<p>I think you want to capture at 640x480. VHS uses interlaced video, so the recorded content provides half the lines every 1/30th of a second. The effective resolution is horribly low, 352x240.</p>

<p>Have a look at <a href="http://www.divx-digest.com/articles/vhs_capture.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">VHS capture DIVX information</a>, which seems to discuss all the issues. </p>

<p>Regardless of the workflow you use, be sure your de-interlacer is high-quality or the output will suffer greatly. </p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-03-23T00:40:44.567Z
One field (half the scan lines) is transmitted at *twice* the frame rate, so every 1/60th of a second.
Michael Liebman
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-03-23T05:01:24.740Z
This assumes NTSC; OP may have PAL material.
Gyan
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-03-23T00:05:18.440Z
2019-03-23T00:05:18.440Z
Wilfred Smith
<p>It depends. My setup is kind of peculiar, but works extremely well.</p>
<p>Regular (decent, but consumer) VHS deck.</p>
<p>SCART2HDMI box. The neat thing about these, is that they usually include a Time Base Corrector (TBC) and thus are much better than the regular USB dongles.</p>
<p>Then, I used a cheap HDMI capture card for about $15 which takes the HDMI. It captures in 1280x720, which on the face of it looks like overkill. However, because it is so cheap, it only capture bad MJPEG format, which is blocky. Downscaled to for instance 720x576 (for PAL VHS) it looks very very good. The blockiness goes away.</p>
<p>Should I capture at 720x576, the MJPEG compression shows as blocks.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-12-01T19:21:33.300Z
2020-12-01T19:21:33.300Z
Prof. Falken
<p>On many forum and sites people say that you can capture with resolution of 720x576. But many other replies is too high resolution and is better to capture at 512x384 or similar. Someone know what is the max original resolution of a vhs?</p>

<vhs>
Vhs capture: 720x576 or less?
elbarna
# Vhs capture: 720x576 or less?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2019-03-21)

On many forum and sites people say that you can capture with resolution of 720x576. But many other replies is too high resolution and is better to capture at 512x384 or similar. Someone know what is the max original resolution of a vhs?

**Tags:** vhs


---

## 2 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2019-03-23. Score: 1 | Accepted answer

I think you want to capture at 640x480. VHS uses interlaced video, so the recorded content provides half the lines every 1/30th of a second. The effective resolution is horribly low, 352x240.

Have a look at [VHS capture DIVX information](http://www.divx-digest.com/articles/vhs_capture.html), which seems to discuss all the issues.

Regardless of the workflow you use, be sure your de-interlacer is high-quality or the output will suffer greatly.

> **Comments:**
> **username_2**: One field (half the scan lines) is transmitted at *twice* the frame rate, so every 1/60th of a second.  
> **username_3**: This assumes NTSC; OP may have PAL material.  

---

### Answer by username_4 on 2020-12-01. Score: 1

It depends. My setup is kind of peculiar, but works extremely well.

Regular (decent, but consumer) VHS deck.

SCART2HDMI box. The neat thing about these, is that they usually include a Time Base Corrector (TBC) and thus are much better than the regular USB dongles.

Then, I used a cheap HDMI capture card for about $15 which takes the HDMI. It captures in 1280x720, which on the face of it looks like overkill. However, because it is so cheap, it only capture bad MJPEG format, which is blocky. Downscaled to for instance 720x576 (for PAL VHS) it looks very very good. The blockiness goes away.

Should I capture at 720x576, the MJPEG compression shows as blocks.


---

