[VWestlife] purchased all kinds of USB video capture devices — many of them from the early 2000s — and put them through their paces in trying to digitize VHS classics like Instant Fireplace and Buying an Auxiliary Sailboat. The results were actually quite varied, but almost universally bad. They all worked, but they also brought unpleasant artifacts and side effects when it came to the final results. Sure, the analog source isn’t always the highest quality, but could it really be this hard to digitize a VHS tape?
The best results for digitizing VHS came from an old Sony device that was remarkably easy to use on a more modern machine.
It turns out there’s an exception to all the disappointment: the Sony Digital Video Media Converter (DVMC) is a piece of vintage hardware released in 1998 that completely outperformed the other devices [VWestlife] tested. There is a catch, but it’s a small one. More on that in a moment.
Unlike many other capture methods, the DVMC has a built-in time base corrector that stabilizes analog video signals by buffering them and correcting any timing errors that would cause problems like jitter or drift. This is a feature one wouldn’t normally find on budget capture devices, but [VWestlife] says the Sony DVMC can be found floating around on eBay for as low as 20 USD. It even has composite and S-Video inputs.
For an old device, [VWestlife] says using the DVMC was remarkably smooth. It needed no special drivers, defaults to analog input mode, and can be powered over USB. That last one may sound trivial, but it means there’s no worry about lacking some proprietary wall adapter with an oddball output voltage.
The catch? It isn’t really a USB device, and requires a FireWire (IEEE-1394) port in order to work. But if that’s not a deal-breaker, it does a fantastic job.
So if you’re looking to digitize older analog media, [VWestlife] says it might be worth heading to eBay and digging up a used Sony DVMC. But if one wants to get really serious about archiving analog media, capturing RF signals direct from the tape head is where it’s at.
Thanks to [Keith Olson] for the tip!
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Too bad they’re all gone now except for one or two that are listed at $250.
They were $500 20 years ago. So it’s a great value at $250.
I used a Viewcast Osprey to get decent captures a few years ago. 25 years ago I was all about the BT 878 capture chips.
The problem with the DV he recommends is that while it’s better than the trash USB converters, DV introduces its own lossiness because it’s like a form of Mjpeg. You also want an svhs player with svideo out even though the tapes aren’t svhs to keep luminance and chroma separate during capture. Otherwise you get dot crawl and other crosstalk artifacts.
Interesting. I have access to a standalone dvd recorder which can record from analog sources. I’ll have to see if it has s-video in and I’ve always wondered what converter is inside of it and if it’s considered good or not.
Edit, it may actually be a standalone cd converter/burner I can’t remember now.
I still wonder how good one of these could be compared to the cheap options.
https://ebay.us/m/sPsVR8