Elgato Video Capture is RUINING the quality of your VHS tapes!

Elgato's USB Video Capture device and software proves that just because it's overpriced and professionals use it, doesn't mean you can expect professional-quality results from it. In fact, exactly the opposite!
Time flow:
0:00 Introduction
1:37 Overview
2:56 Initial tests
5:56 VHS test
7:09 Comparison to DVD recorder
8:29 Hi8 test
9:34 Bad de-interlacing
9:52 Computer/video game test
10:36 Using OBS
12:03 Teardown
13:00 Elgato's response
13:42 Conclusion
Additional notes:
1. The Windows version of the Elgato software uses a slightly higher video bitrate (2.5 Mbps) than the Mac version, but that's still too low for good quality. It has a "high resolution" option, but that's just the normal 640x480; if you uncheck it, you get 320x240.
2. The Honestech VHS to DVD software that comes with many of the EasyCap devices works fine with the Elgato, and ironically produces much higher quality than Elgato's own software, since it can record MPEG2 video at up to 10 Mbps, and has better-quality de-interlacing.
3. The cheaper Diamond VC500 I mentioned is actually more fully-featured than the Elgato, because it has power and recording LEDs and a recording start/stop button on the device itself; Elgato's version eliminated these features, but still has traces for them on the circuit board.
4. Just like the EasyCap, numerous variations and rebrandings of the OTG102 hardware design used by the Elgato have been on the market for many years (since at least 2009), usually with some reference to "Grabber" in their name. You can buy generic versions of it for as little as $15.
#VHStapes #digitizing #RetroTech

[@video99couk]

I run a video transfer business in the UK. I never use any of these simple USB converter devices, they all produce small video files of limited quality. For most domestic formats I use DV capture equipment, the DV codec looks much better than these compressed files and is much better suited to editing. For miniDV and Digital8, the DV-AVI file format is not only a lossless bit for bit copy of the tape contents, it also retains the original time/date metadata which some software can display. Then for Video8/Hi8, most Digital8 players will output the same video file format from analogue tapes. For other domestic formats, a DVCAM deck or a Canopus AD-VC55 is used to generate it. Typically I additionally generate smaller de-interlaced MPEG4 files as well. For professional formats such as Digital Betacam, SDI video capture equipment can generate huge files for broadcast use. I appreciate that your DVD recorder gave better results than the USB capture device, but there are issues with that route too. MPEG2 files are not very well suited to editing, and to get the highest bitrate you are limited to about an hour on a single layer DVD. Another key component, and the reason you saw that wobble, is requiring a Digital Timebase Corrector (TBC as you have in the Hi8 player). Some high end SVHS players have this built in, and I also use external standalone TBCs on all of my video capture systems.

[@Mike7aB9x]

DV conversion does do weird things with the picture (artifacts, incorrect colors, blocky video…) but it is definitely better that Easycrap, Elcrapo

[@estusflask982]

There's no such thing as a "lossless bit for bit copy" of VHS. VHS is analog, it's not made of bits.

[@NanoBurger]

@@estusflask982 "For miniDV and Digital8, the DV-AVI file format is not only a lossless bit for bit copy of the tape contents" These are digital formats and bit for bit copies are possible.

[@JohnSmith-iu8cj]

@@estusflask982he was explicitly writing about minidv which is digital in the first place, something totally different from VHS

[@makere]

@@estusflask982 You can nowadays get somewhat direct VHS to PC transfer with modified VHS-player and vhs-decode software.

[@T0NYFERRELL1]

Some people might be rightly upset about owning one of these to archive their memories. Just remember the first rule of archiving is to archive. If you’ve captured using one these and now safely backed up a digital copy, excellent, it can no longer be completely lost forever. It’s better than no backup at all. If you can manage to archive it later with a better capture device, even better.

[@oscarcacnio8418]

THANK YOU! I've been staring down the barrel of a $10,000+ purchase to archive some family tapes. I should just bite the bullet and grab an archive with the stuff I have now.

[@ddk7987]

I think, this is correct. Also understand that all of these things are very much follow the law of diminishing returns. Really a reasonable 6 head vcr, a line tbc dvd recorder, and this card is all you need. ESPECIALLY if your stuff is shot in long play.

[@T0NYFERRELL1]

@@ddk7987 I have an alt channel that has uploaded a bunch of obscure documentaries. The setup was a high end LG VCR with HDMI and a miserable $10 HDMI capture dongle. The dongle can’t do 1080p60 like it says on the box, but did 576p just fine. The captures are more than good enough. The struggle was syncing audio. It turns out investing in a better capture device gave negligible video improvements and audio syncing still sucked. Diminishing returns indeed, the good quality VCR is the real star of the setup.

[@iDerpen]

You can tell how old the device is by the KZbin logo in the software.

[@eduardog3000]

But the manufacture date said 2021. It seems haven’t bothered updating the software and probably the hardware in more than a decade, despite still selling them new. For $80…

[@BilisNegra]

The software has a copyright date of 2018, you can see it on the splash screen when it is launched... That's not spank new, but it's still quite recent (and of course I mean the date, not the code). They couldn't be bothered to change that logo, though 🤣

[@AmirRazan]

I think it's just using the old KZbin logo that makes us think it's ancient software even though it's probably updated recently.

[@psirockin123]

I bought one back in 2014 and it looks exactly like this one. They did update the software somewhat recently to add an Arm version for MacOS that didn't exist when I first got my M1 Mac.

[@alexisb3925]

I purchased an Elgato Video Capture new two-ish years ago and after watching all my LaserDisc transfers back (they're on my channel if you're curious) I grew to hate that thing more and more. At first I didn't spot all the compression and frame dropping but it's impossible to ignore once you finally notice it. Found a Panasonic DMR-ES30V VCR/DVD recorder at the thrift store last week and from there I rip the DVDs via HandBrake, and it's a night and day difference.

[@namesurname4666]

you should keep the interlaced video or you lose half of the frames (60/50 vs 30/25)

[@kalayongyuanOK]

@@namesurname4666 well speaking of this, I use my BMD Intensity Shuttle or Matrox MX02 Mini to record only interlaced format and if I need to de-interlaced it I use Handbrake too.

[@MrDuncl]

Quite a lot of the Panasonics have good reputations and an HDMI output so you could connect that into an HDMI capture device. Back in the noughties, after spending £100s on capture cards and video editing software I ended up plugging my camcorder into a Panasonic EX75 DVD recorder and burning discs,

[@rooskiwolf1653]

How do you strip the protection?

[@hyperturbotechnomike]

I use a similar method with a Sony HDD/DVD recorder. It has analog inputs and HDMI output. I first record onto the HDD, then i record the HDMI output from the recorder to my HTPC, which has an HDMI input PCIe card and it works fine. Digital to digital video capture is easy. It isn't expensive either. These HDD/DVD combo units are often found on eBay for the same price as the elgato rubbish. I know the brand elgato mostly for their toy products targeted towards children which want to become streamers or simp cash farm girls on sites like twitch. These products are not meant to be good.

[@Animal_lives_matter]

The problem is the current generation of I.T people didn't grow up in the era of standard definition interlaced video and don't really know much about it. To be fair it's pretty esoteric stuff and took me years to understand how it works. Interlaced, progressive, field cadences, inverse telecine, double rate deinterlacing, Rec601 colours, nonsquare pixels, 704/720 width discrepancy for analogue/digital. It's kind of a nightmare to be frank. Even the big online streaming services don't know how to properly deinterlace and/or detelecine older TV shows. As a random example NBC's streaming service have Alfred Hitchcock Presents but they've just replaced every second field with a copy of the first field, rendering it as effectively 240p24 inside a 480p30 container with a 1:1:1:2 cadence (1 repeat frame every 5 frames...stuttery). This they then upscaled to 1080p30 and called it a day. They have no clue what 30i is or anything about field cadences. Another another random example, in the video I can see the Elgato unnecessarily downscales it horizontally to 640x480 because they don't know anything about nonsquare pixel formats. If they wanted 4:3 square pixels while preserving all resolution they would have scaled it to 704x528, or alternatively, left it as native 704x480 and flagged the metadata in the mp4 file as having an aspect ratio of 4:3 so the media player scales it to 4:3 at playback. If they didn't do that then I'm pretty confident they didn't flag the colour matrix and gamut as 601 either and the skin tones are almost certainly more orange than they should be, unless your media player is smart and guesses correctly based on the vertical resolution and/or framerate (I use MadVR and that has very good guessing logic, for example it sees vertical height < 576 therefore not PAL, and 24/30fps therefore definitely not PAL, therefore probably NTSC, therefore assume 601 matrix and SMPTE-C primaries).

[@kalayongyuanOK]

For NTSC video there were two types of resolution I just figured last December. One is the older NTSC TV broadcast 720x486 while the other was the typical 720x480 for NTSC DV, DVD, LD, and VHS.

[@Animal_lives_matter]

@@kalayongyuanOK Yeah and there's also 704x480 for analogue and 720x480 for digital. Both are supposed to be 4:3 but they're not always treated that way for example if you see 8 pixel thick black bars down the sides then it means they assumed the analogue source was 2.2% narrower than 4:3, which may or may not be a correct assumption. A lot of third party Nintendo Gamecube and Wii games are horizontally squished by around 10% due to game devs thinking 480p is 640x480 and just pillarboxing the game's internal framebuffer directly inside the 720x480 (NTSC) output buffer not realising NTSC pixels are nonsquare.

[@vwestlife]

The Elgato software actually does have a "preserve source format" option which gives you 720x480 video flagged as 4:3, but it also leaves it interlaced, resulting in _extremely bad_ compression artifacts because the interlacing completely overwhelms the 1.5 Mbps H.264 codec they're using and totally destroys the video quality as soon as there is any movement!

[@Animal_lives_matter]

@@vwestlife Interesting, if I had to guess what's happening based on your description I'd say the software is perhaps neglecting to tell the encoder -- probably ffmpeg/libav -- that the source is interlaced. For interlaced encodings to work it needs to encode each field separately as if each field is a separate image, otherwise the field structure will be corrupted in compression artefacts.

[@Doman2000]

@@vwestlife If the Elgato encoded it correctly in interlaced format that would not be so bad, TV/Players then can properly de-interlace the video. But with the unstable VHS signal and noise the bitrate is much too low for any bit of decent quality.

[@rwdplz1]

The most outrageous part as you pointed out, is Elgato charges almost $100 for this device, on-par with the $10 ones.

[@vdochev]

They are super over-priced! They once were pretty much the only company to go to when you wanted to video capture or stream in real time, because their products had very small lag. That's why they are highly looked after by gamers. So, they became a "gaming" company first and foremost and as such prices are through the roof. I recently bought a video capture card by NZXT which supports capturing in 4K, 60 FPS and 0 lag pass-through for 4K, 120FPS with HDR10 and it costs half the price of the same spec product from Elgato. Not only that, the NZXT has a bit more features so it's even a better option than the Elgato. Elgato are relying mainly on their well known name rather than the actual quality and features of their products, but if more companies enter this market, maybe the prices will go down and the quality may actually go up.

[@rickyc4905]

A used Canopus ADVC100 is around $100 used on ebay. Much better than these Elgato junk.

[@emerickscott]

@@rickyc4905 That's what I had a decade or more ago. It was very nice and I captured my home movies.

[@OuterGalaxyLounge]

I've been holding off on buying any capture device, including this one due to its high cost, and am glad to see you do this deep dive into a clearly inferior product. I'm still at square one.

[@GoogleDoesEvil]

Sony has a converter that takes in composite and outputs a DV signal over firewire. I had great luck with it. Need a firewire card with a chipset from Texas Instruments though (StarTech sells one)

[@remixandkaraoke]

I wish I'd waited until I saw this and NOT bought mine!

[@MLaker221]

I'm trying to figure out out too. I've good quality coming in but getting a pink haze at the top of my hd vhs scans, but only sometimes

[@grabasandwich]

12:55 someone at Elgato figured they could save a bunch of money and nobody would notice. Wonder if you're the first to figure this out?

[@Thecatdrums3]

Judging by how all the old people that bought these don’t even listen to their doctors anymore; I can guarantee they will care and say you are wrong somehow 😂

[@Zan_Jayna]

Nope, I've known these devices are hot garbo for decades.

[@vdochev]

I noticed it too, because when I was looking for a capture card I looked at many products and many reviews. The Elgato prices are not justified at all. They are like RAZER - mediocre quality with premium pricing and devoted cult following that will always buy and praise them. Just open your eyes and you'll find better products at a lower price. Or don't - the money is yours at the end of the day, you can spend it on what you like.

[@thewilleymusic]

I bought this recently and have spent some 3 weeks digitalizing our old VHSC tapes. My father, who doesn't really care about technology at all, complained that it looked "odd" but acceptable. The purpose was to have our media in a format which will not decay with time, and to that end it does it's job. However, it's only after watching this I realize how our memories have been effectively corrupted from this device. Comparing the digital version with the direct output of our camcorder revealed how truly bad it was. I thought it looked OK but oh boy was I wrong. My parents are happy I could save our memories at all, but there are details which will never be recoverable. Thanks for bringing awareness to the awful quality if the thing. I wouldn't have known otherwise.

[@SayakaMaizonoo]

It might be a time nightmare but if you still have your tapes, you can buy better equipment and get better captures. That detail isn't necessarily lost forever!

[@chaos.corner]

@@SayakaMaizonoo Yes. Always keep the originals. You can stack them away in a box somewhere but nothing will match their quality (as poor as VHS is) due to losses during transfer.

[@cblakemusic]

Which equpiment for better quality would you recommend for vhs to iMac or windows? Or could you point me to a source? Thanks​@@SayakaMaizonoo

[@SayakaMaizonoo]

​@@cblakemusic My setup is an S-VHS player (Panasonic NV-HS950) with TBC ON. I'm using S-Video output to a Retrotink 5X which scales the image up to 1080p, I leave Deinterlacing on Weave because it's better to do it later. Then from the Retrotink it goes out by HDMI to a Capture card, mine is an Avermedia GC553G2 (Which is probably overkill), and then from there it goes by USB 3.0 to my computer and I capture in AmaRecTV with the Lagarith lossless codec. TLDR: I can't really summarise it in a KZbin comment. Maybe I could write a more detailed guide elsewhere and link to it, but in summary - S-VHS player with a TBC - S-Video output - Highly recommend a Retrotink 5X or 4K - Decent Capture Card - AmaRecTV recording with a lossless codec

[@interstat2222]

Buy a secondhand DVD recorder and record them direct to DVD±R media in 'HQ' mode. Make sure the DVD recorder comes with its remote control. Decent ones come from Philips, Panasonic, Sony, Pioneer and LiteOn. You can then play the recordings in a decent Blu-ray player on a TV or rip the discs to a computer for file playback.

[@hellfire2345_]

It'd be awesome if you (or somebody with the time and hardware to do so) did a video comparing the various chips inside these converters, I have a pretty strong feeling there's only truly a handful out there that are branded under many different names

[@Capturing-Memories]

There are a lot of videos, this is one of them: kzbin.info/www/bejne/m3SuXmmoi9Vmo5I

[@analogvideochannel4612]

There is some data on the linuxtv wiki but it's not really been kept up to date. Several ones including the elgato, diamond vc500 and I think similar hauppage one as well are based on this conexant polaris design and chip, generic versions also exist. Another design that used to be very popular but I think is discontinued now was based around a chip from Empia. The really cheap ones use some different IC. It's really just generic designs that they put their brand on and barely do any changes to. Even the I-O data GV usb may generic design for all I know though it's based on different hardware, I've seen someone link a generic variant of it but can't remember the name of it - though at least it uses different hardware to other stuff out there (e.g renesas/techwell video chip) that's a fair bit better. The fancier devices from blackmagic, magewell etc typically use video decoders from analog devices instead though even these aren't don't typically set up with capture from videotapes in mind (e.g the blagmagic intensity cards choke even worse on videotapes than most cheap usb dongles...) - analog devices actually make some video decoder ICs like the ADV7842 that come with a built in time base corrector feature if provided with memory but no capture device afaik is using it so we're stuck with having to use devices from the mid 00s and older instead to do this properly. The latest retrotink seem to maybe finally have added some features that could help but don't feel like shelling out a bunch of money for one just for testing it as I don't need it for anything else.

[@NJRoadfan]

@@analogvideochannel4612 The Empia chip is a bus interface if I recall. The actual ADC is a separate chip in those USB sticks (ex: ATI TV Wonder 600 USB).

[@abcd1239me]

There is a video, forgot the creator, that compared alot of these usb video recorders. The elgato rated very poorly in his video.

[@orangejjay]

As others have mentioned, they exist. Just search for them. Of course, I'd love to see our good buddy KZbinr do it too

[@bloqk16]

BRAVO! VWestlife for posting this video about the suspect quality I've noticed about those VHS to digital capture apps/devices; as years ago I spent dollars on a couple of them, and after noticing the lackluster quality results of those capture apps versus the process of 'VHS to DVD-R recording to digital ripping,' I've stayed with the 'DVD-R to digital ripping.' Thanks, VWestlife, for confirming my impressions about the inferior video transfer quality of those widely marketed VHS to digital capture devices/apps.

[@myyoutubeaccountgotsuspend8666]

I know we're not naming names, but I'm pretty sure the channel you're talking about is the one that convinced me to buy one of these in the first place. Knowing that these were used in a professional setting was enough to convince me of their quality. Sucks to be the sucker I guess

[@ryanhuang8498]

It's appalling that such video conversation companies use equipment that is worse than if they were not converted at all.

[@VictoryHighway]

We all know it’s LegacyBox.

[@myyoutubeaccountgotsuspend8666]

@VictoryHighway it's not legacybox, in fact the channel I was referring to explicitly called out legacy box for their low quality

[@ThunderTHR]

This particular Elgato device always struck me as a device they should've stopped selling years ago but for some reason keep stock of it despite knowing that its not part of their priority devices, and likely hasn't been for a good number of years by now. Its a shame, because their 'Game Capture' lineup of capture cards are often excellent devices (albeit sadly overpriced in most scenarios, when you consider that devices from the likes of EVGA and NZXT can deliver the same performance at a cheaper price), but it seems like that's where their priorities are because its where they make all the large sum of their profits nowadays. Those who are looking for a more simple straightforward recording device (that keeps focus on these older connectors like Composite, S-Video, SCART, etc.) deserve something better, and this particular Video Capture device just doesn't cut it anymore. Especially when you compared it to that Sony DVD recorder (the quality on that looked fantastic!).

[@MVVblog]

I use an AJA Kona LHE for all types of analog capture. It can capture in uncompressed 10-bit format and in many other formats. I also use an HD Storm and a DV Storm. The key is to use formats that are true video formats, maintaining interlacing in PAL 50i and NTSC 60i video formats, so as to have a digital file that can be played back on a CRT monitor while preserving the quality of the analog image. Later, appropriate deinterlacing can be performed, or not performed at all on video signals that contain, for example, film footage, which in PAL format are usually progressive (meaning the two fields belong to the same frame but each contains half of the total lines of the PAL system with different information). These capture cards are not very expensive; the only issue is getting them to work using specific computers.

[@TTVEaGMXde]

Can AJA make a good TBC obsolete? “All Types” means without SECAM

[@rodrigobelinchon2982]

that Sony DVD recorder does a fantastic job !

[@hyperturbotechnomike]

But like all sony devices, they were just one step close of making it perfect by allowing video recording through USB.

[@BilisNegra]

By your surprise it might be the case you've never seen it demonstrated. If so, note that a dedicated video on that device came up very recently on the channel, just weeks ago.

[@interstat2222]

@@hyperturbotechnomike At the time nobody wanted USB media recording in that way and the format it encodes the video in (as per the DVD spec) would've been incompatible with the very few devices that could play USB media. It's not Sony's fault, it was designed for what was a different era.

[@marktubeie07]

This video actually stopped me from making a big mistake for exactly the project I'm about to undertake, exactly the tech reasons you mention in the vid. Kevin, it's happening everywhere now with 'honest reviews' being penalized or even threats made - speaking your mind, forget it, a thing of the past. I weep for the future...

[@RadOo]

same here I was also considering this one, well definitely not worth that price! money saved

[@NJRoadfan]

Sadly, some of the best analog video capture hardware is pushing 20 years old now.

[@professorpenne9962]

you did a great job with the comparisons. people who have never watched a VHS tend to think they all are extremely grainy and low quality because of bad captures.

[@CorruptedDogg]

I blame those expectations on the fake "VHS" video filters that people use to make their videos look lo-fi. A certain generation has only experienced VHS through the lens of filters and expect every VHS capture to look like someone tried to erase the tape with an industrial strength magnet

[@professorpenne9962]

@@CorruptedDogg that's a really solid point. I can spot those filters from a mile away but I can see how someone who didn't grow up watching VHS tapes can be tricked by them.

[@rillloudmother]

it's the 78 rpm record syndrome. everyone thinks that 78 rpm records always sounded awful because nobody can remember when 78 rpm records were new. now it has moved down to VHS, lol.

[@OuterTapes]

Hello. Thank you very much for a very solid chunk of knowledge about ripping analog media to digital - I was just finding my way in, not necessarily to archive old tapes, but rather to purposefully record stuff just for that analog vibe and it's quirkiness and artifacts. I was skeptic about Elgato from very beginning, so thank you very much for confirming my suspicion. But most of all, thank you for an epilepsy warning. As a person suffering from seizures on regular basis, I appreciate your concern. You're a real MVP.

[@Syn_Host]

I remember I was saving for this very one capture card because I kept seeing it everywhere, until I got my Sony DSR-250 camcorder, which also works as a DVCAM vcr, and can also convert analog footage with a built-in TBC, and because it's DVCAM I can just directly capture footage through firewire to my computer and have pristine quality captures.

[@JohnSmith-iu8cj]

How does your setup work? Do you record the analog signal on digital tape first? And then play back the digital tape and record on the pc the digital signal? Or is no tape needed? I looked into the manual but it wasn’t clear to me.

[@Syn_Host]

@@JohnSmith-iu8cj at first I recorded onto tape and then transferred it, but I soon realized I could just record directly onto the PC when enabling the 'A/V->DV OUT' option in the 'VTR SET' menu

[@Tomsonic41]

I use the Elgato to capture old VHS tapes. I find the quality is much improved if you run the signal from the VCR through a DVD recorder first before it goes to the Elgato. You don't need to burn a DVD or anything; it's just there to stabilise the signal. I'm also in a PAL region, so maybe it works better/worse with NTSC sources.

[@CSSTPMedia]

I did that on my LG DR7400 DVD Recorder by running the signal from my SONY SLV-SE710 VCR through my LG DR7400.

[@MrDuncl]

Some of the low end Panasonic DVD recorders have a great reputation as a time base corrector.

[@Doman2000]

Same here using a Panasonic DVD recorder for stabilizing the VHS signal, i am not using the Elgato, but any capture device will benefit greatly from the recorder pass-trough.

[@TTVEaGMXde]

Elgato cannot issue Pal, only accept it. The CX23103 chip converts PAL into NTSC, which is why for me in Hamburg it is 100% electronic waste even with TBC.

[@sfurta]

I burn the analog output as dvd video and recode in pc. These simple deinterlacers built in usb grabbers destroy details and framerate and are best to avoid. Also PAL.

[@clerk37]

I use the Diamond VC-500. In my opinion it's great, but you have to use it correctly. You want to run everything through at least a Line-TBC like you find on older Pro-sumer S-VHS VCRs or many (pretty cheap) panasonic DVD recorders. And you need to capture in a lossless format with software that allows it. Personally I prefer AmaRecTV.

[@und4287]

4:28 I'm willing to bet that the KZbin upload button hasn't worked for several years, due to KZbin occasionally changing their APIs and breaking older software that uses them :)

[@Kr-nv5fo]

I have an Elganto solution for that: the button could just open a browser window of youtube!

[@BestWay2Play]

That Sony DVD recorder does such a good job, even at MPEG-2 compression. It may take an extra step to put it on your computer but at least you end up with a backup physical, non-volatile copy

[@stevethepocket]

Well, non-volatile until disc rot sets in, which will happen much sooner for a burned DVD than a professionally pressed one.

[@chaos.corner]

@@stevethepocket Yes. I went through and started archiving all my burned stuff recently and there were a lot of failures. Nothing precious, fortunately but definitely concerning.

[@interstat2222]

MPEG2 is perfectly adequate/already overkill for VHS. VHS is not a decent format to start with!

[@stevethepocket]

@@interstat2222 I've seen DVD movies where scenes shot in dimly lit areas have visible banding from the compression artifacts; those wouldn't be present on a tape.

[@interstat2222]

​@@stevethepocket On commercial DVDs, that could've been avoided by the producers in most cases by using a higher bitrate encoding method, although a lot of pixellation issues on a DVD were never visible (on SD/HD-Ready CRT or Plasma TVs, or smaller LCDs, as were around at the time). Good TVs/Blu-ray players are still pretty good at showing DVDs, provided you don't sit too close. VHS copies well to DVD with standalone recorders in HQ or SP DVD mode. I used to encode DVDs professionally in the '00s (for commercial DVD releases) and before that worked with VHS duplication.

[@FranklyPeetoons]

For VHS capture, I still use a Canopus AVDC-100 I bought 19 years ago. Results are pretty good. I keep an old FireWire card installed in one of my PCs for such use. Software is WinDV 1.2.3 (free) feeding the Vegas NLE. I don't need to capture old video formats often, but when I do, the solution I used in 2005 still works today. Well, how 'bout that

[@cjc363636]

2 Thank-Yous: 1) Thanks for the flashing lights warning. As a new epilepsy patient, I actually need to be aware of those. And 2) Thanks for doing this work. I'm not currently upconverting or transferring old videos, but I've done conversions in the past, and this will save people a lot of trial-and-error time, so this is a huge gift for fellow video fans/nerds!

[@awolawakened8807]

How did you end up with epilepsy? What happened??

[@BimmyRee]

I went down this rabbit hole a while back and ended up building a PC to run Windows XP with an old ATI capture card. Barely cost more than buying an Elgato since I had most of the components laying around already. I'm very glad I went this route. There is quite a learning curve, not recommended for the average person, but the end result is well worth the time and effort. It's a shame that so many people are digitizing their priceless tapes without any regard for the capture quality.

[@davewhite7182]

I used a few different routes for my transfers - 1. Hi8 played on a Sony digital 8 player via firewall to a Mac, 2. MiniDV from the camera via FireWire, 3. VHS tapes to a Sony HD/DVD recorder hard disc then to DVD and ripped with Handbrake. The best advice I can give is DON’T DELAY. Your tapes are deteriorating and that decay will dominate any quality issues.

[@Doman2000]

Yes so true, not wait digitizing your valuable memories! It is not so much the tapes itself but specially the (working!) playback equipment is becoming more and more scarce.

[@thiswillprobhrt]

Hi 8 in a D8 player via FireWire is about as good as it gets and dead easy too… except maybe trying a pro deck… but given the consumer purpose of the Hi8, not sure a pro deck would help.

[@c-row66]

Dude you are quite the guardian angel here. i was just now looking for a capture device and was thinking elgato was the way to go and no way i need dvd recorder in my life... Turns out i do! Thanks a bunch for this. Also... I must admit i am quite plesed with "having to get" a DVD-R ;)

[@So1]

I'm glad people are talking more about these types of issue now

[@dvuemedia]

I still have ADAPTEC AVC-2010 Video PCI Kit VideOh! from year 2000 something, works on Win XP only. The results were pretty good. Captures MPEG2 for DVD and MPEG1 for VCD. I also have Pioneer DVD recorder and very good and expensive (back in a days) ADS PYRO Av-Link from 2004 which converts DV to video and video to DV. So I'm pretty much covered.

[@idonotknowwhyyoutubeletsyo5893]

SCART is a genius solution for an easy to use universal connector. It can carry Composite, S-Video, Component or RGB. Together with stereo(maybe more) audio and also has extra pins for sending small amounts of data between devices or signalling standby status. It also allows chaining devices and connecting all of them into one single input on the TV.(example: a DTV box chained with a DVD or some kind of media source connected to a hi-fi audio amplifier which passes all the signals through itself into the TV for the picture, all just one connector, no mess of tons of unlabeled RCA cables that get all tangled.) The chaining feature is the main reason most devices with SCART have two SCART connectors. One carries the output of the device. The other is an input for the signal from another device. The input gets added to the output connector. No external connectors needed either.

[@Zimiorg]

There are flat screens with VGA for over 20 years now. VGA is fully analog. A flat screen "converts" this analog signals to a perfect digital image before it gets displayed. Why isn't this quality possible with this capture devices? freakin sucks.

[@cocusar]

I've seen the videos of that particular "professional" services. I got really shocked when he treated all the media like crap, and had 0 inventory management. It might be a step up above legacybox, but still... I hope the people who send their old media to get converted with them thinks it twice! I even think their "un-mold" machine is really crude, and their skills to "cut the tape" where it might be mangled was completely unacceptable.

[@kalayongyuanOK]

I guess you’re referring to Gotmemories right?

[@cocusar]

@@kalayongyuanOK Yes, and Kevin (vwestlife) as well

[@kalayongyuanOK]

@@cocusar well at least Vwestlife did research on how to properly convert them. Other companies just wanna invest on cheap crap.

[@NJRoadfan]

They can be cringeworthy to watch. Particularly the tape splicing! 😮 Just goes to show how terrible legacybox is. Analog to digital transfer workflows don't scale very well. Its hard to maintain any sort of quality once you go above a certain volume.

[@cocusar]

@@NJRoadfan I think you're right, it's going to wear down your equipment and you'd need to have a lot of maintenence on them. Preventive maintenance on so many analog and mechanical vintage devices would be a lot of burden to begin with, but imagine having to deal with them breaking? It's hard enough and takes time even for trained people. Not only that, but also sum the fact that spare parts are close to non-existant. If I were living off that, yeah I can take time to fix the stuff for myself, and even create replacement parts, but I don't see them doing that. So, as a result, the media conversion services they offer are just plain bad. Not want to bash this guy in particular, but legacybox is far worse.

[@FlintTD]

Now that I know what NOT to buy, I would love to know what I SHOULD buy to digitize VHS tapes properly!

[@mistermariio]

same here! it's either a low framerate, bitrate, resolution.. is there really NO plug-and-play solution for digitizing VHS?

[@clayerik]

Search from thrift store some DVD recorder. I used Panasonic's, got very good results. Need to have computer also to make files to MP4.

[@mistermariio]

@@clayerik thats not plug and play my friend. I want an all-in-1 solution, dvd recorder deteriorates the VHS quality

[@clayerik]

@@mistermariio Yes, but it's working solution. It was not deteriorating anything. I didn't find myself good plug and play solution and I searched it long time.

[@turtle_soda]

the unfortunate thing is a lot of people actually LIKE the way this capture looks. they actively want a worse capture because they want their video to look old if anything they'd look at the sony dvd recording as worse cuz it's too good

[@JimLeonard]

That is unfortunate. True, but unfortunate.

[@Goodmanperson55]

They like them as a stylistic choice for recording new footage. This video is more concerned with archival of VHS tapes.

[@thethirdrail8397]

That came out in true stereo! the right and left channels were very close. the right channel was echoed a bit to center, but that is what 4 track does to a stereo mix!

[@taldmd]

The ATV part was really heartwarming, I loved it.

[@brennanfleuette4627]

Really appreciate you showing the internals

[@AmartharDrakestone]

The other reason why those devices are crap for retro video game capture is because they capture at 30FPS, so when there's sprite flickering on screen it will either come out as not flickering at all or the sprites will disappear.

[@jinky0u812]

I'm so glad you made this video, as I was stuck between purchasing two transfer devices a couple of years back. The Elgato and a ClearClick HD Video Capture Box Ultimate. I sprung for the ClearClick. And it looks like that was a wise choice. I've been very happy with it thus far. Might be a device you would like to review at some point. Great video as always!

[@robbi-blechdose]

Sorry to disappoint you, but the clearclick is just as bad if not worse.

[@aaprods]

Recently saw this on a forum, a message from Elgato re the "low" bitrate for capture, which apparently can be increased: "The value used by the Elgato Video Capture software is the default that is useful in most situations. That said, it can be changed by doing the following: 1) Quit the Video Capture software if it's running, via the tray icon. 2) Start File Explorer and enter the following path in the address bar: %appdata%\Elgato\VideoCapture 3) Edit the Settings.xml file with Windows Notepad or other text editing software. 4) Replace .075 with a higher value, up to 3.5 maximum. 5) Save the Settings.xml file. 6) Relaunch the Video Capture software. Please note the recording file sizes will be larger after doing this."

[@Brandon-ez6ej]

Thank you for your review I just found your channel because I was going to purchase Sony NSC-GC1 and review convinced me not too loll and decided to check your channel! Amazing content unfortunately I have elgato I purchased years back and I did noticed it loook very off but never thought of using dvd to record vhs tapes! So thanks for that tip!!!

[@HiFiInsider]

great review. Is there a good DVD capture device?

[@kalayongyuanOK]

for DVD capture device, just use something like handbrake to rip but if you're talking about DVD recorder then watch his video regarding the Sony VRD-MC5.

[@dan_from_australia]

Nice analysis. In the past, i have used a PCI digital tv card which also has analog input. I believe its also a connexant chip. I captured it to lossless HuffYUV using menvoder or ffmpeg. From there it can be deinterlaced, cleaned up (to an extent) and encoded to the bitrate of your choosing. I think it looks ok but is probably missing the TBC stage in the DVD device you demonstrated.

[@limemyth]

Thank you for this very helpful video! I would definitely like to see more reviews of these capture devices if possible. I personally use a second hand Game Capture HD and found it to do a decent job at capturing composite video, but I'm not an expert and I use it casually, so I'm unsure of what the consensus is on the analog capture quality of that device.

[@neckspike4554]

Thanks for this and the links!

[@CosmicCrimes]

I bought the same brand of Easy Cap digital converter from eBay. I was having trouble with it detecting the video feed from my VCR. It turned out the extension USB cable was defective. I didn’t have anymore problems with it afterwards.

[@Recordology]

Interesting video! I have had really good luck with the Clear Click brand standalone units that input HDMI, S-Video, composite, etc. and record directly to SD card or USB.

[@enilenis]

I used Matrox videocards in the past to digitize videos. Then switched to Hauppauge USB stick for a short while. I also remember using Digital8 Sony camera as a way to convert composite input into a DV feed, but I don't remember which model it was. Don't know if they all do that or not. Lately I switched to a portable device called Unisheen. Had no reviews when I bought it, so I had no clue whether it was any good. I needed something that could record off a VGA for vintage DOS computers, and the rest of features were an afterthought. It turned out to be very decent, but pricey. Can record composite and component. I recorded some old gaming console feeds and the picture was superb. Sharp and clean. No interlacing problems. I wanted to buy a StarTek capture device at first, but they ran out of stock, so I went with some unknown product. Think it was $300 or so. It doubles as a field display for a camera.

[@rager1969]

I appreciate your demos where you use your family's home videos. You seem to have a large family and a wide range of videography quality, from the typical shaky cam of that boat trip to "Bora Bora" to local access CableTV production quality of the ATC and even local broadcast TV quality of your family's visit to the Vatican complete with music, VO and titles/graphics. I also enjoy some of the parodies your family has done, like when one of your family members wore tight dresses and did Spanish used car commercials. I mean, the level of commitment to their art - to have wardrobe, finding a lot to shoot on and getting vintage cars. Well done!

[@2timothy477]

EXCELLENT well informed video! Thank you so much for taking the time to produce such a detailed well informed video. Steven. U.K.

[@404sVHSCollection]

In late 2016, I bought one of these, and it was the worst decision i could've made. I didn't have a time-base corrector like I do now so whenever a tape is having tracking problems, the video goes blank with white dot-crawling. Audio would occasionally skip if you have even a blip of another application taking up a little more resources than usual. Video and audio would desync really easily, which means capturing an entire 6 hour tape isn't feasible. I would only get to transfer a tape in chunks of 30-50 minutes. They may have good HD capture devices, but I think they should focus all their energy into that instead of a really crappy SD device. Also that response email is so cringey to read, lol. They need to discontinue this damn thing.

[@aaprods]

None of these USB sticks have inbuilt TBCs. They all need a stable, clean video source. It's not the Elgato's fault your tape is bad enough to require a TBC. I'll bet if you used the Elgato now with your TBC you'd get a good stable picture. @VWestlife obviously hasn't connected the dots between the Sony DVD Recorder and the quality; had he put the DVD recorder in the workflow as a TBC, he'd have a good, stable Elgato capture.

[@RosalinaSama]

@@aaprods that still wouldn't stop it forcing it to 24fps and extremely low bit rate

[@yawningmarmot]

What camera did you use to film this video though? :) And what solution do you recommend instead of elgato? I doubt many people would be able to find that vhs to dvd recorder

[@Phathom0]

Back in the day, when the first tabletop VHS/DVD burner combos came out. I converted all of my cassettes to DVD. It took about a year of doing it, but having them as DVDs and being able to rip as digital files made it worthwhile. I tried capture cards, but would get issues with humming noises and artifacts. I miss the Lite-ON VHS DVD combos.

[@ConsumerDV]

The bundled software generates 640x480 @ 30p, this is a known fact. But when used with third-party software it can AFAIK generate proper 720x480 @ 30i, so just don't use the bundled junk. Regarding the wobbling, it does not have built-in TBC, so this is normal. Your DVD recorder does have a TBC of sorts. The VC500 would be an ok dongle if it did not shift levels sporadically; something with its AGC that makes it change levels from time to time, and this makes it unusable. Price-wise, yeah, the Elgato is overpriced. The I-O Data USB2 is probably the best bang for the buck in the $50 range.

[@Doman2000]

Yes, it would be interesting to see what this Elgato device really can do with better software (e.g. Virtualdub/AmaRecTV) and a stabilized video source.

[@OldAussieAds]

What software would you recommend? I have access to both Mac and Linux in my house, but can pinch one of my kids' Windows laptops if absolutely necessary.

[@laurencewhite4809]

For PAL, to this day, the absolute best method I have discovered to transfer analog video to digital, is with a VCR (VHS player), connected to a DVD recorder with TBC (Time Base Corrector) through S-video or regular AV, and then connect that (S-video or regular AV) to a DV camera with video passthrough and the DV camera connected to a PC or Mac via firewire, and record the damn thing in DV. Then you NEED to deinterlace the footage with QTGMC. I know it's a long list, but this recipe is hard to beat, both when it comes to quality, file size and effectiveness.

[@namesurname4666]

so i can use a dv camera as a captue card 😲, i usually just recorded with dvd recorder itself with an hard drive but i understand why would do you do that (no mpeg2)

[@laurencewhite4809]

@@namesurname4666 If you have a DV camera (or a Sony Digital 8) with an S-Video (or AV) that is both an input and output, you can send the analog signal from the VHS player into the camera, and then the camera converts it do a digital DV signal, and you can then connect the camera to a PC or MAC with firewire and record that DV signal as DV footage. BUT, you have to use a DVD recorder (With TBC) between the VHS player and the camera. I would strongly recommend this method for PAL video, not so much NTSC.

[@electronicwaves]

@@laurencewhite4809 some DV cameras with VCR function have TBC built in on their own

[@pr9334]

Recently bought a lot of 51 tapes, bought one of those directdvd units as well. Looking forward to results! Thank you for this video.

[@DJRonnieG]

The El Gato might be more useful if it were possible to disable the built-in de-interlacer. I currently use a Digital8 Handycam w/ TBC enable, and use Selur Hybrid's deinterlace filter on the "VerySlow" preset. Clicking the "Bob" checkbox yield an output output of 60fps for those who might prefer it. P.S.- In any case, I appreciate your detailed overview and comparison.

[@TriangIe]

I’ve been transferring videotapes to digital for quite a while now for extended family and people around my local area, and luckily I’ve always been aware of the limitations and poor quality of these cheap converters with all the same chips from China, even before I started this little freelance operation. For VHS transfers it starts from my prosumer spec Sony SLV-R1000 VCR, passes through my AV Toolbox AVT-8710 external Time Base Corrector, and then arrives to my Retrotink 5X Pro via S-Video. The Retrotink then takes that clean analog separate chrome and lume video feed that’s now free of any timebase errors, de-interlaces it via FPGA Motion Adaptive, then digitizes and upscales it to 1080p using bicubic interpolation as I’ve set, and finally sends that to my Elgato HD60X for recording and encoding in OBS via HDMI 2.0. Now I know many purists would be against the upscaling, but to be honest it’s always come out great and has been what everyone I’ve converted for has always preferred.

[@DJShoji]

Thank you so much for the review. I thought their products are on a bit higher standard, but I was wrong. (I've never used their product though.) My method for VHS digitizing is to use my DV camcorder (mine has analog input) and use it as AV converter unit. DV camcorder is connected to Mac via FireWire. I use QuickTime.

[@surisuri8993]

I see VWestlife, I'm watching. No matter what the topic. He has this rare knack of making everything interesting.

[@emancaindec9731]

What camcorder do you use for your videos? I'm planning to buy one for myself soon. Thank you for this video.

[@vwestlife]

For this one I used a Canon HF200 from 2009.

[@emancaindec9731]

Still really looks good Kevin! Thank you. Didn't expect you'd reply soon ❤

[@mspysu79]

Another good capture option (if your PC has an IEE-1394 port) is the Sony DVMC-AV2 Media converter, it takes composite or S-Video and converts it into a DV stream, it will also convert a DV stream to S-Vido and composite with stereo audio. We used them in college on editing systems to fight Panasonic's brain damaged DVCPRO decks, which did not include a digital video I/O option.

[@Vee_H.]

Reminds me of the Technology Connections video where he was exploring many ways to get a VHS cature in the best quality.

[@northernplacecorporation]

*capture

[@wright96d]

He was exploring some pretty bad ways.

[@OM19_MO79]

@@wright96d He didn’t do a Elgato device. Sure, those white block are very basic, but they give better results.

[@wright96d]

@@OM19_MO79 That’s true. The bitrate was fairly high as well if I remember correctly. Let’s just say he was exploring some imperfect ways then.

[@paullee107]

What camera do you record your YT videos with?? Love the content as always!!

[@vwestlife]

In this case I used a Canon HF200.

[@josephmiller5429]

I've been using the analog inputs on my WinTV ATSC tuner card for years with the WinTV software. It works great. Wouldn't mind to hear your technical breakdown on one of those.

[@rtype2922]

In the Japanese analog capture community, At a low price, IO-DATA GV-USB2 is said to be the best. This is perfect for SNES as it can capture at 240p/60fps.

[@kalayongyuanOK]

Anything marketed in Japan are quality.

[@atheistonyoutube]

​@@kalayongyuanOKyes that's true but the IO DATA GV-USB2 is made by IO DATA GV-USB2 factory in Taiwan but I believe it uses Japanese NEC components inside, it is the best capture card available in the market today.

[@kalayongyuanOK]

@@atheistonyoutube oh yeah Taiwan is decent too as most computer manufacturers came from there.

[@atheistonyoutube]

@@kalayongyuanOK yes they are the sole producers of many computer chips, companies like fix conn and data video who's TBC are most in demand even today after 20 years of being disconnected.

[@kalayongyuanOK]

@@atheistonyoutube disconnected? Do u mean discontinued?

[@KeriRautenkranz]

$90 is expensive in 2024? Way back in the early 2000’s I tried all kinds of devices from $150 and lower… none worked well. Finally, I found the Canopus 300 which used Firewire instead of USB and that worked ok. It was also $300+ twenty years ago! It was worth it because it worked. Actually, it still does…

[@lewlew2003]

I’ve given up with all these converters! A few months ago I went ahead and bought some BlackMagic recording equipment, and I’ve never looked back! I use component from my VCR to an analogue to SDI converter, then a Video Capture 3G from black magic also to record to the Media Express recording software. The analogue to SDI converter can detect what resolution and frame rate the video is playing back at, and will send data back to the PC running, Media Express, and it will automatically adjust the video settings as necessary.

[@Capturing-Memories]

I use MediaExpress as well, Pretty good software, no setting to mess around except the output format.

[@jordantomblin2302]

I got very lucky with my VHS video capture. I found a Samsung HDMI VCR/DVD player at Goodwill for maybe $12. Then I bought a $20 Vivitar (I think) HDMI capture card at Walmart. I’m not sure if it’s as good or bad as other capture cards, but I’ve been beyond thankful for it, as I’ve saved several home movies.

[@jkmac625]

I looked up the specs for this device and it said 640x480 for 4:3 and 640x360 for 16:9 so that's interesting you found it to be 640x480 for both aspect ratios. The DVD recorder will be superior as it will capture 720x480 (NTSC) and 720x576 (PAL) at high (XP/HQ) or normal (SP) bit rates. I also discovered that some of the older Panasonic DVD recorders have a TBC on their A/V inputs so it doesn't matter if the VCR has one built in or not as the DVD recorder will correct all the jitters in the image, so it might be the same for Sony. I think the picture quality on DVD Recorders will be superior to anything found on a small USB device, as they were designed to record broadcast TV not from VHS/Hi-8 etc, it's just a pity they are stuck with older MPEG-2 compression.

[@interstat2222]

They were also designed for copying from VHS as people often had home movies they wanted to copy to disc as that's part of how they were sold. MPEG2 is perfect for its purpose and they assumed you'd only ever want to watch the discs on a DVD player (which is really the best way to use them as Blu-ray players have excellent upscaling/deinterlacing).

[@EgoShredder]

I got one of those EzCap USB devices back in 2013 to capture two commercially bought VHS tapes, which my existing capture card could not handle, but I made sure to get a version that was not a cutdown clone, an EzCAP116 (EzCAP DC60+). I needed one that could capture a specific NTSC variant that would not capture with every other card or device I had tried. It did a good job and the included software capture at to MPEG2 at 720 x 480, 4:3 ratio, 8-bit depth colour, Chroma 4:2:0, YUV, interlaced and max bitrate 7 500 kb/s. The audio was done at 224 kb/s / 48 kHz. My favourite capture device I have owned is the Hauppauge WinTV PVR-150MCE, which gives smooth, flawless captures and good audio quality in MPEG2 direct on the card. I use Womble - MPEG-VCR to edit the files, in much the same way as Virtual Dub does, e.g. it does not throw the video and audio out of sync when splicing and joining files, and its blazing fast to edit.

[@WedgeStratos]

I was stunned by that price tag. $88??! I paid $20 for this near-identical unit a decade ago. It never left the box since I had a Dazzle that did just fine, and was trying to move to HDMI capture anyway. Now working on a retro television project that will require capturing and transcoding tapes soon, it's going to be fun having a critical eye on my and others' VHS rips now.

[@TTVEaGMXde]

My old PAL result. Not perfect, but much better than most home solutions: kzbin.info/www/bejne/g2bOiod5rL6Jr5o

[@bekronet]

If you only have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. Most of this eras cameras do have analogue tape but also a FireWire interface to access the media via PC. Instead of encoding / decoding the signal multiple times and losing quality, i would prefer to use the camera built in converter and save the stream "as it is" on the PC.

[@The8TrackChap]

Have you tried the Dazzle with Pinnacle Studio software? If so, what are your thoughts on it?

[@XSpImmaLion]

Good video and advice. I've been noticing this in a lot of different electronic devices, it's something that clashes between established brand names and no name stuff all the time. The way I imagine without internal knowledge that this went, which is also the case for lots of different types of electronics, goes like this. At the time it was designed and created, Elgato probably had very good components there in comparison to the competition. Problem is, this product is only profitable if it can sell long term. So they invested a lot on brand recognition, marketing, etc. But this strategy is incompatible with the product itself. Since it's all chip and software based, in probably less than a year better tech was already available, and it was also cheaper. But it's not worth for the brand to go back to the table and redesign the whole thing again with newer tech and software in mind. Given enough time and production, it's easy enough for a no name business to churn out something that works way better than their original product. See, this also happened with HDMI capture stuff, with USB C chargers, it's happening with keyboards and mouse, with docking stations, with all sorts of electronics metering systems, with power banks, it could happen with portable projectors, it's mostly happened with audio stuff like Bluetooth speakers, portable microphones, and some others. The HDMI capture in particular, I remember a time when generic brands worked so badly that I wouldn't recommend anyone to risk getting the white label stuff. They mostly worked very poorly or not at all, and even though they were cheap, you'd just be wasting money. Nowadays? I think most of the generic stuff works reasonably well. Unless you want something very specific to high end brands, a white label HDMI USB dongle will do. There are lots of areas in the electronics and hobbist categories where something similar happened. Portable soldering irons, motorized screw drivers, CCTV camera testers, USB testers, power supply, devboards, several types of tools, vacuum cleaners, hair trimmers... the list goes on and on. Most people don't notice this because they are not dealing with this huge range of products at the same time I guess. Branded stuff might still have the very top of the high end because it's a company that is not only in product development but also research, but those are kind the exception, not the rule. For the mundane stuff that not everyone has an interest in, you start seeing the generic stuff taking over expensive branded stuff - until the generic stuff coalesce into a brand themselves, that is. xD Personally, I think Elgato is kinda on the way out. It's just that their competition still didn't coalesce under a brand with a consistent product line, looks and marketing strategy just yet. But most of the company's products have some generic competition that might not look as cool or well finished, but they are also a fraction of the price. Elgato branded itself around streaming and vlogging market. So, capture cards, microphones, webcams, lighting, etc. They are not for super high quality per se, they are for whatever is considered "good enough" for streamers. I guess because it's such a nebulous concept and new-ish, you still don't have much of a competition there... but it'll eventually happen. Anyways, this doesn't always work, but just to leave a tip - if you are going for the generic stuff, try getting something that has new tech in something parallel to the product. Some stuff you can just add up the current year in search term. In the case of VHS capture, the only thing I can think of is it having an USB-C port instead of regular USB. Or perhaps something that takes video from S-Video or SCART instead of RCA if you have a way to export the signal. Sometimes you get better electronic components on those. Also try looking at the description and specs of the product if they list a bunch of details on the internal components. This is kinda rare, but when it happens it's another layer of guarantee that whoever is doing those actually care. But it's never a guarantee... Oh, another recent purchase I got was an HDMI Splitter. I had a decade old thing lying around that had all sorts of random problems and glitches. Got a new generic one... working perfectly.

[@DJAllOut]

Thanks for making this. I was considering trying an Elgato device but after watching this, I will steer clear! I'm getting good results with my Magnavox DVD recorder I got at the thrift store for $10, In the future, could you possibly do a video about different TBC options? A lot of them seem prohibitively expensive for the amateur hobbyist.

[@TTVEaGMXde]

Pioneer DVR-560H Recorder -> HDMI (4:4:4 PAL interlaced) -> Blackmagic Decklink Mini Recorder HD (Windows 10) I'll test next.

[@kevkabluebird1032]

"Ride only on designated trails" ... which peeps around here would do that, rather than destroying everything. Aaaaaanyway! Ye, the difference is visible :D

[@robsemail]

Yeah, he talks about - omg The Horror! - having to ride a horse instead of an ATV if he doesn’t stick to the designated trail. To me it sounds like the best reason ever to go off the designated trail, not to mention the best method. Horses often don’t have to stick to the trail. I never did when I was young and riding my horse. Nowadays I guess it’d be a lot safer than it was then to wander off trail riding a horse, since you’d have your phone and its GPS guidance. When I had a horse, you had to navigate by the sun, or if it was cloudy you’d use a compass. I guess an ATV is a good alternative for less fortunate people who don’t know how to ride a horse.

[@FBAV]

Pioneer once came with DVD recorders that could capture analogue in great quality, then rip the dvd to PC/Mac

[@TTVEaGMXde]

Will soon be tested in Hamburg (PAL) with Pioneer DVR-560H via HDMI (4:4:4) to the Blackmagic Decklink Mini Recorder HD. Blackmagic support was kind enough not to reveal straight away that Windows 7 doesn't work. Windows 10 (🙄) should work.

[@bloqk16]

The Pioneer deck I had was extremely durable for over 15 years, recording thousands of hours of materials for various projects. Video quality was first-rate; and the finalization process for the disc was quick, too. It finally malfunctioned, probably due to a faulty capacitor or resistor.

[@kevinh96]

After much experimentation and expense I found the best way (for me at least) is to feed VHS and other analogue formats into a Sony HXD-980 standalone DVD Recorder and use it as a converter and upscaler. I have a cheapish HDMI to USB capture device attached to my laptop with an HDMI cable from the Sony, and capture at 720p with excellent results. The Sony does a great job actually of upscaling VHS and S-VHS captured from an S-VHS recorder to 1080p but that's overkill so 720p is more than good enough (although to be fair even 720p is overkill for VHS but it gives better compatibility with modern displays and the like). I also used the same method to capture Laserdiscs and they too look excellent.

[@IDPhotoMan]

@5:56 - HA! That's my family's old Quasar, that i still have! I also still have the original big ole camera. Bulky is an understatement for that setup lol

[@polaris911]

Amazon has become a junk store

[@analogvideochannel4612]

The only somewhat decent usb capture dongle of these you can get nowadays afaik is the I-O data GV-USB 2 - though even that one isn't optimal but it's much better than the ones based on the conexant chip and the cheap easycap things. Also idk if the bundled software is any good, most of these bundled apps are crap like the one that comes with the elgato thing, using crappy codecs with low bitrate, deinterlacing to 25/29.97p instead of 50/59.94p etc. I wish one of these companies actually put in the effort and made a capture card with a decent video decoder with a tbc (like e.g a ADV7842) in it that could handle video directly from a vcr in it but no one are - not even fancy ones from like blackmagic do... A lot of the standalone recorders that have come out more recently seem to suffer from the same problems, using crappy video decoder ics and crappy codecs, resulting in similarly wobbly video, that's cropped to hell with low bitrate and deinterlaced badly to half framerate... My general suggestion is to use one of the better usb dongles or a fancier capture device, ditch the bundled app and use virtualdub, amarectv or ffmpeg (unless you have a blackmagic or aja or something fancy), and use certain models of dvd recorders as a "tbc" for stabilizing the video. Just passing the video through them and recording the output directly rather than actually recording to DVD. Panasonic ones from 2005/2006 sans the DMR-ES20 (or any newer Pannasonic outside of north america), pioneer from 2005 or newer, or sony from 2007 or newer work well for this.

[@rob1390]

Yes, I've been using the Hauppauge USB Live-2 connected through a Panasonic ES-10 and AmarecTV to capture losslessly using the Lagarith codec and got much better results than some of the other USB dongles for sure.

[@Defensive_Wounds]

I used to use virtualdub and audacity to do my old VHS rips in 2009 but not since! I need easier less time consuming ways to get that quality today! I did a LOT of rare AF VHS tapes and put onto the internet in the argh argh realm (nudge nudge wink wink!) But that was the best I could do back then, still got that capture card but it is so dated today, I got the Japanese language I-O Data one now, not used it yet, got a whole LOAD of VHS tapes to rip that I want to start another YT channel with its content. Dude these tapes are not golden they are beyond that they are PALADIUM from what I have watched!!! It is like a tv series!!!

[@SianaGearz]

TBC could be done in software or drivers but they aren't gonna be arsed are they. Lowest effort products.

[@TTVEaGMXde]

@@rob1390 I have tested a LOT of USB2 grabbers without success.

[@RetroRawit]

If you are going with an EasyCap-like USB capture dongle, go for one with an UTV007 chip. They are hard to get, but that it's the best one. It doesn't TBC but also doesn't do noise-squelch or drop out when there are issues with the video.

[@RetroRawit]

Ok so I just ran into the issue that Windows 11 doesn't play with the Windows 10 drivers for this chip and I haven't found other drivers.

[@MacXpert74]

Nice that you did a video on the Elgato. On your previous video about the Sony device I commented exactly this, that it performed much better than most uploads I've seen done with devices like the Elgato. You've now demonstrated exactly what I wrote. 👍 I would still like to know what the best direct capture solution is available for OS-X. Maybe somebody here knows of a better device / software?

[@TTVEaGMXde]

Pioneer DVD Recorder DVR560, HDMI 4:4:4, Blackmagic Decklink Mini Recorder HD PCIe 2.0 Card ?

[@foxhack5011]

These devices can't handle non-standard signals like that Tandy you showed. That system relies on several things that can only feasibly be done on a CRT. Many DVD recorders (and VHS decks!) are equipped to handle non-standard signals and stabilize them. Heck, I recorded some Sega Genesis video with another device and I couldn't get it to be stable until I passed it through a VHS deck. (The video is in my channel.) And budget capture devices will only get worse since most TVs nowadays only support the very bare minimum to get old composite video displayed on the screen. ElGato just coasts by on goodwill from their earlier products. The quality isn't that great and hasn't been for a long time. Edit: I'm not sure if this is the case these days, but for years, this was the only "decent" video capture solution available for Mac users, IIRC. Easy to install and get capturing. Of course, Mac users also had the benefit of built-in Firewire when this came out so I'm not sure what the point of this was.

[@smts0243]

I have seen the YT channel by the same "pro" VHS conversion guy as you included a clip from, and despite his best intention and seeming like a nice guy, his toolchain makes me cringe. I wonder how many of his customers threw out their priced family memories because he claimed their tapes were in too bad a shape to be recoverable. He should never claim that with his bottom tier capture hardware and no TBC. Poor customers.

[@Ale.K7]

Great video! I have an EasyCap knock-off, "EasierCap" (I wonder if there's an "EasiestCap"...), and strong colors produce diagonal distortion, and can't use the audio inputs because they have too much gain and the sound is severely distorted with most tapes. I should experiment with some resistors...

[@DatamanTheGreat]

I run a local digitization service and I agree. The elgato is what I got started on but I found it frustrating to use for these reasons. I believe why the pro services use it is because the software is one click, stops by itself, and allows them to fulfill bulk orders quickly. For the price, I’ve found that the IO-Data capture card works great. It passes through the direct signal so you can apply whatever interlacing algorithm on the footage. These days, though I’m using black magic stuff…

[@ESDI80]

I had the same exact experience you did with this product when digitizing my VHS collection. Tapes that were more worn out were very jittery. Using a Macro Vision removal box in line helped some. The best solution was using an older PCI WinTV capture card in an XP workstation running an ancient version of Pinnacle Studio that came bundled with a Dazzle 150 box I bought years ago. I used the DV codec for capture in Pinnacle and then used Handbrake on a modern PC to re-encode the video to H.265 for smaller file sizes. The end result is very close to playback on a VCR. However, the above did not go so well with my Laserdiscs. The outcome seemed like the resolution was very reduced. I'm going to give the Elgato with OBS another try with my Laserdiscs as they shouldn't have any jitters on capture like tape does. I'm finding that video capture is more of an art then a science. I have been digitizing all my media onto my Plex server and so I have a good back up of my media as tapes ware out and DVDs as well as Laserdiscs can suffer from bit rot. I never bought into streaming services and kept decades worth of media.

[@airplaneengine]

I have a number of DVD recorders I use for transfers. The two I use the most are a Panasonic DMR-EZ485V, and a Pioneer DVR-520H-S. Although the Pioneer is an older machine (from 2004), I tend to use it more than the others. Produces nice stable results. It has a built in HDD that allows you to break up videos and do minor editing. It'll be a shame when the HDD or disc drive in it finally fails. I've looked into making a clone of the HDD so a replacement could be had when needed, but from what I've read, one will need the Pioneer service remote and specific setup disk to initialize the unit even if you were to ever disconnect the original HDD (and or disc drive) and just simply reconnect it.

[@TTVEaGMXde]

Pioneer DVR-560H -> HDMI (4:4:4) -> Blackmagic DeckLink Mini Recorder HD I'll test next.

[@ewitles]

dude, yu rock. my utoob feed is full of 'that fella' who has rooms full of said devices. and i shudder to think of all the time spent cleaning and repairing tapes - only to get captured via elgato. i have three sony dv encoders and two s-vhs machines. not perfect, but works. i also have a star tech usb 3 capture that does a decent job w obs 'per tom's photo'. could you share your link w/ the obs setup so i can compare? great job taking one for the team.

[@vwestlife]

Click on the card that pops up when I mention it.

[@centauri0]

Best capture cards are old video cards that had video and audio inputs like the ATI all in wonders. I think that's when I transferred my last VHS tapes to a digital format.

[@tonyv3000]

I now regret getting rid of the old Miro capture card at the time.

[@cella630]

Damn, I wish had known this before I transferred a bunch of my tapes and then gave them to goodwill.

[@TTVEaGMXde]

It's a shame, Google Translate cannot translate correctly into German. Since I want to throw away my 370 cassettes, I'll only start when I have a "perfect" solution.

[@TheOriginalCollectorA1303]

VHS and other old formats can look excellent! I always use a CRT to watch something like a VHS movie and when it’s on a huge CRT, it has that feeling of a high end setup from back when they were new. Especially with a good VCR, it can look just like a DVD on those TVs. I’ve got a stand-alone digitizer that can save to SD cards or USB, and it looks better than this. No interlacing at all, which helps a lot. It works well, but the ultimate setup for me would be to use an old Mac and have some Sony Handycams and other similar equipment, FireWire all the way! Combined with an older version of Final Cut and the final DV video will be excellent. I’d rather use a PowerPC Mac with old Final Cut than the software they provided for this, at least those were made for the Pro market. Great video!

[@youknowmyname5695]

... so, what do you recommend then??? Do you have a specific device recommendation for transfering BetaMax tapes?

[@TheLeggedOne]

I bought an unused elgato video capture at a garage sale for $5 a few years back. I had no idea they still sold it

[@TTVEaGMXde]

$5? Usury! , my opinion

[@gfdggdfgdgf]

I recently ordered a composite to HDMI device and an HDMI capture device. Theoretically this should produce terrible quality as the signal will be de-interlaced and at 60 fps. However, the result is surprisingly good! I capture using virtualdub at 720x576 (PAL resolution)

[@MiamiMillionaire]

I'm so happy to have a laptop with a built-in mini DV connection 😁

[@TheBasementChannel]

My goto capture setup is to use a DV handycam. Many models convert analogue input to DV over FireWire.