Capturing analogue video (VHS) into Premiere – best workflow advice?

[Michael Trenton]

So I recieved my Intensity Shuttle today (I went with the external one rather than the 4K Pro internal one) and unfortunately I’ve run into some issues.
Like someone mentioned previously the lack of TBC in my JVC HR-S6950 VHS deck is the likely culprit here. Basically the Intensity Shuttle itself seems to be working just fine, but the video is having loads of black flash frames (what I assume is dropped frames caused by the lack of TBC?). It will usually look just fine for a couple of minutes, then there will be a couple of minutes where there will be some minutes with lots of black flash frames and then it will look just fine again for the next few minutes. And so it goes, so that renders my captured footage unusable unfortunately.

So I’m a bit at a loss of what to do now really. Is the only solution to find some second hand higher end VHS player with inbuilt TBC? Or is there some other capture device on the market that has this inbuilt?

And is it even possible that those cheaper consumer based capture solutions (e.g. Magix Rescue Your Videotapes) are potentially better suited at handling this task? I mean if you needed a high end VHS deck with TBC in order to make Magix Rescue Your Videotapes work then I assume there would have been almost exclusively negative feedback on such a device from the majority of customers out there with non-TBC consumer VHS decks?

Btw
Nice videos comparing the Intensity Shuttle to the ADVC 110 there Andy. I was particularly surprised to learn GPU acceleration resulted in poorer image quality when monitoring.

[Michael Trenton]

UPDATE:
I’m gonna buy an s-video to HDMI converter and see if that makes a difference. I know it’s probably a long shot, but it’s the only thing I can think of right now (with the exception of getting a VHS deck with TBC, but I’m not sure how readily available they are).

Something like this:
https://www.amazon.com/Tendak-Composite-S-Video-Converter-Upscaler/dp/B00V2ULHBS/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1485286534&sr=8-3&keywords=s-video+to+hdmi+converter

[Andy Patterson]

[Michael Trenton] ”
Btw
Nice videos comparing the Intensity Shuttle to the ADVC 110 there Andy. I was particularly surprised to learn GPU acceleration resulted in poorer image quality when monitoring.”

Thanks. You paid close attention. Until PP CS 6 Premiere could not out put to IEEE Fire Wire devices. It can do it know but software mode might be the best option depending on the timeline. Since it only outputs to 720X480 you can probably drop down t 1/2 or 1/4 and still get a nice clean image on an NTSC monitor. If it is a standard definition timeline you will get plenty of real-time effects in software only mode. I am not to bumbed out about it. At least does out put anything to the DV converter.

Concerning the problems you are having a TBC would probably fix the problem but I cannot say for sure. Having said that have you tried downloading an older driver just to test things out? The drivers can be fussy at times.

[Andy Patterson]

[Michael Trenton] ”
Something like this:
https://www.amazon.com/Tendak-Composite-S-Video-Converter-Upscaler/dp/B00V2...”

You can try it but I am not sure how good the image quality will be. Have you tried all the settings for the Intensity Shuttle?

[Andy Patterson]

Did you try to capture form a DVD player or a Blu-ray player? Those should work without any problems. It could be a driver issues. The Intensity Shuttle drivers can be fussy.

[Michael Trenton]

Update:

I gave up on getting the Intensity Shuttle to work (wasn’t able to test running the video via a DVD/Blu-ray player since none of mine have analogue in Connections) and instead bought the consumer based Magix Rescue Your Videotapes 8 solution which gets the job done.
It’s a bit of a hassle though as the Magix software only allows for the videotapes to first be captured into their own proprietary format and then I have to export an MPEG2 file in order to use the file outside of their own software. Albeit it is time consuming and I’m sure inflicts some quality loss it does seem to work and offer decent enough picture quality (given the nature of the source material).

[Jan Janowski]

I’m hesitant to say a different transverter will work due to TBC errors in your VHS deck. I have heard that sometimes using a camcorder with composite or SVideo input, in EE mode, and taking Firewire out sometimes minimizes some of the TBC error…

Hopefully your tapes are first generation, and not ‘dubs’…. Dubs create all sorts of problems due to multiple TBC errors all beating against one another….

Looking for 1939 Indian Motocycle

[Michael Trenton]

I’m hesitant to say a different transverter will work due to TBC errors in your VHS deck. I have heard that sometimes using a camcorder with composite or SVideo input, in EE mode, and taking Firewire out sometimes minimizes some of the TBC error…

Hopefully your tapes are first generation, and not ‘dubs’…. Dubs create all sorts of problems due to multiple TBC errors all beating against one another….

Yes I didn’t want to spend more money buying another pro converter due to me not having a TBC deck so that’s why I took my chances with the consumer oriented Magix solution as I figured because most consumer VHS decks probably are no-TBC ones it wouldn’t have made sense for Magix to sell a converter dependent upon a TBC deck to regular consumers.

I do have a working HDV camera laying about which accepts analogue video in through composite (no s-video unfortunately – the Magix converter has s-video though). So far I haven’t tested if whether it’s capable of outputting the video directly through firewire though (as I’ve thrown all my 4-pin FW cables out, but I’ve now ordered a new one for testing), or if I have to record onto a tape and then ingest the tape afterwards. However If it does work I’ll have the advantage of recording DV stream quality. It will be through composite though and the Magix does video through s-video so I wonder if I will get any real quality bump by going the DV stream route (instead of Magix MPEG2 conversion) or if the quality loss from composite (VS Magix s-video) outweighs that advantage…?

My tapes are first generation, but they still look like crap on my computer screen, but I guess that’s as expected given the source. Too bad I’ve not kept any CRT screens.

[Jan Janowski]

Trust me…. After you get video captured, your next search will be for a Video Noise Reduction Plug-in !
If you find a good one that doesn’t take all day to render…. Please post!!! :)!

Looking for 1939 Indian Motocycle