<p>I did this a few years ago, digitized dozens of my family's old home videos. </p>

<p>The way I did it was, as at the time I was doing it from home and didn't have a IO device such as a DeckLink, I simply used a MiniDV Portable Recorder I got off eBay; which allows composite, component, and S-Video In. </p>

<p>Once the VHS tapes were transferred to my "Digital Intermediate" so to speak, I simply did a standard FireWire Capture using Premiere. </p>

<p>This also provided me with a set of DV Master Tapes as a backup. </p>

<p>You can likely get a used MiniDV HDV Record Deck off eBay for a few hundred dollars now that tape is dead; and just flip it when done (basically no cost if you can sell it for what you pay for it). </p>

<p>Going straight from Analog Tape, really requires a real IO device such as a DeckLink card to get good results, and a DeckLink card with analog IO will be much more expensive. </p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-12-28T10:09:40.527Z
Going to DV means copping quite a big loss of quality due to the fairly heavy compression in that codec. How important this is depends on the user, but it's worth noting.
stib
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-01-10T05:47:43.673Z
I recommended going to HDV. While still compressed, from VHS which at best will produce in the neighborhood of 210-230 lines of resolution, using HDV, which has a horizontal resolution of 1080; should not, to any eye, be noticeable.  On a scope, at high magnification, I'm sure there would be a bit of loss in under limit and over limit (0 and 100) luma and chroma, but for what he is describing, not even the best trained eye on a reference monitor would likely see the difference between the HDV and an uncompressed capture of a 20 year old VHS tape.
McFlySoHigh
CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-12-27T20:19:53.853Z
2016-12-27T20:19:53.853Z
McFlySoHigh
<p>I may have found the answer ... I tried a different tape, and all seemed to work well. Stupid me did not check if the error is already on the tape :D</p>

<p>Thanks!</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-09-26T15:07:58.330Z
2017-09-26T15:07:58.330Z
Pythoneer
<p>I am trying to record all my old VHS tapes. I bought a video grabber, usbtv 4-1.2:1.0: Fushicai USBTV007 Audio-Video Grabber, but somehow that does not work well. I tried using VLC, but that has some strange effects. Often it shows past frames while running. Maybe some buffering is needed? I also tried ffmpeg, but that gives me a lot of errors, and also those past frames in between. Maybe the driver is not that good? I also tried in Windows using the software that came with it, called honestech vhs to dvd. That appears to not show the flickering/past frames issue, but it barely has any configuration options, so I would rather not use it.</p>

<p>Does anybody have any experience with this?</p>

<p>Thx.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-12-26T09:56:43.283Z
Could you maybe upload a sample video somewhere which shows the problem ? What OS / OS version are you using (Windows, Linux..) ? If you're using Windows, you can try [VirtualDub](http://virtualdub.org/index.html), which I've used successfully for video capture.
Jonas Czech
CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-12-26T17:26:43.407Z
To @JonasCz questions, I'd add: What controls are missing from the honestech software that you'd like to use?
Michael Liebman
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-09-24T12:32:58.567Z
USB devices are not really fast enough for video work, even something as low bandwidth as VHS. see @MartinAndrews answer below.
pojo-guy
<video><capturing><vhs>
capturing video from VHS flickers
Pythoneer
# capturing video from VHS flickers

(Asked by: username_0 on 2016-12-25)

I am trying to record all my old VHS tapes. I bought a video grabber, usbtv 4-1.2:1.0: Fushicai USBTV007 Audio-Video Grabber, but somehow that does not work well. I tried using VLC, but that has some strange effects. Often it shows past frames while running. Maybe some buffering is needed? I also tried ffmpeg, but that gives me a lot of errors, and also those past frames in between. Maybe the driver is not that good? I also tried in Windows using the software that came with it, called honestech vhs to dvd. That appears to not show the flickering/past frames issue, but it barely has any configuration options, so I would rather not use it.

Does anybody have any experience with this?

Thx.

**Tags:** video, capturing, vhs

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: Could you maybe upload a sample video somewhere which shows the problem ? What OS / OS version are you using (Windows, Linux..) ? If you're using Windows, you can try [VirtualDub](http://virtualdub.org/index.html), which I've used successfully for video capture.  
> **username_2**: To @JonasCz questions, I'd add: What controls are missing from the honestech software that you'd like to use?  
> **username_3**: USB devices are not really fast enough for video work, even something as low bandwidth as VHS. see @MartinAndrews answer below.  

---

## 2 answers

### Answer by username_4 on 2016-12-27. Score: 2

I did this a few years ago, digitized dozens of my family's old home videos.

The way I did it was, as at the time I was doing it from home and didn't have a IO device such as a DeckLink, I simply used a MiniDV Portable Recorder I got off eBay; which allows composite, component, and S-Video In.

Once the VHS tapes were transferred to my "Digital Intermediate" so to speak, I simply did a standard FireWire Capture using Premiere.

This also provided me with a set of DV Master Tapes as a backup.

You can likely get a used MiniDV HDV Record Deck off eBay for a few hundred dollars now that tape is dead; and just flip it when done (basically no cost if you can sell it for what you pay for it).

Going straight from Analog Tape, really requires a real IO device such as a DeckLink card to get good results, and a DeckLink card with analog IO will be much more expensive.

> **Comments:**
> **username_5**: Going to DV means copping quite a big loss of quality due to the fairly heavy compression in that codec. How important this is depends on the user, but it's worth noting.  
> **username_4**: I recommended going to HDV. While still compressed, from VHS which at best will produce in the neighborhood of 210-230 lines of resolution, using HDV, which has a horizontal resolution of 1080; should not, to any eye, be noticeable.  On a scope, at high magnification, I'm sure there would be a bit of loss in under limit and over limit (0 and 100) luma and chroma, but for what he is describing, not even the best trained eye on a reference monitor would likely see the difference between the HDV and an uncompressed capture of a 20 year old VHS tape.  

---

### Answer by username_0 on 2017-09-26. Score: 0

I may have found the answer ... I tried a different tape, and all seemed to work well. Stupid me did not check if the error is already on the tape :D

Thanks!


---

