Hello, all. First post. :) I've gotten myself into VHS capturing and archiving and am interested in the best results possible. Since I have a Mac Mini, I've been using external devices and so far have two: a first generation Hauppauge HDPVR and a newer Elgato Game Capture HD. Both seem to have advantages and disadvantages, so it's hard to decide which one I should use going forward. They appear to produce very different quality images, even at their highest settings. Here is an example:
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I'm confused why these two devices would produce such different results. I know the Elgato software tries to automatically deinterlace the stream, which is a big no-no for me, because I want a transfer that's true to the source, so I end up quitting the program right after transfer and going into the data folders to pull out the raw file before it's deinterlaced. Still, there appears to be something up with the interlacing, even in these files (an example of which is shown above). Maybe the hardware does some of the deinterlacing halfway? I'm not sure.
I would use the Hauppauge except it doesn't handle tracking distortions very well. It seems to quit every time there's a distortion, or the frame will appear out of alignment. Is this something that a TBC would fix? Otherwise the Elgato seems to power through every kind of distortion and there are no sync issues. It also captures audio at about double the bit rate as the Hauppauge, so I would use that, if only I could get the same picture quality as the Hauppauge.
Is there another device that would work better for digitally archiving VHS? Such as a Canopus DV box like the Grass Valley ADVC55? Along with a TBC like the AVT-8710?
I'm confused why these two devices would produce such different results. I know the Elgato software tries to automatically deinterlace the stream, which is a big no-no for me, because I want a transfer that's true to the source, so I end up quitting the program right after transfer and going into the data folders to pull out the raw file before it's deinterlaced. Still, there appears to be something up with the interlacing, even in these files (an example of which is shown above). Maybe the hardware does some of the deinterlacing halfway? I'm not sure.
I would use the Hauppauge except it doesn't handle tracking distortions very well. It seems to quit every time there's a distortion, or the frame will appear out of alignment. Is this something that a TBC would fix? Otherwise the Elgato seems to power through every kind of distortion and there are no sync issues. It also captures audio at about double the bit rate as the Hauppauge, so I would use that, if only I could get the same picture quality as the Hauppauge.
Is there another device that would work better for digitally archiving VHS? Such as a Canopus DV box like the Grass Valley ADVC55? Along with a TBC like the AVT-8710?