I've got the standard problem of a good-sized pile of old VHS and 8mm video tapes slowly degrading in a box, and I want to get them onto a computer. I've read threads here and articles elsewhere with suggestions.
I already own an ancient but functional Sony DVMC-DA1 analog-firewire converter box (bidirectional, actually), and although the audio has a tendency to randomly get out of sync, have used it to digitize tapes in the past. I also have read a lot of recommendations here and elsewhere for the Elgato Video Capture for those who don't have such a box.
For anyone who's compared using the Elgato thing to going through Firewire then encoding in something more manageable than DV, is there a quality difference one way or the other? Particularly when it comes to deinterlacing. Part of me thinks that the DV route gives more flexibility for encoding, but it's also ancient hardware and the DV codec has its own limitations, so I could imagine that an all-in-one pipeline might have unexpected advantages.
I'm also curious if there are recommendations for an automated and easy-to-set-up pipeline do some stabilization on video prior to dumping it to H265 for archiving. I have tools and have manually run old video through stabilization and clean-up and gotten good results--vastly more watchable--but it's incredibly time consuming, which has kept me from going back to the pile of tapes because I'd be looking at weeks of work to deal with it all. My dream is a way to basically stick a tape in, maybe drag-and-drop files, and have a somewhat-watchable stabilized H265 video pop out at the end.
Thanks for any advice!
[Two random asides: One, although it's meaningless now, I love the fact that the old Sony capture device has an LED that lights when it detects Macrovision copy protection... but at least back in the day a Mac ignored the protected flag so it would gladly capture perfect protected video without any restriction. And two, it's funny to me how a video that was shaky but watchable on a ~20" TV way back when is absolutely nauseatingly unwatchable when you put it on a 70" screen today.]
I already own an ancient but functional Sony DVMC-DA1 analog-firewire converter box (bidirectional, actually), and although the audio has a tendency to randomly get out of sync, have used it to digitize tapes in the past. I also have read a lot of recommendations here and elsewhere for the Elgato Video Capture for those who don't have such a box.
For anyone who's compared using the Elgato thing to going through Firewire then encoding in something more manageable than DV, is there a quality difference one way or the other? Particularly when it comes to deinterlacing. Part of me thinks that the DV route gives more flexibility for encoding, but it's also ancient hardware and the DV codec has its own limitations, so I could imagine that an all-in-one pipeline might have unexpected advantages.
I'm also curious if there are recommendations for an automated and easy-to-set-up pipeline do some stabilization on video prior to dumping it to H265 for archiving. I have tools and have manually run old video through stabilization and clean-up and gotten good results--vastly more watchable--but it's incredibly time consuming, which has kept me from going back to the pile of tapes because I'd be looking at weeks of work to deal with it all. My dream is a way to basically stick a tape in, maybe drag-and-drop files, and have a somewhat-watchable stabilized H265 video pop out at the end.
Thanks for any advice!
[Two random asides: One, although it's meaningless now, I love the fact that the old Sony capture device has an LED that lights when it detects Macrovision copy protection... but at least back in the day a Mac ignored the protected flag so it would gladly capture perfect protected video without any restriction. And two, it's funny to me how a video that was shaky but watchable on a ~20" TV way back when is absolutely nauseatingly unwatchable when you put it on a 70" screen today.]
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