[vcf-midatlantic] semi OT: video digitizing & archive

Sentry TV sentrytv at yahoo.com
Tue Apr 13 01:33:22 UTC 2021


 My goodness!All this for just a video capture?I am sure many of us have old PCs or MACs that can do the job!I admit I spent $199 on a Black Magic PCI-E Capture card for my Intel MAC tower (it also works on my PC) It also came with basic capture software.
So if all you want to do is get VCR tape recordings to digital format (MP4 MPEG RAW) a USB dongle with compatible software and drivers is all you need!No need to spend MEGABUCKS!
MY 2 CENTS


    On Monday, April 12, 2021, 12:18:30 AM EDT, Herb Johnson via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic at lists.vcfed.org> wrote:  
 
 > On Tue, Apr 6, 2021 at 12:40 PM Jeffrey Jonas wrote:
> 
>> I need advice how to best digitize video,
>> mostly standard def TV/NTSC of VCF events.

Jeff didn't say exactly what his video sources were, but by definition 
"NTSC" means some analog-broadcast quality, composite video or NTSC 
channel 3/4 source. Say an old tape VCR or an old analog videotape 
camera etc. etc.

Jeff didn't say what to digitize TO. He mentioned old-school proprietary 
TV to-hard-drive capturing systems. Jeff - suck any video from them, 
digitize it on playback, and throw. them. out.

Someone close to me, does a lot of ATSC and cable-to-NTSC recording. The 
technology they use for capture, is Win 7 Win 8 class dual/quad CPU 
tower PC systems. OK? They use USB dongles for video capture; USB 
ATSC/NTSC tuners; or less convenient PCI card ATSC/NTSC tuners. 
Hauppauge produced a bunch of these, also Pinnacle. Buy them on eBay; 
they are obsolete, they are cheap.

VLC is a pretty good media player software package. Less good for 
capture. You *do* plan to play these on a computer right? Save files on 
a computer and some mass-storage device, right? Right?

A plausible path is:
Composite video/audio;
Hauppage USB-Live-2 dongle (to USB port);
Win 7, 8, 10 box less than 10 years old;
OBS video capture https://obsproject.com/;
VLC video playback https://www.videolan.org/vlc/.

If your source is tape-video with only NTSC channel 3/4 out,
then get a USB tuner dongle. Again; ebay, cheap, obsolete.
Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-950 does NTSC and ATSC.
Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-850 does NTSC.

Of course, ATSC and an antenna lets you watch and record over-the-air 
content. 720 and 1080 resolution too.

If you are a Linux-fan, fine. Same hardware, same software suggestions. 
Please use a computer box less than ten years old with muscle.
https://www.linuxtv.org/

regards, Herb Johnson

-- 
Herbert R. Johnson, New Jersey in the USA
http://www.retrotechnology.com OR .net
  


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