So far in this series we've talked at an overview level, shared the quality differences between different ways of capturing so you can see for yourself and covered some potential buying guides. In this part we're going to assume you have now mostly decided a pathway and are ready to progress to make your first capture.

Getting the most from your player

• Always clean the heads with isopropyl alcohol and cotton buds or even better a chamois bud to ensure they are physically clean
• Be careful cleaning the rubber capstan, clean it lightly, over cleaning will (especially on older decks) make it slip and as a result you won't be able to use the deck until you replace or restore the roller. This happens due to older rubber capstans becoming hard with age and when you clean them too much, the dirt happens to be the only thing that was maintaining consistent grip and as a result you'll have problems with your capture

How to maximise the audio quality

Tape Mould - If a tape has mould on it, not only can it clog up your nice clean heads, but it will also affect the sound and picture quality. It is strongly recommended to do a general clean on these tapes before recording.

Tape Mould and other issues

Depending on your situation, there may be various issues with your tapes that could include mould, sticky tape syndrome, etched plastic housing that can cause tape breakage etc. As the years go by these tapes are going to get worse. If you're concerned about it and want your tapes to last longer, get them cleaned and store them in a dehumidified cabinet.

General Clean

First step here is to do a general external inspection of the tape. If there is white dust like in the picture, you will need to disassemble the tape and clean it. Unfortunately, it's basically impossible to find a tape cleaning device these days, so the only option available to most is to disassemble the tape and clean it by hand.

For this you will need:

• Cotton Buds / Or Chamois Swabs / Microfibre Cloth
• Isopropyl Alcohol
• Screwdriver - preferably Philips
• Can of compressed air
• Spare tape player
• Optional - Blank Cassette tapes that can be undone with a screwdriver

The below outlines the basic process I use:

1. Rewind the tape in the donor player
2. Remove the cassette and disassemble the case (If the case cannot be unscrewed and must be forced open, find a new blank cassette tape that can be unscrewed and transfer the magnetic tape into it. If possible, transfer the tape onto the new spools as well. You can still buy these online in various forms (or just buy some second hand blank tapes - preferably with the plastic seals still on.
3. With the cassette still open, blow away the loose mould with the can of compressed air (recommend do this outside or a place that can be cleaned afterwards)
4. Completely remove the tape spools from the cassette taking care to do so by holding on to the covering plastic protectors on either side. This will help prevent the tape from unravelling
5. Clean the inside of the case with isopropyl on a microfibre cloth. Also clean any spooling rollers, both sides of the plastic covering protectors etc. It's also a good idea to clean the leader path (first few cm's of the tape roll) manually as well as these cannot be cleaned by the remaining steps. Don't forget to clean inside the spool where the tape will go once it's been forwarded as well with isopropyl and I find a microfibre cloth on your finger is quite good.
6. Reassemble the case
7. Insert the tape into the spare cassette player whereby the front casing has been taken off so you can have direct access to the tape path
8. Fold a thin covering of microfibre cloth over a cotton bud and drop a decent amount of isopropyl alcohol onto the end of it, if this is too big, just use a Chamois Swab (though these can be hard to get)
9. Press the isopropyl covered cloth / swab / bud onto the outside facing part of the magnetic tape in the tape path on the right hand side (before it enters into the spool). It's very important to makes sure you do this on the right hand side when fast forwarding or the tape will jumble up and be damaged.
10. Fast forward the tape while holding the swab on the tape, until the end of the tape is reached. If you feel you need to add more isopropyl, you can do that by stopping part way and re-applying or another system of your devising
11. Once at the end of the tape, remove and disassemble again
12. From here, repeat from step 3 -8, except this time for step 8 put the microfibre cloth on the left hand side of the tape path (before it enters back into the spool and rewind. Like before it's very important to be on the left hand side to avoid damaging the tape
13. Open the cassette one last time and do step 3 again
14. Completed

Tip 1: It's safest to wear a full-face respirator with ABEK2P3 filters. Most types of mould can be hazardous to your health and should never enter your lungs or eyes, wash/wet clean your mask before removing it and showering. 

Tip 2: Practice this first on an unimportant tape. It's easy for the tape to unravel and end up in a mess.

Tip 3: If you see parts of the tape are coming off or the tape is making screetching sounds, you probably have sticky tape syndrome. To fix this, it requires baking your tape. For more information on currently identified tapes exhibiting this problem please see the Wikipedia article on the topic.

Tip 4: You will find a point where you can rest one finger on the player somewhere as a nice steady point while you hold your finger and cloth over the tape. Yes this is a bit hacky, but I haven't found a better way, please do let me know if you find one!

Once this is complete, you should now have a clean deck to play your tapes in and mould free tapes to give you the best audio quality possible.

You are now ready to do an actual capture!

NEXT: Capturing Analog Video Tapes - Part V - Capturing! (Coming soon)

OK, so in part II we covered a high level overview of what kinds of equipment you can use to achieve the goal of capturing video into a digital format. You are probably starting to realise that you either have to spend a lot of money, time or suffer quality losses.

Continuing on from Part II of this article, we will break this down into three main use cases for the Impatient, the Libran and the Perfectionist.

If you are interested in capturing video from a Digital Format such as MiniDV or Digital8 (or Hi8 with RCTC) tapes, please see the related page on the topic here.

The Impatient Option

Equipment Needed

VHS Player - The best way to get this done if you don't care about quality too much, is to get a combo VHS deck that records VHS to DVD. You will need to RIP the DVD to a file afterwards (or ask a friend who knows how to do it), but it's an adequate method that does not usually suffer from the geometric output issues present in other cheap capture methods. Unless your model has a save to USB option built in, you will also need to obtain some appropriate blank DVD's. If possible get the DVD+R disks or DVD+RW disks as these have a better error correction mechanism built in. The downside with this approach is that especially for long play VHS tapes, you may find the tape does not fit on a standard DVD, therefore try to get a dual layer disc if your tapes have content over two hours long. Also, bear in mind that DVD's have a limited lifespan, actually more limited than VHS, so make sure you make copies onto something else. For more info on this, see our article on Preserving your masters.

As you will definitely need a second hand VHS player, see our global list of online second hand stores for some options in your country. Note for PAL countries, the Netherlands tends to have more S-VHS players than some of our smaller countries.

There is also vcrshop, this is where I purchased mine from. These units are supposedly refurbished, though I initially had quite a bad experience, the positive was every issue I had, they shipped a replacement part for. So on one hand I'm not convinced these were refurbished (or their testing wasn't up to par for my unit), but on the other hand, they clearly care about their brand and sorted the issues out, which for me consisted of a new pinch roller (the old one was split) and a new remote (the one with it didn't work). This did triple the already long delivery time though. For a standard VHS player, I wouldn't worry about vcrshop, I'd just get one from a local seller and clean the heads.

Capture Hardware

Buying options to get you started:

• Combo VHS Player
• Blank DVD+R / DVD+RW
• MakeMKV software (free) to convert DVD into MKV file with a PC

The Libran Option

For someone trying to find that balanced sweet spot of price vs quality, you're probably going to be disappointed. I find myself needing to recommend three options, both for the Libran and for the perfectionist, that overlap for differing reasons, see below.

1 - If you're an electronics engineer or capable of wielding a basic soldering iron and have the time to solder the required components yourself, then the obvious choice is to use the FM RF Archival workflow. One of the nice aspects of RF capture is using said captures with VHS-Decode you don't need to purchase an expensive S-VHS player. All the time base correction circuitry and conversion circuitry, frame sync and proc amp circuitry and comb-filtering is made redundent and replicated to a much higher degree of accuracy in software.

Because you're tapping straight into the RF stream from the heads (Video RF and HiFi RF are seprate!), you can use virtually any good working standard VHS player and achieve the same kind of quality you do in an S-VHS player (with added perks such as SVHS and NTSC 3.58 capture/output from any later 90s PAL deck). Once operational you only need one cable to connect it and this limits signal loss. Therefore this is my first recommendation. It is however the most complicated solution, not only in the soldering aspect, but in getting to learn a workflow a little more effort then just click record get video file, it requires processing time. But these aspects make it easy to recommend for the perfectionist given the right skills or time to learn new ones.

2 - If you are not capable with a soldering iron then other options are hard to recommend for the Libran. A hard to recommend option is to use a Canopus ADVC capture box along with a firewire adapter and appropriate capture software. There are many who would scoff at this. But this will give you a semi-reasonable result you can see for yourself as per the article Comparing various analog capture methods and devices in a consistent environment which includes this comparison. If you can find a Canopus that is. (Note these devices use 4:1:1 NTSC / 4:2:0 PAL Chroma Subsampling). See our article on chroma subsampling here.

3 - If you must buy new, the only available new equipment I'm aware of, is the Ensemble Designs BrightEye 75. It has both an external Frame sync and some form of line based TBC that helps for a situation where you don't have one built into the player. It has a built in SDI output which avoids purchasing an additional box that you would otherwise need with one of the harder to obtain units like the Big Voodoo 10. Thus, this remains a very viable solution if you can afford it, and as a bonus this workflow works on Mac, Windows and Linux - something I spent a long time working out. If you do have one of the rarer units (I also have a Big Voodoo 10), you can simply add an analog to SDI device into the mix and you're away. Again see the article Comparing various analog capture methods and devices in a consistent environment to understand what works for you.

Buying recommendations to get you started:

Option 1: Recommended if time and effort is no option

• Good quality VHS Player (see the 'Tap List' for some ideas - Panasonic is typically a good buy but any 1990s to 2000s HiFi grade deck will work well enough for most tapes)
• RF Capture device such as the CX Card Clockgen Mod or MISRC or whatever is the latest suggestions from Harry Munday.
• Computer running Windows 10, Linux Mint (Windows/Linux have better hardware support, but the M chip Apple products should not be ignored as they have some of the best decoding/processing speeds)

Option 2: Not Recommended

• S-VHS Player
• Canopus ADVC 100/110
• Capture Software

Option 3: Recommended if money is no option

• S-VHS Player
• Ensemble Designs Bright Eye 75
• Black Magic SDI to thunderbolt adapter
• Vrecord (or Blackmagic Media Express as a fallback)
• Thunderbolt Card if using Windows or Linux
• Optional: Blackmagic Mini Converter Analog to SDI (If you are using an analog Frame Sync device such as the BigVoodoo 10

Tip: It has been said purchasing TBC equipment secondhand is risky and only 'certain' units work or work well.  Your mileage may vary.  There are sellers online that will offer to sell you these that have been vetted by them.  Depending on what you're looking for this may or may not be a good idea.  Have a look at the samples on the Comparing various analog capture methods and devices in a consistent environment page to aid your decision.  If the price is similar to a new Brighteye 75, then the choice is easy, get the new Brighteye 75.

Computer - Most computers will capture video in any of these scenarios well. A computer with an SSD and more memory will be better. I am aware there are people online whom will tell you you must use Windows XP (or Windows 10 if you're lucky) because of the drivers required for the capture hardware that they are recommending. I have taken a different view in finding solutions that work on modern computers without requiring old, outdated hardware that then requires old outdated software and drivers , making our lives difficult. As such, for each of these guides, we specify whether you can use Windows, Mac or Linux.

The perfectionist option

Option 1 - Without a doubt, if you're a perfectionist, you will want to spend the time to use FM RF Archival and subsequently VHS-Decode as per option 1 in the Libran section. It will give you the best quality output because of reduced signal loss due to less components in the chain. It is time consuming, more complicated and requires the most disk space, but it is well worth it.

Option 2 - Nearly as good, is to purchase a good quality S-VHS player with in built TBC and either a BrightEye 75 Frame Sync or acquire a good quality old school Frame Sync online. Pipe that through to a modern capture device such as the Blackmagic design devices and you're golden. There are those that say Blackmagic are no good, though I am yet to find evidence of this. What I have seen is that potentially the USB versions of these devices are prone to issues. I have seen no quality issues in the Thunderbolt devices I have used when connected to a Mac.

Coming soon: Part IV

Next: Part IV - Preparation

Overview

This page is intended to be an educational piece, it does help a LOT to understand at a fairly simplified level, what equipment might fit your particular requirements, however it is an extremely complex topic fraught with subjective opinions. Therefore, this page will show typical differences only, if you want to see REAL comparisons of each type of equipment done in-house, have a look at our mega post on the topic: Comparing various analog capture methods and devices in a consistent environment (currently unpublished).

Where everyone starts and why

Because it's easy, and there are readily available options, probably almost everyone, myself included starts down this path by choosing one of two methods:

1. Using a combo VHS / DVD recording deck to convert VHS to DVD
2. Using a VHS player in combination with a readily available USB to Analog Video / Audio adapter and its included software

This is entirely logical. The claims made by manufacturers aren't false, they just don't mention quality.

In the case of option 1, this isn't actually a bad option, certainly better than option 2, provided that you get a good quality unit and know how to then rip the resulting DVD into a media file such as mkv to fit modern viewing methods. Not many people have DVD players these days and when they do, they're often unplugged or unused.

Unfortunately option 2 is fraught with issues and if you're like me, you would just assume that this is a symptom of the poor quality VHS format. Thankfully, this is false. VHS can be as good as DVD, provided the right conditions, though in reality if you're doing this to archive ageing personal media that hasn't been stored in a dehumidified environment, there will almost certainly be some quality loss that you'll need to accept or find a way to edit out digitally.

Below shows three typical examples from three different types of setups. The first is via a standard VHS player plus a typical type of USB capture device you might pick up from PBTech.co.nz, ebay.com or similar. In this setup there is not really any correction of the image happening, depending on the tape you're using you could see very bad (or even no) image. In particular the Elgato has terrible compression artefacting which is not adjustable and absolutely destroys the image quality. There is not TBC in the player to resolve picture issues such as the jagged lines you can see in the top 3rd of the image and there is no frame sync to stabilise (and therefore make clearer) the image. On top of that, despite selecting PAL as the output format, the Elgato refused to export at 576i and instead outputs pal content to the American NTSC resolution standard of 480i. This is a huge loss of resolution as you will see by the size difference in the following image.

Other artefacting you are likely to get includes subjects that are not square / straight (i.e. distorted faces) with a sort of shimmering effect and an annoying leaning image angle along the tops of images and other picture disintegrations. Most people will just assume this is normal for the 'rubbish' old VHS format and wonder how we ever managed to watch it like that. However, when watching VHS on old TV's, that technology took care of all this for us, the problem is caused by needing to convert to digital.

If you're lucky (or perhaps unlucky), you will have done an internet search on the topic and found out there are ways to solve this. Then you would likely have reached a point of despair multiple times like I did, trying to come up with a modern, purchasable solution that suits your needs, only to find out or be told it doesn't exist in the way you hoped.

The below image is after I upgraded to an S-VHS deck with in built TBC, connecting that via S-Video out (instead of the limited composite connection only available in a standard VHS deck) to a Canopus ADVC-100, which in turn connects to my Mac via a firewire adapter. You can see clearly how the TBC in the player cleans up the image a lot. We have better colouring, removal of jagged edges, and increased resolution compared to what the Elgato was exporting, proper compression settings reducing the blockiness and artefacting all resulting in a lot more detail.

The below is captured by what is arguably the most expensive (but not necessarily the best) method. Utilising the same S-VHS deck as above, but this time connecting the player into a BigVoodoo TBC 10 frame sync device, then into a BlackMagic Analog to SDI converter, along with a Blackmagic SDI to thunderbolt adapter. Note the extra dark look is only due to my adjusting (in the Proc Amp of the BigVoodoo) for contrast and brightness to ensure I don't capture the blacks and highlights improperly. I then typically fix this to personal taste for the specific clip in post processing later on. You can see that the clarity in the paving stones has come out even more due to the External Frame sync (TBC10). I didn't understand for a long time what 'stabilising the image' meant and now you can see for yourself. A nice way to think about it is that it aligns or overlays the frames accurately to maintain a sharp image. With this setup you're in the 85% and higher quality arena - and this is where all the opinions will come in and give you a headache.

The below is the result of many hours of soldering, reading, more soldering, ordering parts, ordering more parts, cursing a bit, disassembling VHS players, more soldering and you get the idea. I haven't quite mastered this process yet, but you can already see some of the extra detail and depth coming out in the dog fur which is excellent. However the extra detail also brings out a bit of extra ringing in the image, which I am so far unsure how to deal with.

Don't worry too much about the above images, they are just examples, they're not perfect and there is behemoth comparison article coming up to compare not just these devices but others as well.

Solution Detail

Primarily the better solutions that do exist in one form or another use two solutions to fix the image when capturing into the digital realm:

1 - Something called a Time Based Corrector (some people call it a line sync which is to say it corrects the lines that make up the image).

2 - A frame sync which is to say it ensures the frames come out in order and in a stable predictable fashion, some people call this a time based corrector also, which is unfortunately confusing.

Ideally, you need both types. Though it's impressive what the type 1 TBC can do on its own. It took me a long time to understand what the second one did, which I go into in the article What's the difference between a Line TBC and an external Frame Sync device?. But in simplest terms:

• The first device, (the line TBC) will make the image straight and fix up a lot of geometric issues caused by timing problems not resolvable by readily available modern digital capture devices. Analog TV's worked differently and thus these issues were not present and resolved within the old analog technology architecture. It's only when you understand that it's a problem of compatibility between analog and digital that one begins to understand the importance of TBC's.
• The second device, (The Frame Sync device, or some call it an external TBC) essentially makes sure that the number of frames being sent to the capture device equals the number it expects which in effect stabilises the image. If frames are off time or missing without this device, black frames can appear in your output or jumping frames that appear to be jumping up and down on the screen. Some capture devices handle this fairly well internally (such as the Canopus), creating the argument that you don't need an external frame sync at all (though there are strong opinions on this) whereas some capture devices will exhibit frequent errors (such as the Blackmagic devices do, if paired without the FrameSync, making the content unwatchable. Even if you accept that the Canopus device above does not create black frames (I can confirm it doesn't) you can plainly see it is not resolving detail like the BigVoodoo does, or in other words, stabilising the image.

Once you understand the above methods and their differences, you're on your way to understanding what YOU can do and what choices YOU might make when purchasing your own equipment. Because with the exception of one (very expensive $4k NZD) unit, the external frame sync devices are no longer made and are traded almost in secret like a conspiracy. And like conspiracies, there are good ones and bad ones.

Eek! $4K what can I do, surely I don't need to spend this kind of money?!

And this is exactly the point everyone interested in a quality output gets to, when they first find out about these. And it get's worse, because if you do care about quality, you need a line TBC as well, and while the above $4k unit includes a line sync feature, it doesn't really cut the mustard. Ideally you need to buy a dedicated player with a line TBC in it, which generally means an S-VHS player which again is old antiquated and much rarer equipment than even VHS is. Paying NZD$1400 for an old S-VHS deck to get a line TBC (and that's on the cheaper end) sounds like crazy talk now doesn't it! And even this is fraught with opinions.

So this is where choices come in. Because there are some different methods of hacking this together.

• The most cost effective option (80-600NZD) for the best quality is FM RF Archival today. It's a relatively cheap solution depending on which hardware route you choose to take with it. However it's not as off-shelf setup as its legacy couterparts, so be prepared to fabricate or just buy some pre-made, solder some wires, drill holes and solder connections into your player. Then it requires a fair amount of disc space (325MB ~ 1GB per min FLAC compressed) and requires the captures to be decoded into quite large 4fsc S-Video data files before they are usable as video files (with audio being decoded to direct flac), but between the TBC code and the whole tape being saved in the digital domain, it outperforms any legacy workflows for capturing analouge media and then presenting it in the digital domain, but is also the only way to practically preserve VBI space data.
• Another option is to get just the S-VHS player and use a proxy Frame Sync. A proxy frame sync is a device that wasn't intended solely for this task, but happens to have a form of the functionality built it. Typically the device will be some kind of video mixer, or video recorder made in the previous millennium. Myself I have a Datavideo DVK-100 which adds quite a bit of noise, even after I replaced the capacitors for new ones. The DVK-200 is meant to be a lot better for noise but I don't have one of these at present, though they do come up on second hand sites from time to time.
• In a pinch the Panasonic ES10 and ES15 are another two famous devices that sort of do this if you daisy chain them into the signal. I have had to use this once for an NTSC source I just couldn't get to work any other way. They make the picture look a bit digital for my liking but they are a valid option and have excellent stable frame output.
• Another option I see people doing a lot is to use a camcorder / video camera as a pass through device. Because these camcorders have circuitry that stabilises the signal so you can play it into a TV. The Hi-8 cameras seem to have this kind of functionality. While none of these proxy frame sync devices are going to be perfect, you may find that other options are simply not available, not in your budget or not going to play nice with your patience levels.
• Finally, while an S-VHS player with TBC is recommended as the top end of the analogue play and record route, some of these proxy devices have a sudo line TBC built in. The $4k BrightEye 75 claims to and the Panasonic ES10/15 sort of does a similar thing, though neither are perfect. In these scenarios it's possible to get a better image from a plain VHS player without in built TBC, provided you use this device and have reasonable quality tapes. It won't be as good, but perhaps it meets your needs. Again see our article Comparing various analog capture methods and devices in a consistent environment for examples to see what might fit your needs.

NEXT: Capturing Analog Video Tapes - Part III - Buying Guide

Before reading this article, make sure you familiarise yourself with the video terms in the glossary of terms page. Perhaps keep it open in a new tab so you can refer to it as needed.

Foreword

Capturing analog video requires anything from a relatively large amount of storage to a very large amount of storage. It is mostly far more complicated than capturing audio due to it being outdated technology with extremely limited buying options of an acceptable quality. However, when you get it right, it can be extremely rewarding, and you may find yourself looking for more tapes to capture just for the satisfaction of it.

Storage Requirements - Let's say you have a VHS tape with one hour of home video recorded on it. The size you need to store the video in digital format will depend on a number of factors. The resolution and number of frames per seconds has a large impact, but luckily for you, these are going to fit into one of two standards for this kind of video source, which for purposes of archiving I will simplify as PAL 576i25 and NTSC 48029.97 (the "i" meaning frames interlaced, so 50i and 59.94i terms are also common as they denote the fields being displayed on a TV etc).

However, please bear in mind that the way (lossy) video codecs store data, it can make a huge difference what you have actually on the tape. For example, if you have scenes where people are sitting in chairs in a room with little movement, this will consume far less than scenes with lots of movement, such as a panning shot, crowds of people etc. For this reason, the storage space examples below are just that, examples including fixed/lossless.

Capture quality options / consumed space for one hour of video for 576i25 PAL and 48029.97 NTSC:

Lossy Compressed:

• DV25 / FireWire 8-bit - 4:1:1 NTSC / 4:2:0 PAL) - 14-20GB/h (25-30 Mb/s)
• AVC/H264 8-bit 4:2:0 - 10-12GB/h (20-55 Mb/s)

Visually Transparent:

• ProRes HQ 4:2:2 10-bit - 18GB/h (70~80 Mb/s)
• DVCPro50 4:2:2 8-bit - 22.5GB/h

Lossless (RAW/Uncompressed):

• Uncompressed (V210) 4:2:2 10-bit - 93.2GB/h (207 Mb/s) (fixed bitrate) (used by most transfer houses & BBC archives)

Lossless (Compressed):

• HuffYUV 4:2:2 10-bit - 20-30 MB/s (8-bit 4:2:2) 72-108 GB/h
• FFV1 4:2:2 10-bit - 22~43GB/h (50-85 Mb/s) (current 2020s era archive standard for most libarys)

In case you are wondering, PAL is the technically superior format, despite its slower frame rate for a number of reasons such as higher line resolution, more robust and ability to use higher frequencies for colour. It's also the newer format.

Required video space, based on the format you want to store it in, is easy to calculate using an online calculator such as this one.

Methodology Overview

As usual, there is more than one way to do this task. As you may have read, below we will cover off three different methods to suit three types of individuals. But before we get into this, it's also worthwhile to provide an overview of the possible solutions and their associated challenges. If you are in the impatient group, feel free to skip to the section for you below.

Possible solutions for capturing video

You will read / see in various online locations a lot of opinions about this topic. For some reason, video capture brings out a lot of binary viewpoints which are not often fun to interact with. These views seem to forget for the most part that there are differing requirements and not everyone needs the best quality. Even if they do, not everyone can afford it, or even find the equipment to do it. There are some people whom will be happy with a basic Canopus firewire capture device and some people whom will only settle for the absolute best, both are fine. However, I do think that most people, when presented with visual evidence around the flaws of the cheaper devices, will eventually see that at least the cheapest devices are not desirable. To be clear, cheap in this case means around $80-150NZD, so not actually that cheap!

Please see the following list, outlining some of the many possible solutions you could choose to archive your analog video from sources such as VHS tapes - (this is intended just to open your mind a bit to a bit more investigation around options, rather than to complicate your life)!

1. VHS Player with in built DVD player
2. VHS Player -> USB Capture Device (such as Pinnacle, Hauppauge, Elgato, EZCap) -> Included Video Capture Software
3. VHS Player -> Firewire device such as Canopus ADVC-110 -> 3rd party Video Capture Software
4. S-VHS Player -> Firewire device -> 3rd party Video Capture Software
5. S-VHS Player -> PCI^* / PCIe card -> 3rd party Video Capture Software
6. S-VHS Player -> Frame Sync Device & Separate Audio Mixer -> Analog to SDI Device -> SDI to Thunderbolt or USB device -> 3rd party Capture Software
7. S-VHS Player -> proxy TBC / Frame sync device -> Video Capture Card or Adapter -> 3rd party Video Capture Software
8. Any variation of the above including differing brands etc
9. VHS Player -> Direct to head capture (requires hardware modification) - > RF PCIe card / capture device -> Software based TBC, Frame Sync, Processing, export etc
10. External Conversion house - $$$$

* Be aware of the difference between PCI and PCIe which are not compatible with each other. Some of the sites that recommend PCI capture devices are recommending PCI rather than PCIe and modern motherboards largely gave up PCI slots around 2015. Be careful that what you buy is compatible with what you have.

As you can see the options are broad and many, however with the exception of options 1, 2, 6, 9 and 10 they require hard to obtain and potentially expensive, second hand capture equipment. Unless you're going to outsource it to option 10, ALL of them require a VHS player, which for the most part will be second hand, unless you've got the kind of money to spring for a premium unopened NOS (New Old Stock) box somewhere (more on that in the buying guide).

A quick word though on option 10. I would say 90% of these places that you see in your local street shop are using either option 1 or option 2. If you want to get this done by a 3rd party, first read section 2 of this article series and then go ask them what their process is and what devices they use. If they know what a TBC is, a hardware TAP is or a frame sync device (and claim to use them), you might get a good result. If not, you are well and truly better off saving your money by buying that cheap device yourself - because that's almost certainly what they're doing and the quality of your own capture certainly won't be any worse.

Summary Equipment Needed

• For the Impatient - VHS Player, Canopus ADVC 100 or 110 (if you can get one), Firewire Card or Adapter (still readily available new for Mac and PC), 3rd party Video Capture Software / Alternative - Option 1 VHS DVD player combo unit
• For the Libran - S-VHS Player with in built TBC, Ensemble Designs Brighteye 75, Blackmagic SDI to Thunderbolt adapter, Blackmagic Media Express capture software (or if too expensive, look at the perfectionist option below which is usually a lot cheaper but a lot harder to do)
• For the Perfectionist - Modified VHS or S-VHS player, RF capture card, VHS-Decode Software stack

The following page, intends to help you understand which of these methods is for you and why, followed by a buying guide in part IV.

Please see our detailed comparison of these methods if you're unsure what method to go for.

Next: Capturing Analog Video Tapes - Part II - Capture differences

This was something that confused me for a very long time, and of course, when you're being asked to front up a large amount of cash on antiquated technology, you ask yourself over and over again if it's really worth the money. Which way you should go depends on a lot of factors (please see the page on archiving equipment comparisons for more on that here).

Like many things in life, you only really appreciate the value something brings, once you see it in action and for me that was very true after running a variety of tapes and hardware setups including both the TBC and the frame sync devices.

Time Based Corrector (TBC)

In short, a Time Based Corrector (for the purposes of a digital archivist) is most likely going to be technology within your VCR that squares up the picture properly by making the video frames, fields and lines come out smoothly and uniformly when connected to digital capturing equipment. This is called a Line based TBC.

If you've ever tried to capture analog video to a digital device without one, you most likely have seen the poor quality output and thought, 'wow VHS tapes were worse than I remember'. This is essentially because digital equipment is a lot more picky about these errors than your old analogue TV was. A line based TBC cleans up a very high portion of the errors that exist on an analogue tape (I've seen it said 90% of these errors) and for that reason is the number one recommendation for first purchase when going down the hardware based capture and correction route (more on that here).

Please see below for examples of errors fixed by an internal TBC.

Examples Here

External Frame Sync Device

An external frame sync will retrieve the source video frames sent by the VCR and store them in a buffer in such a way that digital capture cards can receive them without errors. This is because analog equipment sends video in frames, fields and lines whereas digital capture equipment captures video in frames. When inconsistencies are present in the source signal, the external frame sync uses its internal memory to buffer the frame and ensure the signal is being sent in the way the capture card expects to receive it.

For example, when a capture card expects an exact number of frames per second and one of the source frames is out of time, instead of skipping it, the buffer allows the external frame sync to rebuild the output to match the original expected number of frames. This makes the video come out as we expect.

An example of this is when capturing video into a PC utilising black magic converters, without an external frame sync many black frames are received and recorded into the capture. With an external frame sync attached, this problem goes away.

Other Types

Most of the more modern frame sync devices also include a line TBC now too. Such as the BrightEye 75 by Ensemble Designs. This certainly helps if you find yourself in a situation where your VCR has no line TBC built in or you have some analog media in a format that cannot have an in-built TBC, however in my experience it does not match the quality of an in-built line TBC in the VCR.

Summary

So in summary a Line TBC (or just TBC) in the VCR will fix timing errors that cause ugly video errors such as skewing caused by the mechanical nature of the tape and an external Frame Sync will fix whole frame errors such as black frames when capturing to digital equipment. There are many types of errors and scenarios in an analogue - digital capture world, the main thing to know is the starting point basis of discussion is you need both a Line TBC and a Frame Sync to make signal capture the best that it can be. I say starting point basis of discussion because you may find certain ways you can bend this to a 'good enough' scenario depending on your particular requirement.

When it comes to choosing the correct way to store your video archive, there are a lot of factors to consider.  One of those factors is Chroma Subsampling. A lot of places on the Internet will recommend 4:2:2 because it is said to be great enough to encapsulate the limited colour properties contained within analog sources. However what I have never seen discussed is generational loss. I got to wondering, as we connect multiple pieces of equipment together in a chain and then also process through software editing, all of which do Chroma Subsampling, is there any generational loss when doing this? I set off to find out.

Consider the following:

You have an original VHS tape with it's included analog reduced chroma signaling that connects to a Capture Device with Chroma Subsampling at 4:2:2 which stores in a Captured File with Chroma Subsampling of 4:2:2 which you then edit and perform a hopefully final export with it's own Chroma Subsampling, again at 4:2:2. Thats four conversions, (or potentially reductions) in colour information as a minimum starting point. You'll note I said reductions, not an exactly correct phrase, but my suspicion is it's more correct than saying 'if you keep 4:2:2 it will maintain quality because VHS doesn't have much to begin with'. I would say the opposite, 'if it's low to begin with why would you want to make it worse?!'

Side note: This method is also used in compression technology for still images such as jpeg.

What is Chroma Subsampling anyway?

In simple terms, chroma subsampling is a process used to reduced storage requirements and bandwidth requirements for video data by reducing the colour information stored in video file or transmitted in a video stream.  This can and does save a lot of space. It works because the luminance data (the black-and-white part) is more important to the human eye and thus Chroma subsampling effectively leaves this part intact / as is. The Chroma part however (chroma refers to the colour information), is not quite as important to the human eye and thus the theory is we can reduce the accuracy of this information because we're unlikely to notice a difference unless comparing side-by-side, before and after - exactly what we are going to do here.

The analog Chroma Subsampling method

VHS already uses a form of subsampling by reducing signal bandwidth in the analog domain, however this is not the same thing exactly as chroma subsampling in the digital domain.  But for the purpose of choosing an archival codec, it is worth mentioning that VHS by its nature already reduces the colour signal quite a bit before we even get a chance to capture it with a modern codec. If interested, Wikipedia has some great articles on how this works on analog systems, such as this one.

As shown above, it's also important to know that before we even get to storing video data in a file, not only has the analog domain reduced the colour information through signal bandwidth optimisation but the capturing device has also subsampled it as well and you can never ever get this colour information back. How bad this is, depends on what your capture card is, which colour system you use and a number of other factors. But from a subsumpling perspective the likely worst will be 4:1:1 for NTSC and 4:2:0 for PAL.

How much you care about this will depend how much of an archivist you are and the future workflow likely to take place after the video is captured. But most likely by the time you are storing it in a file, you have already suffered three generations of loss (one you can't control, one you can control only partially through selection of capture device and one you can usually control, the capture file. If you're like me you won't want to lose any more colour information than necessary because you will realise there will usually be further activities like editing and exporting to come resulting in even further loss. It is also entirely plausible depending on your workflow that additional losses will be incurred if you can not process all adjustments for the entire workflow directly from the master file.

It is worth noting that when your source video is of a high resolution (such as modern digital video cameras at 1080p and above) the subsampling issue is far less prevalent simply due to the visibility (or invisibility) of much smaller pixels to apply losses to. However with VHS being of a lower resolution, particularly in the US and countries that use NTSC with it's meagre 480i resolution, the effects become quite noticeable quite quickly.  You can test this yourself by re-encoding some source footage with contrasty areas up to 4 times and look at the difference, two examples are shown below.

The below compares a consumer analog PAL 576i VHS source with four generations of exports, in the first 4:2:2 example you can clearly see the loss of colour, colour bleed around edges and blending of colour into areas it's not supposed to be (click to zoom in for more detail). Whereas in the second 4:4:4 example this is basically non-existent.

Let's take a closer look at the relevant chroma subsampling ratios

4:4:4 Chroma Subsampling

With 4:4:4 chroma subsampling, there is no loss of colour information because each pixel retains its own unique color information. This means that the color resolution is equal to the luminance resolution, resulting in a higher level of detail and color accuracy. Videos encoded at 4:4:4 chroma subsampling are often used in professional applications where color fidelity is crucial, such as video editing or color grading.

While 4:4:4 chroma subsampling provides the highest level of color accuracy, it also requires the most data to be stored and transmitted. This will result in larger file sizes and increased bandwidth requirements.

4:2:2 Chroma Subsampling

In a 4:2:2 chroma subsampling, there is a 50% loss of colour information. For every four pixels, two pixels share the same color information. This means that the color information is sampled at half the resolution of the luminance information. While this ratio is widely used and provides good image quality, it may not be ideal for certain use cases such as archiving. This is the better of the two fairly typical subsampling rate in PAL and NTSC sources.

4:2:0 Chroma Subsampling

4:2:0 chroma subsampling loses 75% of the colour information. For every four pixels of colour, three share the same colour information as the first. This is unfortunately another fairly typical PAL Chroma Subsampling rate.

4:1:1 Chroma Subsampling

4:1:1 chroma subsampling also loses 75% of the colour information. However if you look at the diagram above you will see the samples are taken from both the a row and the b row, whereas 4:2:0 takes samples from just the a row. For analog capturing purposes 4:1:1 is used in NTSC formats. Whether 4:2:0 or 4:1:1 is better has been a topic of hot debate. Tip, many of the capture cards use 4:1:1 or 4:2:0, so make sure you check yours to make sure you're not losing 75% of your colour information.

Conclusion

In my opinion, understanding the difference between the various types of chroma subsampling ratios is essential to avoid later disappointment down the track. The last thing I would want after spending days, weeks, months, or even years archiving precious analog sources, is to discover I used the wrong chroma subsampling just to save a little disk space and find out the only solution to fix this, is to start again. It seems clear to me at least that Chroma Subsampling generational loss is indeed real, but feel free to do your own test and comment in the forums if you disagree.

If your capture source is VHS it is already known for its imperfections, including noise and colour bleeding. When encoding at 4:2:2, these imperfections will amplify with each device or step in the chain.

While 4:2:2 offers good image quality and is widely used, I couldn't recommend it where colour accuracy is paramount, because as shown above, 4:2:2 is literally the process of removing colour information, form your painstakingly captured sources. As shown, this is more obvious when dealing with lower resolution standard definition sources (480i / 576i). In such cases, starting by creating a 4:4:4 master can help preserve the highest level of colour information, so you can be sure you have the best looking image you can have and won't have to go back and capture everything again to get it.

Of course, you may not think it matters enough and that choice is entirely up to you.

For capturing methods that include a 4:4:4 capture method, please see our capturing guides here.