Is my capture from VHS dropping frames from itself?

AVERAGEJOE wrote on 7/30/2003, 12:05 PM

Occasionally when I use a store-bought VHS tape, I try to capture it. I have found the more used/older the tape, I am dropping frames, even using two diff VCRs. I also tried going from VCR to Dazzle to MiniDV camera, and sometimes I'll get a blue screen at the same points where the Dazzle drop frames when going straight from Dazzle into the PC. Difference is the MiniDV stays connected and gets a short blue 1/30 frame or so.

When I watch the VHS regularly, I don't see any drops in the video.

Is there anything that can be done to insure 'seamless' captures with older VHS tapes? Or since they are old, if it has a bad portion of it, it will drop no matter what?

Comments

RBartlett wrote on 7/30/2003, 1:44 PM

farss wrote on 7/30/2003, 4:22 PM

I've had exactly the same problems and much worse with the Hollywood Dazzle.

All I can say is dazzle it doesn't!

A minor loss of sync from the analogue source may not only cause it drop frames, I've had it consistantly turn ALL audio from the rest of the tape into Dalek speak.

My D8 camera by comparison very cleanly just outputs black frames if it has a total loss of analogue sync and recovers within a few frames.

I've seen Dazzles going on eBay for a few dollars, IMHO that's a few dollars too many.

AVERAGEJOE wrote on 7/30/2003, 7:31 PM

ouch! thanks.....

mikkie wrote on 7/31/2003, 8:49 AM

Perhaps go to your local retailer and pick up an ATI AIW card - should handle what you want to do, and can easily take it back if not. Seems a few DV based setups have a prob. when the signal craps out, whereas something like the AIW will just record it, no matter if it's noise or whatever.