AV Equipment

I first started with mulimedia capture cards in April 2003 with a Leadtek WinFast TV2000 XP Deluxe on Windows XP. I also used a Leadtek WinFast TV2000 XP Expert. 

This is some of the equipment I use now. 

Capture

I use Leadtek PCI and PCI Express capture cards.

  • Leadtek WinFast PxDTV2300 H mainly for the component YPbPr input.
  • Leadtek WinFast DTV1000 S for digital TV, composite and s-video.
  • Leadtek WinFast DTV2000 DS Plus for digital TV and DAB+. 

Playback

VHS

  • Sharp VC-H690X (manufactured 2000) 
  • Sharp VC-H710X (manufactured 2001) 
  • Sharp VC-H726X (manufactured 2002) 
  • Sharp VC-H730X (manufactured 2002) 
  • JVC HR-DD857MS 
  • Panasonic DMR-EZ48V for its component YPbPr output (manufactured 2010) 
  • Panasonic NV-HV60GL-S (manufactured 2003) 
  • Panasonic NV-VP33GL (manufactured 2003) 
  • Panasonic NV-VP33GL (manufactured 2005) 
  • Panasonic NV-HD620MK2A 
  • Panasonic NV-HD630 
  • Panasonic AG-5260E 
  • Hitachi VT-FX768E (AU) (manufactured 2002) 
  • NEC VHS VNG-29

Betamax

  • Sony Betamax SL-C40ES
  • Sanyo Betacord VTC 5300P (not working) 
  • Sanyo Betacord VTC 5400P (not working) 

Hi8 and MiniDV

Handheld video recorders are used for capturing home videos.

  • Sony CCD-TRV428E which uses Hi8 tapes and has composite and s-video output.
  • JVC for Mini DV using IEEE 1394

Originally I had a JVC-GR-DX77 that malfunctioned. 

Information 

A remote is needed to turn the on screen display (OSD) off for grabbing. 

I clean the VCRs when they start to struggle with tracking or pops and clicks on the Hi-Fi audio which can be between 10 and 30 VHS cassettes depending on the condition of the cassettes played. 

When linear audio is muffled I adjust the tracking head. 

Some of my older recordings were with a Samsung DVD-V7000 (manufactured 2002) and LG DC593W (manufactured September 2002). 

Audio

I use audio mixers to balance the audio as I am recording. Many VHS and Betamax tapes loose signal over time and so one side can be quieter. I have also had tapes where the volume of the source was turned down and so the lower audio setting was recorded. 

Using a mixer at the time of capture is much easier than trying to fix the audio in post editing. 

Mixers 

  • Behringer XENYX Q1202USB 
  • Behringer XENYX Q802USB 
  • Behringer XENYX 802 
  • Behringer XENYX 502 

USB Sound Cards 

These are only used for the Behringer XENYX 502 and 802 as it does not have built in USB.

  • Behringer UCA200
  • Behringer UCA202
  • Behringer UCA222 

Software

VirtualDub2 is used for all grabbing, filters, encoding and final output. 
Capture is grabbed lossless using Lagarith Lossless Video Codec and PCM for easy post editing. 
Filters such as de-interlace are used when needed and a final encode is produced. A separate job is made for all YouTube versions to work around YouTube's strange processing.
VirtualDub2 is also used in distributed mode as a Beowulf cluster for larger job lists. 

Handbrake is excellent but is not a video editor, VirtualDub2 can handle most post editing. 

tsMuxeR is used for digital television transport stream conversion to ease post processing. VideoLAN VLC is also capable of doing this but isn't as good. 

PotPlayer is excellent for playback of VirtualDub2 raw captures and can force de-interlace playback. 

Older captures (before 2020) and digital TV recordings are made using WinFast PVR2. 

Other Equipment

  • Speed Winder SF-2000 Video Cassette Winder.

Good for moving stuck film and winding cassettes without wearing out any VCR. 

Speed Winder VHS cassette times. 

E180 = 3m 41s 
E240 = 4m 34s 
E300 = 5m 40s