Viability of cheap VHS capture

[Feallan]

I have a stack of old VHS tapes lying around that I'd like to capture. I don't feel like taking them to a professional, it would cost too much, especially considering how bad the shape of many of them is. Currently I don't even have the option to play them, because power supply in my old VCR was toasted a couple of years ago for some reason.

How good results would I get with a generic VCR and the cheapest capture card available? I mean one of these Chinese ones:

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/New-USB-2...eb201560_9

Preserving those tapes in maximum quality is not my goal, but I wouldn't mind having semi-decent audio and video good enough to see what's on the tape.

I checked VCR offers in my area and I can get Panasonic NV-SD450 for really, really cheap. Is it a good unit? I'm completely out of the loop on VHS.

[Colek]

I have one of these devices and video quality is pretty bad.

Popatrz za firmami w pobliżu, które używają zgrywarek VHS->DVD, pewnie najlepsza opcja. Ewentualnie gdzieś w styczniu będę miał taką maszynę na stałe.

[Feallan]

No właśnie chyba się nie opyla, pełno mam tych kaset a taka firma to by sobie policzyła z 20 zł za jedną przynajmniej. A chińska karta to koszt ze 25 zł, magnetowid pewnie bym od kogoś pożyczył, no i trochę pobawić się można.

But I guess we should talk in English, at least that's what the rules say. ^^ Do you have a sample capture made with this device maybe?

[Colek]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2XWNlywi9E

Okay, is it not as bad as I remembered, maybe my device was faulty. I tried to record some PS1 gameplay using it, but it was blurry as hell.

[Feallan]

I might just go for it and buy one of those things, just to test it.

[mj0012]

The Easycap devices actually encompass 4 or more different (identical looking) products, the best one is made by Fushicai. Look for one that has the UTV007 chipset, it's what I use for my captures and the quality is surprisingly good.

The drivers are not very good, a lot of programs don't like them, but AmarecTV works well with it. Also the audio capture sucks, so I would suggest using your sound card instead.

[mj0012]

This looks like the right one:

http://m.aliexpress.com/item/32294309001...sitedetail

[Feallan]

Thanks for the tip!

[jerryshadoe]

Agreed. My father has one of those with the UTV007 chipset and it's surprisingly decent quality. But the audio capture on it does suck and on his current machine he's only able to use it running XP in a VM because in Win7 the drivers didn't wanna "play nice."

[mj0012]

Tell him to try AmarecTV, I had it working in Windows 7 (and now 10) with the UTV007 without any problems, even while most other programs would crash.

http://www.amarectv.com/english/amarectv_e.htm