 version) for video and VIDBOX USB (2008 version) for sound, or Pinnacle Studios/Dazzle (2008 version). I'll likely have to lower the volume in all instances. I'll get the best sound results with the later two but I'll have minor video issues with them. Below I have some image examples (all from the same tape).

Pinnacle Studios (2008 version) with 2008 Dazzle.



Pinnacle Studios (2016 Version) with 2016 Dazzle.



Pinnacle Studios (2008 Version) with 2016 Dazzle.



The middle image is the best of the three. The first is too washed out and bright and the coloring doesn't stand out as good. The third is close to the second but for some reason is a slightly stretched horizontally losing a smidge of image on the one side. As I said these are for the most part minor issues but this is why I'm hoping to figure out how to get the 2016 Dazzle and VIDBOX USB to run simultaneously through 2016 Pinnacle Studios.

[Jetrell Fo]

I have a USB Dazzle that doesn't have any of these issues when using VirtualDub and I've used it with Windows 7 numerous times. I wish I could explain your noise and help you fix it. The only way I could do that would be to actually be there to watch you go through your process to diagnose the issue in real time.

[crissrudd4554]

Maybe I'll redownload VirtualDub and do basically what I described at the beginning of my last post only use VirtualDub instead of Audacity. For those interested, the reason I nixed VirtualDub was cause the recorded video gave me something similar to this.



Ive been trying to avoid that ugly combing effect as much as I can. That was the main reason I nixed my original Honestech software. But anyways I might try VirtualDub again for the sound. Im just nervous about the syncing but I guess its worth a try. Is it possible the problem is not the device?? If it means anything the computer Im using is a HP laptop circa 2009 32-bit. OS is Windows 7. The VCR Im using is a 2003 Panasonic.