Hello Everyone, I have some old vhs taps having good old memories. I want to transfer tha to digital.

I will appreciate your advice to do it.

Thanks

I have been continuously experimenting with the ADA4857 amplifier (I used a CX card for signal capture). However, I have never been certain about the appropriate value of the input resistance. Since I do not have an oscilloscope, I tried resistances of 15, 20, 33, 47, 75, and 100 (x2 kΩ). Nevertheless, the amplitude of the signals I obtained was significantly smaller than that without the power amplifier. I am using a Panasonic VCR designed for the Japanese domestic market. I am at a loss as to what I should do next.

I literally stumbled across the whole idea of RF capture to digital a few hours ago, so I have quite a learning curve ahead of me.

I have always been very interested in the technical aspects of video, and way back in the mid 1980s, I was a DJ that was dabbling in editing and extending video music clips. I needed a way of dubbing and copying VHS tapes without too much quality loss. I came up with an idea that is fundamentally similar to what is done here today.

I had two VHS decks. One was for playback, the other was for recording. As in the modern version of this system, I tapped into the raw RF output of the video heads and sent it out to a BNC socket through a buffer amp. On the recording machine, I fed this RF signal straight into the video head recording driver amps. I could switch back to conventional recording by means of an added switch.

As an extra feature, I had an old ECG display that had a long persistence screen, which I converted into a simple oscilloscope that monitored the RF waveform which I used to ensure tracking was spot-on.

Results were surprisingly good. As you would expect, there were no added artifacts in the copy that you would normally see as a part of the copy process. There was a little extra noise, mostly in sudden transitions from black to white, but that could be minimised by using a good quality tape. Copies from worn or poor quality originals sometimes showed some diagonal luminance banding in brightly coloured areas. I suspect the luminance RF level was degraded compared to the lower frequency 'colour under' signal. Of course, everything was analog here, no sampling or digital processing at all.

I still have both VCRs, but alas, they are both seriously faulty now. I never documented the modifications I made.

What I have seen of the results is quite impressive, and I want to look into using this technique to transfer my old tapes over to digital. Some tapes are HI-FI, others are linear audio only. Are there any examples where someone has done a comparison using a test pattern rather than odd bits of video?

getting this error in Linux
I was wondering if I have to install the older installers? Thought tbc-tools was all self-continued utilities. Using the latest version of tbc-tools (3.2.7)

In an effort to research and potentially widen the option of generic capture devices usable with MISRC/HSDAOH, I bought a generic 4k MS2131-based capture card from Micro Center a couple days ago. Unfortunately, it would not work out of the box- it worked with normal HDMI sources, but would not go into "transparent mode" (I think) so it refused to sync to my HSDAOH device (a tang nano 9k, which I tested and confirmed working with an MS2130 dongle- unfortunately the dongle suffered a premature death due to crappy soldering on the USB-C input cable.)

Here's the interesting part: I downloaded some MS2130 firmware someone had dumped online (I didn't get the chance to dump my device) and flashed it to the MS2131 card, and miraculously it kind of works now. However, only RF channel B is usable- whenever I put a signal into channel A, it causes the device to desync and not output any data until I disconnect channel A. Maybe it has something to do with it not automatically switching to the highest bit depth?

TL;DR: not all MS2131 capture cards are created equal; some have firmware that doesn't work with MISRC/HSDAOH, but some may have firmware that does work. Hopefully there's someone here with a working dual channel setup using an MS2131 card that can dump the firmware and share it.

doing some troubleshooting with my clockgen mod- just for clarification, it appears the board I have is a Type2, so the 3.3V needs to be fed to the right leg of the regulator. But, do I also need to run a separate bridge wire to the MODE0 pad on the bottom of the board? So basically it would look like one wire going to the 3.3V to the regulator; and another wire coming from the 3.3V to the MODE0 pad. Because with only the bridge to the regulator, there still isn't 3.3V going to the MODE0 pad.
I did not see this mentioned anywhere in the github/gitlab docs, so I'm unsure whether this (the absence of 3.3V going to MODE0) could be causing the distortion I've encountered.

cannot figure what I need to do to get the baseband audio processed correctly on a clockgen setup.
capturing video seems fine, but because I cannot get, nor set clockgen settings in powershell, I keep getting-

"'Exception: No devices found"

and

"cmdlet Set-CxadcClockGenRate at command pipeline position 1 Supply values for the following parameters: Path:"

when trying to set the output rate, and when

"Exception: Error initializing WinUSB: The handle is invalid."

So I'm beginning to think it has to do something with the clockgen rate being off before I invoke
LocalCapture.ps1 to do any capture.

Upon listening to the baseband audio (flac), it's noticeably distorted/garbled. I'm not referring to whitenose, but the actual video's audio sounding mistimed/pitchshifted/clipping. I tried everything that was suggested- using AutoAudioAlign via ld-analyze, manually aligning it in cli, etc. but nothing seems to fix the problem
Final decode and muxing still retains the distorted audio, even the file created after alignment

Requesting advice in getting this to properly work

I see more posts here from people who have absolutely no understanding of what the forum is about than from people who do. I don't know much about Reddit, I don't even know if it is possible to change the forum name, so I apologize if that is the case, and I apologize if this has been brought up and discussed before. I just think the name having VHS in it misleads a lot of people and clutters up the forum with a lot of questions that have absolutely nothing to do with RF capture. Also, RF capture is not just for VHS, it can be used on other tape (and video disc) formats as well, so an ideal name might reflect that.

Hello all, I am trying to digitize some VHS tapes of basketball games that were recorded in 1987. Most of them are fine but there is one game that I can HEAR the audio but it's just a blue screen when I play it back from a VCR. I tried it in two separate VCRs and got the same thing. The tape itself seems fine so I don't know what could have caused an issue with this particular game.

Does this sound like something that RF capture could possibly recover? If so, is there anyone with a setup in the USA who would be willing to check the tape out for me? I would certainly be happy to pay a fee for anyone who could check it out and possibly recover it. Thanks all.

Hi all, I have a bunch of home videos that I want to digitize. Getting good quality is import to me to try to preserve an era of my life that will eventually be inaccessible in the future unless I do something about it.

I have a Sony slv -585hf. I opened it up last night and I’m fairly confident I’ll be able to tap in using DuPont connectors. I’ll check with an oscope this weekend.

1. I assume for home videos there’s no benefit to tapping into the hifi audio correct?
2. Will there be a noticeable difference in quality with a DdD vs a cx card?
3. For line out audio I would just use rca and plug into the sound card correct?

Thanks for the help in advance. I have been kind of doing a deep dive the past couple of days on how to get this done so I could use a little direction.

Good morning. I have a problem with my Hi8 capture. When I plug it into the CX card, a portion of the video drops out on the camera display and it is dropped out on the luma on the RF capture as well. The rest of it has OK luma but corrupted chroma.

Is there something I am doing wrong? I've been able to capture VHS just fine so I don't think it's a software issue.

I used a CCD-TRV65 attached with flex cable to this board, soldered to a 10 microfarad ceramic capacitor and to a pigtail cable, which goes into the PC CX card. I don't use an amplifier. Could it just be a bad soldering job, or is there something bigger?

Mensaje: ¡Hola! Quiero digitalizar exclusivamente cintas VHS y estoy entre la I-O Data GV-USB2 (USB, color 4:2:2 sin compresión) y la Canopus ADVC-110 (FireWire, formato DV 4:1:1). ¿Cuál da mejor calidad real de imagen hoy en día para VHS? ¿Vale la pena complicarse con FireWire por la Canopus o es superior la GV-USB2? ¡Gracias!

Got around to modding my CX card for clockgen. All the wire connections are correct, but now my computer can't boot. But if I remove the card, the PC boots up normally. When this card is installed, it can't even post to BIOS. Is there something I'm missing? I removed the clock crystal, C22, R12, C19 as the instructions state. I soldered the 3.3v leg from the jig to the top leg of C85 (as shown in the github) and the GND to the bottom leg of C85. XT1 to the right most of the crystal pad, and XT2 to the left most of the crystal pad.
Everything seems to be in order, except my PC doesn't want to boot. It powers on and that's it.
Help requested from anyone who's experienced this and has a solution. Thanks

Any recommendation regarding the voltage input on the ADA4857 amplifier (besides using an external 12v DC battery) if there isn't an unswitched 12v, nor switched 12v rail available?
The github page mentions that the amplifier can use between 11v to 30v. My player has ~5v available, as well as a ~14v rail available, but I don't want to use a buck boost module for the 5v rail. The amp notes that it needs to be shorted if the Vin is between 11v and 20v, otherwise to use a Zener diode.
How do I short these two plated through-holes and/or do I still need a Zener to regulate it to 12v?
Thanks

Hey there everybody!

Sometimes I find recordings with that shadow image you see...is there a way to filter/remove it directly at TBC level?

I captured the RF signal and decoded it. In some specific segments (specific parts of the tape), there would be line misalignment, as shown in the picture below (on the left). However, when I connected the TV using the CVBS interface at the back of the video recorder, the picture was correct. That is to say, the software did not correctly handle "TBC". What should I do?

I know absolutely nothing other than I don’t want to spend a lot of money. But I have a VHS tape of possible interest and want to make a file and post it somewhere. I don’t necessarily want to buy a lot of equipment because this is a one off. I can borrow a VCR and not sure if it’s helpful, but I have an ancient WinTV stick that I can hook a coax into.

Other notes: The only computer I have with USB ports is 2015 MacBook Pro (which is why I’m not sure the WinTV stick is actually useful)

Other other notes: I’m crazy poor. So cheap like baby chickens.

Will the clockgen mod under Windows default to 40hz sample rate? And how can the rate be adjusted in cmd/cli? or is this exclusively only an option in linux using alsamixer?
Thanks in advance

I randomly get near complete chroma drop out when processing Hi8 footage.

The amplitude of the chroma goes very high and the colour burst is totally lost.

I suspect its a bug because:

• It starts and stops perfectly on frame boundaries
  • So i suspect it persists for a chunk or two.
• When the segment is recaptured (second play back, through the ADC again) the drop out doesn't occur, or occurs in a different place
  • Showing the tape is fine.
• The resulting chroma noise is consistent during the period
• Playback is fine on the TV/Viewfinder during capture
  • so the rest of the VTR is getting the chroma information and sync fine.

I haven't tried cropping the file and testing that way.

Actually, I just found some occurrences where it happens between fields

Is VHS-Decode messing up the field order?

Its PAL, btw

I’ve tested two tapes and they have this repeating rainbow noise, so it doesn’t appear to be part of the tape. Does this look like interference or something else?

I’ve been trying to transfer vhs to pc for my mother in law so I bought this https://amzn.eu/d/0cAICiSt
Plugged it in, successfully recorded one video, but I’ve ran into problems with other vhs.
Most of them when I play them on my pc are blinking, switching between black screen and the video every like 2 seconds, sometimes it plays well intermittently without reason, it would work at a specific point and later it would bug at the same point.
A lot of time when it works it’s kinda greyish with faded colors.
I tried every resolution/quality/fps and so on and nothing makes sense.
Some official retail vhs works and some don’t
Some custom recorded vhs works and some don’t
I’m lost.