transferring VHS tapes to external hard drive

ford fiesta

Can anyone recommend a good FREE software package that will transfer my old VCR tapes onto Hard Drive?

I ordered this from the Internet with the USB and leads. connects fine...installed software...but the picture keeps freezing or jumping up and down, with the sound remaining perfect when I play a video tape (video test screen seems fine before this).. so I guess it is poor software that came with it?

https://www.wish.com/product/5bd705470005994ed5219bfb?hide_login_modal=true&from_ad=goog_shopping&_display_country_code=IE&_force_currency_code=EUR&pid=googleadwords_int&c=%7BcampaignId%7D&ad_cid=5bd705470005994ed5219bfb&ad_cc=IE&ad_curr=EUR&ad_price=6.00&campaign_id=9527731323&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIqbK5vdvS6gIVwu3tCh0KTwJxEAQYBCABEgKbN_D_BwE&share=web

LenWoods

ford fiesta wrote: »

Can anyone recommend a good FREE software package that will transfer my old VCR tapes onto Hard Drive?

I ordered this from the Internet with the USB and leads. connects fine...installed software...but the picture keeps freezing or jumping up and down, with the sound remaining perfect when I play a video tape (video test screen seems fine before this).. so I guess it is poor software that came with it?

https://www.wish.com/product/5bd705470005994ed5219bfb?hide_login_modal=true&from_ad=goog_shopping&_display_country_code=IE&_force_currency_code=EUR&pid=googleadwords_int&c=%7BcampaignId%7D&ad_cid=5bd705470005994ed5219bfb&ad_cc=IE&ad_curr=EUR&ad_price=6.00&campaign_id=9527731323&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIqbK5vdvS6gIVwu3tCh0KTwJxEAQYBCABEgKbN_D_BwE&share=web

hi,
I bought a similar item from Amazon, a Diamond VC500
came with Cyberlink PowerDirector which works pretty well,
not sure if the software can be obtained free but I see on there website they say its from 8 euro per month perhaps subscribe for a month to get all you need done,
the software which came with my item doesn't require subscription but it did require a serial key which came inside the box.

could also try this:
https://www.nchsoftware.com/capture/index.html?msclkid=725b97c6c70612e8ec9dc8e764b3b326

Cordell

OBS should work and has plenty of features, and it's free.

https://obsproject.com/

See here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-jEl3uUhXE

ford fiesta

OBS cannot install on my laptop. a .dll issue (using Windows 7)

I have since used EasierCap

When I transfer a DVD using EasierCap the picture / sound is fine, but major lagging and picture quality transferring from VHS.

Cordell

You shouldn't use that capture card for DVDs, DVDs are already digital. To preserve the most you can just make them into iso images, this will keep the quality and all extras like menus and chapters. https://cdburnerxp.se/en/home is a good free tool for creating iso images from DVDs.

As for the video issues, it's hard to say, it can be that your laptop cannot do the transcoding in real time, which is quite likely if it's a windows 7 era laptop.

ford fiesta

Cordell wrote: »

You shouldn't use that capture card for DVDs, DVDs are already digital. To preserve the most you can just make them into iso images, this will keep the quality and all extras like menus and chapters. https://cdburnerxp.se/en/home is a good free tool for creating iso images from DVDs.

As for the video issues, it's hard to say, it can be that your laptop cannot do the transcoding in real time, which is quite likely if it's a windows 7 era laptop.

I was only transferring a DVD as a test, to see if there was any distortion from this source (there is none as I mentioned above) - though there is delay/distortion from VHS and this is my issue.

The EasierCap is compatible with Windows 7 - so can't see why it would be this reason.

Cordell

Try to reduce the quality or change the codec to mpeg 2 or 1, it's very likely that the CPU is not able to handle it and that's the reason of bad and lagging video.
I was not suggesting a compatibility issue, just pointing out that a win 7 era laptop is quite possibly outdated with a CPU not capable of real time encoding at high quality or modern codecs.

m8

I used a composite to hdmi upscaler and also a HDMI to USB adapter from aliexpress, then recorded in VLC. Very happy with the result as I had tried with one of the USB video grabbers but result was not good. Loads of guides on youtube.

Total cost was about €15 for the lot.