Good, reliable capture software

[Jukebag]

Hi, does anyone know of any good capture programmes for capturing VHS tapes to a laptop/PC via a USB capture device?. Years ago I bought a cheap USB capture device that you can connect from a VHS player to the USB input to a laptop or PC.The software that came with it is called Arcsoft Showbiz, a pretty basic capture programe that captures video in MPEG2 format. I'm not partcularly about about quality just the capture itself. Capturing from this program results in smooth capturing and recording/playback - no audio sync issues or framerate drop, the only problem is whenever there is a slight image jump it immediately throws up a "detected a copy protected tape" message and the recording stops, even though the tape isn't copy protected. Makes using the program useless considering most of the tapes I have have some jumps here and there due to age and deterioration.

I have tried alternative programs (free ones) which don't throw up the copy protected message, the only issues with many of them is due to jittery picture and framerate lagging. I have been using a program (on and off) called Debut Capture. Even when I have set the framerate to 25fps, both during recording and playback the picture is lagging. I have tested the tapes on their own by connecting the player to a TV, and there is no picture or framerate issues due to badly worn or warped tape. If it was an issue with my processor then surely the Arcsoft program would result in the same problem, but it doesn't, it plays as smooth as it would via a connected TV, it seems to be the other programs I've been using that result in poor video motion for some reason.

Edited by Jukebag on Wednesday 19th August 19:54

[MrCheese]

I’m doing exactly this and had your problem with that software.

I have succeeded with OBS free software. It’s a bit of a pain to setup but there are tutorials on google. For some reason I have to have the sound set to monitor as I record but the results have been truly excellent. I have vhs and beta videos converted to mp4 and they really are quite watchable.

[Jukebag]

There are some nice free programs out there, but as you said they are abit of a pain to set up, and often the settings go back to default, well the ones I have been using. I have tried Debut Capture again, but this time I have lowered the frame rate to 24fps instead 25fps, and it seems to improve the motion of the played video and the recorded video a little bit. With alot of these free programs the video motion (possibly due to frame rate) seems to be the biggest issue. I get the impression alot of these capture programs have been specifically designed for webcam recording rather than video capture via an external source like a DVD and VHS player, which is why I think the video is often lacking in steady framerate.

As I said, when playing the tapes through the TV via a VHS recorder, the tapes play very smoothly as they would normally do, and they also play smoothly through the program that came with the capture device I bought, the only problem is that the program annoyingly displays the copy protected message whenever there is a slight jump in the picture, which cannot be avoided. I have also used Virtualdub (some people highly recommend it), but again the results are much the same - often juddery frame rate, and the last time I tried it a few days ago it wouldn't detect my capture device.

[souper]

A bit left field, are you able to view on win10 screen without problems before capturing, if so, i was trying to copy a streamed video but any software i tried failed i then found out that Win10 has a 'Game Bar' feature and will capture anthing displayed on the screen. You more than likely will have to enable this feature but when its done just press Win+Alt-R to start/stop recording do not touch mouse or anything or it will record the mouse movements ect, may have to disable screen sleep for the duration, may also have to use full screen (F11) otherwise it may record the task bar.
https://www.techrepublic.com/article/how-to-activa...

Edited by souper on Saturday 22 August 12:14

[Jukebag]

I'm not sure about Win10. I am running Windows 8 if that's what you mean. I am not capturing streaming video but video from an external VHS recorder.

[souper]

Gaming Bar is only available on wndows10, my thought was you were viewing the vhs tape on a windows screen which was captured by whatever usb to pc device you have, if it looked fine playing on pc screen but your capture software although it works the finished capture/conversion was not the as good as what you saw on screen, hence using Win10 Gaming Bar to capture what you saw on screen the resulting gaming bar capture may or may not result in a better copy.