ARCHIVED FORUM -- March 2012 to February 2022READ ONLY FORUM
This is the second Archived Forum which was active between 1st March 2012 and 23rd February 2022
Dear beocagnates
For some years now, I have tried to digitise my VHS collection. My latest attempt included a VX7000; a Samsung VCR, a Shinybow amplified scart splitter, and a scart to HD converter. Since the VX has only one scart outlet, and does not work without being connected to the telly, the Shinybow seemed a good choice, at first. But no, the signal is apparently not processed as I supposed it would be; the Hauppauge Colossus in the computer shows bluescreen.
So I tried the Samsung VCR, which plays very well with the Beovision 7, and transfers the signal to the videocard on the computer, but with lousy image quality. I am looking at the VX8000s on eBay, since they have two scarts, but am not sure whether they are both outs.
Any constructive ideas and tips much appreciated.
Best regards
Carl Hildeman, cat sponsor
My approach to this was simpler, a while back (few years) I picked up a combo player, VHS/VCR and DVD-R, and used it to transfer a few tapes to DVD, and in fact have just found a few tapes I still need to transfer. This worked, albeit the problem is image quality. I feel the image quality I get is as good as you can get with a VHS to start with, they are very low resolution and have poor color space performance. When I was using a home theater receiver made by HK it had a Faroujda video processing engine that could improve the image but you still couldn't make a silk purse out of the proverbial sow's ear. If you can get them into the PC there should be some video editing packages that will do some video cleanup, but the results are never going to be stunning, especially on modern TVs.
Jeff
I'm afraid I'm recovering from the BeoVirus.
Recently I did this using only a VX7000 without a TV, and a Magix video digitizing kit. Great quality and super easy. The VX7000 has only a play/stop button. It rewinds the tape automatically when the end is reached. To get a tape to the beginning I just let it run to find it rewound eventually. I used an RCA audio cable to connect the audio outputs directly to the digitizer, bypassing the SCART for audio.
Only the last four words I do not understand...
I got my grandfather's old VHS home movies transferred to mp4 and yes, the quality is just lousy, it's the format though. I have a nice little 8mm film collection and the 'resolution' or however you want to define it is far better on that because it's designed for projecting to 100" and not watching on a 20" consumer grade television. The difference is far more pronounced when you upscale VHS to a hi-res computer monitor or 60" television.
You can see the difference between betapro and vhs when you compare the quality of studio recorded shows from the 80s to clips from outside broadcasts (the ones recorded on tape and posted, not the satellite ones). Tape's low fidelity is one of the reasons why many things were filmed on 8 or 16mm film long after the introduction of tapes and digital editing desks.
Hello,
I have been down this path. Both with the VX7000 and V8000. Both thru a Panasonic DMR-BW500. The V8000 with new playing heads and a reasonable quality VHS tape worked the best.
The problem you are faced with is that the V8000 is still a rather basic video recorder/player, aimed at producing a good CRT TV picture, not duplication.
On the other hand, I also did something similar using a JVC Professional Series (Broadcast Quality) VHS unit at my Fathers video store. As you could manipulate the source VHS picture and sound in so many ways you got an excellent result in most cases. You could do the same manipulation with sources from a tuner, radio, BETA, etc.
If the VHS tapes are that important my advice would be to seek professional services.
Hope this helps, Beoaus.
Some explanation about "I used an RCA audio cable to connect the audio outputs directly to the digitizer, bypassing the SCART for audio.": The VX7000 has dedicated RCA audio output jacks. I connected those to the audio inputs of the video converter. I could have used the audio jacks on the SCART cable, but I guessed that the audio quality could be a bit better when using the dedicated audio jacks on the VX7000. This was just a guess, I did not test the audio on the SCART.
Maybe it is relevant to know that I used the latest version of the Magix kit. Everything you need comes in the box.