HOW TO CONVERT CAMCORDER TAPES

Fingerbobs

DullGreyGuy said:

Fingerbobs said:
Capture on a PC via Firewire, using the freeware WinDV. 

Don't bother with burning to DVD. Use something like DaVinci Resolve (free version available) to deinterlace and upscale to HD for playback on a modern TV. 

Surprised there are many computers left with FireWire ports!

Assuming you have a LCD or OLED screen they can only display deinterlaceds and images at their native resolution, its always questionable if the coding in software is better or worse than the deinterlacing and upscaling built into the screen itself. 

You can get PCIe Firewire cards that will work perfectly in modern computers under Windows 10 (must admit I haven't tried Windows 11 for DV capture, but I suspect it would still work). Some sources say you need to install 'legacy' Firewire drivers, but I've never had to do that - the drivers that come with Windows 10 work perfectly for DV capture.

Edited to add: for anyone considering buying one of these cards, make sure to get one that's based on the VIA chipset, not Texas Instruments (TI). I've found from my own experience that TI chipset has issues with DV capture. 

DaVinci Resolve is a professional product, for which a free version is available for home use, and does an excellent job of deinterlacing and upscaling.

While I would agree it's preferable to keep the material in its original interlaced format for archiving, I have found some modern TVs have problems playing interlaced video directly, hence the suggestion to deinterlace in software. My Samsung TV, for example, throws a complete wobbly if you try to play an interlaced MP4 file (although the same file plays perfectly on a computer).

DullGreyGuy

Fingerbobs said:

DullGreyGuy said:

Fingerbobs said:
Capture on a PC via Firewire, using the freeware WinDV. 

Don't bother with burning to DVD. Use something like DaVinci Resolve (free version available) to deinterlace and upscale to HD for playback on a modern TV. 

Surprised there are many computers left with FireWire ports!

Assuming you have a LCD or OLED screen they can only display deinterlaceds and images at their native resolution, its always questionable if the coding in software is better or worse than the deinterlacing and upscaling built into the screen itself. 

DaVinci Resolve is a professional product, for which a free version is available for home use, and does an excellent job of deinterlacing and upscaling.

And in my head it should do give the PC processor is probably better than the TVs (though it's a more dedicated tool) and doesn't have to do it in realtime. 

I think the previous issues were that plasma TVs/ earlier LCD etc sometimes weren't exactly HD or 4K etc and hence if you upscaled to a standard resolution the TV was rescaling for a second time to its native resolution and double processing is always asking for trouble. 

You get a lot less talk of video scalers on AVForums etc these days!

girlfriday09

I used this company and it was so great (and a lot more cost effective than most places) that two of my family then used them too. You can opt for your medium but the memory stick was fine for me. 

https://www.videoconvert.co.uk/

chrisw

girlfriday09 said:

I used this company and it was so great (and a lot more cost effective than most places) that two of my family then used them too. You can opt for your medium but the memory stick was fine for me. 

https://www.videoconvert.co.uk/

Wow, they're quite expensive. Our local computer shop is around half the price.

https://www.sankeycomputers.com/prices.html

Fingerbobs

chrisw said:

girlfriday09 said:

I used this company and it was so great (and a lot more cost effective than most places) that two of my family then used them too. You can opt for your medium but the memory stick was fine for me. 

https://www.videoconvert.co.uk/

Wow, they're quite expensive. Our local computer shop is around half the price.

https://www.sankeycomputers.com/prices.html

Do they do a good job though? I would ask them what deck they use to play the tapes, what timebase corrector they use, and what capture device they use. If they can't or are unwilling to answer those questions, I'd take my business elsewhere. Video99 (recommended earlier in this thread) is totally open and transparent about the gear he uses (I have no affiliation, other than a positive experience as a customer).