Analog-to-Digital Video Conversion

[DF61]

Hi all. I'm looking for the right analog-to-digital device that will allow me to convert old home videos from the following sources: 1) Sony Handycam DVD-R discs using a Panasonic VDR-M53PP camcorder 2) TDK 8mm video cassette using an RCA Pro 844 camcorder and 3) VHS tapes using a standard VHS player. I'd like the least expensive device that also produces good quality editable digital files. I've started the research but the options are daunting for this Newbie.

I've begun looking around with general Google and YouTube searches, Best Buy, Fryes, TigerDirect, etc. Frankly, the results are bewildering. Any informed pointers would be hugely appreciated.

[atmfjstc]

If you're only doing this as a one-off, seems to me it would make more sense to find a service that does such conversions, instead of buying the devices yourself?

[CaptDon]

The ATI All-in-Wonder stuff works pretty good for me.
I still use an ancient 128 version. I do feel there are much better
editors out there, so once you render the file to digital you can
edit it and re-assemble it how you want, then burn it to any style
of media you like. I burned some small stuff to VCD and the rest
to DVD. All of my source stuff was imported as NTSC format which
is the typical output of your devices.

[m k]

VDR is already digital so no hardware needed there.

Others are standard NTSC video stuff.
Europe had an incredible SCART(sacré bleu) and it included RGB output.
Your side had S-Video(Y/C).
Your VHS player should support one of those.

Then you still need an analog to digital converter.
Nowadays it should minimally be a plug and play USB.

You can also go to analog to HDMI direction but then you still need something that grabs that HDMI.
Plus side is that those are upscalers and if good you shouldn't lose much of quality of your already poor quality VHS stuff.

There is also an argument that when you play those VHSes you should use the same machine that is used for recording.
The thought is that using the original machine you get best possible quality out.
Counter argument is that if you have only composite video you are losing more than you possible gain.

I have done some of those and picture was decent even with cheap stuff.
But my secreen was small and they were not my tapes and even that the owner said they were fine I have no idea what that finally means.
So when you've done some take them to biggest screen available and evaluate them there.
Keep also in mind that the original picture can't have more than 480 vertical pixels, horizontally there are no pixels, just lines that were deflected around the screen, it's also interleaved so 60 frames or 30 pictures per second.

[CaptDon]

There certainly are horizontal pixels. An equal square resolution
would be roughly 525 pixels high by 525 pixels wide. However
most NTSC television receivers could resolve roughly the equivalent
of 480X480 and so the 640X480 works o.k. for NTSC to digital
conversion however there are some specific standards for NTSC
to digital for VCD or DVD playback and the All-in-Wonder, even the
most basic one from 15 years ago can capture in those modes and
keep the NTSC aspect ratio.

[Benta]

Europe had an incredible SCART(sacré bleu) and it included RGB output.

Except it was never implemented on consumer VCRs (I challenge you to show me one). EU VCRs sadly only implemented CVBS.

[m k]

 
Dang, can't find even a remote of the last machine any more.
It was a Grundig, GV 440 seems familiar, like is show view.

https://www.manualslib.com/manual/1450219/Grundig-Gv-440-Vps.html#manual

Leftmost remote of page 6 is also familiar but its bottom should have a slide cover.

Page 100 has a block diagram, top left has its SCARTs.
I lost.

I was also poking around wrong part of the net with those ATI All-in-Wonder nosings, none of those pages had anything about video in, I blame Google.

So US Y/C capable player is clearly a best choise.

Possible horizontal pixels don't really belong here but there are only pixels that camera have possibly produced.

[Benta]

So US Y/C capable player is clearly a best choise.

No.
CVBS is the best choice. I've played around a lot with digitizing video from analog TV, VCRs etc., and S-Video (Y/C) is not really recommendable.
On consumer devices (TVs, VCRs), S-Video is just generated by separating the CVBS signal, which will then be combined again in the reciving device to CVBS. Makes no sense and creates phase errors and other problems.

S-Video is brilliant when generated at the source (eg, Camcorder), and that's what it was created for.

There used to be plenty of CVBS/Audio USB sticks on the market at cheap prices, see what you can find. The sticks are not the issue (they all work the same, and probably use the same chipset), but the accompanying software is often not very good. You'll need to read some old reviews.

[Benta]

BTW:
I've used the Terratec Grabster AV 450 MX myself with extremely good results. It's unfortunately obsolete, however it's smaller brother AV 350 MX is still available and works just as well.

The big difference is, that the Grabster series do hardware MPEG encoding (Conexant chipset) and deliver a USB-2 MPEG stream that can be read directly by, eg, VLC.

The small USB-sticks only do A/D conversion and rely on extensive processing in your PC to generate MPEG-files. But are much cheaper, of course.

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