I started 10 years ago to capture videos from TV, VHS, DVDs. At the same I was using a Hauppauge PVR-350 capture card (quite expensive at the time). But recording from it was maxing out my CPU (which wasn't bad, I think it was a P4 2.5Ghz or something like that). I recorded decent stuff from TV, mostly motorsport.
I recorded 1-2 VHS tapes but as I wasn't happy with the final product, I didn't record all of them.
We are now in 2014 and its been years I've been trying to find a way to capture those precious VHS tapes I have in the closet. My old PVR-350 doesn't work under Windows 7 or 64bits systems so I had to buy something else. I thought that with time passing by we would get more advanced stuff to capture our tapes, but I was wrong.
There is of course the professional way which is giving your tapes to some company that will make you pay big bucks for each. No thanks. So I found out that the ultimate non-professional way to do it was to get one of these Canopus ADVC boxes, coupled with a SVHS magneto. Be ready to spend a solid £500 in this tho.
Even if I loved my tapes, I cannot afford this amount of money, so after much hesitation I decided to go for one of these USB recorders that you plug to your VHS magneto and the other end to your computer. Very easy, practical, and cheap (paid £35 for the Diamond VC500 that I bought).
So after a lot of hours of trial and error on VHS capturing/encoding, I finally found something that I am happy with. Check below the examples that I have for you. I have taken the 1983 Nürburgring 1000km race as an example and all these examples have been taken at the exact same frame (except for the DVD version which is impossible to sync with the VHS recording).
The first example is of a fixed image.
1) DVD "In-Car 956" from Dukevideo
2) Uncompressed (raw) captured VHS file (file are 35GB for 1hour of recording)
3) Encoded file from the raw VHS recording to fit 1hour on 1 DVD
Now another example, this time of a moving picture (the sides) with a fixed sight (spectators up front).
1) DVD "In-Car 956" from Dukevideo
2) Uncompressed (raw) captured VHS file (file are 35GB for 1hour of recording)
3) Encoded file from the raw VHS recording to fit 1hour on 1 DVD
The best is to save these pictures on your HDD and then navigate left-right to check the differences.
As you can see it is quite hard to see any difference from the master file and the encoded file. Something that I am very happy with, after a lot of hours of tests.
I am now in the process of finally capturing all the VHS I have (not that much to be honest, but still), waiting for a way some day to get a fast internet connection and a free place to share this material!
So why do I write all this? Well, I am simply offering my services to capture your tapes for free. All what you have to do (besides trusting me), is to send me your tape, and few ££ for me to sent it back to you, and I will capture it using the method I have explained here, and burn that to a DVD that you can of course then save as an image on your computer to have it forever.
Quite frankly I like to collect tapes and I like motorsport History, and like strad here I think, I like to discover new footage, so if I can help the community, all bonus!
