Analogue Video Capturing

In my spare time I digitise video from magnetic tapes. I have the equipment to copy from VHS, Hi8 and Mini DV.

These days it is relatively cheap to digitise VHS tapes especially if you have some old equipment still stored away.

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I first started with television and FM radio capture cards in 2003 with a Leadtek WinFast TV2000 XP Deluxe on Windows XP. I also used a Leadtek WinFast TV2000 XP Expert.

Leadtek were good in updating drivers and software at the time and were early to support 64 bit drivers for Windows XP and Vista. Even though Leadtek no longer make capture cards and removed all references about them on their website the software and drivers are still available on their FTP. They still work on the latest operating systems even Windows 10.

Equipment

This is some of the equipment I use.

Capture

I use Leadtek PCI capture cards which still work on Windows 10.

Playback

VCRs: 

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 pos 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 or LG DVD/VHS units I had in the early 2000s. Both of these were 6 head Hi-Fi Stereo units.

Audio

I use audio mixers to balance the audio as I am recording. Many VHS 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 digitisation is much easier than trying to fix the audio in post editing.

Mixers

USB sound cards

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

Hi8 and Mini DV

Handheld video recorders are used for digitising home videos.

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