Best way to archive vhs?
Best way to archive vhs?
My grandparents are downsizing there collections of turds and gold and they want their homemade movies archived. I was thinking of a component capture card with obs. What would be a good capture card or a better way to archive?
UPDATE 1: So, my DVD vhs combo was a total piece of shit and ate my Addams family Vhs tape!!! I found a vhs player that works and looks pretty decent.
I bought a black magic intensity pro capture card (BMDPCB41G1) but I'm struggling to get the driver to recognize the card, I tried win10 but I'm gonna try Ubuntu and an older 4th gen intel motherboard. This is all I have for now, any help would be cool.
Depends on your budget. If quality is important, you need at least decent VCR. High-end models might be difficult to obtain, especially those made stricte for digitizing (very expensive). Look for something with S-Video output if possible (better than single RCA), and from computer end... maybe Black Magic Intensity Pro 4K card? Comes with Resolve software. Alternatively you also get a cheap RCA-to-USB adapter, and that will work with most capturing software, but the final quality might be... well, cheap.
I do have an Sony VCR DVD combo with s-video. I was look at the black magic cards on eBay and there are some from 2008 from a Mac and I'm wondering if they will work on Linux.
Is the DVD a writer? If you're fortunate enough, that can be the easiest way to dump it down: Pop it on a DVD, and import.
Otherwise, old black magic cards can surprise you under Linux! Though definitely worth looking if anybody on the forums has used the one you're looking at.
You want to work natively: Get an S-video out into an s-video in that handles the resolution correctly, and makes you a nice native-resolution file.
VHS archiving can be a goddamned rabbit hole, it's worth deciding what will be good enough". Or if you want to go down the rabbit hole, look up Timebase Correction.
A photography shop near me does this, might be worth to compare the price of buying your equipment and figuring it all out or just having someone do it for you
But that takes the fun out of it and my grandparents just don't trust anybody with their one copy of a wedding video
Well, Mcballs, sometimes you've got to trust.
UGREEN 4K HDMI Video Capture Card HDMI to USB 2.0 Game Capture Card HDMI to USB C Audio Capture Adapter Full HD 1080P Capture Video Audio Recording for Editing Video, Games, Streaming, Teaching https://a.co/d/6jgpWMe
Im currently using OBS and this for a friend. May not be the best way, but it works
I've used exactly this device and a (believe it or not) BNIB VHS player the MIL had stashed at the back of the closet, to digitize some old family videos. Worked very well, once I figured out how to take due care with the cabling, so as not to introduce pops or crackles into the audio.
Looks pretty interesting, was it a pain to set up?
Nah, with a vcr get hdmi out, either upscale or a fancy vcr with hdmi, plug it into the capture card. Then just use the capture card as a media source in obs and record.
The big pain is having to be around for the end of ths video (if you dont want to have to trim the video file that is)
I realize I’m late to this thread, but if you’re serious about archiving a VHS in the best manner possible, you have to go the RF capture route: https://github.com/oyvindln/vhs-decode
This method effectively captures the “raw” signal stored on the tape, allowing you to convert it after you’ve captured it however you see fit. You don’t have to worry about cheap digitizers/capture cards/etc distorting the signal.
Looks pretty cool, I'm struggling to get the black magic drivers to recognize the card. I might try something like this.