Just got my RT4K this morning and have a whole pile of tapes to digitize, so this upload’s timing is pretty ideal. This is extremely useful so thanks for another great explainer vid, Bob!
Hi, Was gifted a bunch of VHS tapes containing recordings of Red Wings Playoff games from '97. I wanna digitize them with my new Retrotink 4k but don't have a capture card. What do you recommend?
The Retrotink 4K is the best analog-to-digital solution there is, especially for the cost. However I wish the time base correction did more correction. At places where I paused the original camcorder tape in camera, it will often jump and sometimes even show a quick frame from several minutes ago that for some reason is still in the RT4K's buffer. The RT5X also does this. It doesn't seem to have issues where I paused the recordings on a VHS tape, just old 8mm and Hi8 tapes that were then transferred to VHS. EDIT: I'm gonna try to get a JVC Super VHS as that's how the recordings were made. I currently only have a Mitsubishi S-VHS so maybe it doesn't like JVC recordings I dunno. Wouldn't hurt to have a spare VCR anyway.
@@GameSack lordsmurf once said that Retrotink 5x or 4K are inaccurate since it's a retro gaming scaler, not a Time Base Corrector. I have a decent Panasonic Diga DMR ES-15 as a TBC.
@@JnL_SSBM I'm not sure LordSmurf is entirely wrong about the TINKs, but until Mike implements proper 576i passthrough it's hard for me to test/compare and get accurate results as I only have PAL tapes. I have an actual standalone TBC, and playback wise through when compared to the TINK-5X, it seemed to perform comparably. I'd still love to perform some more robust testing though if a 576i mode comes.
As someone who used to work in a post house tape room, I really appreciate you covering this. Great results without hunting for costly, bulky and old equipment or spending weeks messing with vapor synth.
Bob! This is a great video! I’m a sysadmin at a library and help with a variety of patron needs, especially VHS to digital conversations, up until this video, there just wasn’t a solution that could be implemented without a substantial amount of staff time, until now! We’ll be able to offer this service again! Genuinely grateful for this!
Even though I can't afford to get into Retro Gaming or Pro-Level Tape Transfer yet, this is still really informative and entertaining to watch. RUclips channels such as yourself, MLiG, and MVG really make my mind run wild with different scaler and hardware possibilities!
Considering we both own old VHS Players and Consoles using analog connections, including the Xbox 360, PS3, and Nintendo Wii, it's awesome to capture stuff with a Retrotink 5x device, as it's my go to device for 1080p stuff, including recording stuff on my PS2, PS1, Nintendo Gamecube, Nintendo 64, Nintendo Wii, and Xbox 360 to be exact.
Thank you for this guide. I am recording my mom and dad's old home VHS tapes, and I will give them to my dad on a flash drive for Father's Day. Thank you!!!
Great video! I'm glad we're seeing modern capture techniques like this and domesday. I'll be happy to see us move on from the current "recommended" techniques involving WinXP, huffyuv and insanely priced TBCs.
I remember speaking with Mike years ago about the abundant pros of developing a TBC for the Tink 5x-Pro (both for him and for the community). People were already playing with using the 2x-Pro for VHS capture (I was one of them) - and it was good! I already owned TBC hardware but it seemed obvious that with the 5x's increased capabilities, it would be the perfect modern device for added TBC functionality if he was able to swing the focus and time for development because as anyone doing VHS capture or archiving knows, TBCs were (and still) are insanely priced! He was pretty resistant to the idea for quite a while (who else remembers?). But I think enough of us ended up hounding him about it (I definitely kept bringing it up to him haha), he came around and we ended up getting it for our 5x-Pros! Amazing work! Now here we all are a few more years later, the 4K is out and enthusiasts are sitting pretty! My RetroTINK 4K is excellent and it couples well with my other TBC hardware just like my 5x-Pro did (Thanks, Mike!). Also, thank you for the video, Bob! I love deep dives like this - keep up the great work!
What timing! I literally used my retrotink 5x to digitize over 100 hours of family videos that were stored on mini vhs. The tink made it so easy that the hardest part was swapping the mini vhs’s out every hour. Glad to see this practical use of the product being covered, especially since I didn’t realize how expensive/ low quality the “home videos digitize” market was.
I heard some recorder's which have TBC will produce image with altered colour, so it looks kind of washed out and not like how it looks on the original tape, how closely do your digitised files resemble the original mini VHS footage?
Had my 5x-pro laying around because of how much retro gaming I do. This video informed me a ton and I'm glad it can "replace" an expensive vintage TBC for something more cost effective for general home use.
Can't wait to see your Domesday Duplicator video...btw, the team over at VHS-Decode are in the process of finalizing the MISRC hardware, a successor to the DdD, which will be able to capture multiple streams simultaneously(so manually syncing multiple audio/video captures will finally become a thing of the past).
Besides having to jack into the the VTR/VCR hardware, the separate audio recording and manual syncing process is the main reason I never went with that process. Besides the huge processing times.
@jonrobinson6851 I'm just running composite and stereo into the RetroTink and then HDMI out of that into my capture card, so it's just a basic stereo capture. Not sure if any capture cards are capable of doing surround sound. I know mine can't.
@@jonrobinson6851 I'm using the AVerMedia Live Gamer Portable 2 PLUS. Specifically in the "PC-Free" mode where it just captures direct to an SD card. It isn't the fanciest capture card available, but it works well enough for some basic captures.
Also it should be noted that if you use S-video, be sure to disable 3D Comb Filtering completely in the ADC menu. If left enabled, you'll get a trailing afterimage that can be noticed mostly on fast-moving objects. You don't need 3D Comb Filtering with S-video anyway, so just turn it off.
Wow what a dope video. We make documentaries on VHS here in Prague and have been looking for a better method to transfer. Thanks for the in-depth video!
just commenting to express my appreciation for your content and ability to cover complicated topics in digestible ways. been interested in VHS digitizing for a while now and i learned more in this video than in countless hours of googling.
I digitized all of my family’s home videos with my TINK 2X mini and HD60 Pro in late 2020. There were lots of signal drops and other issues. Going to redo this project with my TINK 5X and your tips! Thank you!!
This is extremely timely and helpful! My family was just talking yesterday about how we need to digitize our tapes before they go bad, I realized I could probably do it with the RT4K, and low and behold you posted this only 10 days ago! Thank you!!
You mentioned the QTGMC process in one of your titles-that’s generally the best way to handle mixed framerate content like 24p animation with 60i overlays. I’ve used it extensively in my AI upscale of the Super Mario Bros. Super Show.
I just ordered a Retrotink5x for VHS ripping after getting an HDMI capture card! I'm very excited to try out the TBC in it, especially for tapes you can't buy on DVD!
Truly appreciate the amount of effort you put into these videos, this is outstanding information and will be a reference for people for years. I have some old tapes I would like to convert and this is probably overkill, but I still enjoyed all the detail.
Great timing on this video Bob as I’m hoping to backup some old 8mm and vhs tapes. This was super informative. Looking forward to that upcoming archival vid too!
Thanks Bob! Being a fan of your concise summaries and reasonable methodology, I've been looking forward to this video since that first VHS live stream!
Correcting IVTC issues especially on Anime is especially difficult and often comes down to throwing out individual fields and then scaling the one you keep, or (hopefully) manually matching them with specialized tools, so I wouldn't expect the Retrotink to be able to handle every case. But running it through the Retrotink with no filter and then working on the upscaled output later would still prove very useful for Anime with no HD re-release
What an excellent video! I really liked how you highlighted the aspect of time & effort per transferred tape. Personally, I’ve used an old SVHS deck by JVC that has a DV out and then done deinterlacing and upscaling in ffmpeg, and this has definitely meant that I’ve skipped capturing certain tapes completely because the amount of effort required (tranferring files from my MacBook to NAS and then running ffmpeg for half an hour to produce the two H264 files I want).
Yeah, you really experienced the "time" aspect of it all. I can spend a day getting an amazing transfer of a tape...or spend an hour getting an almost-as-amazing version using a TINK. Sometimes it's absolutely worth the effort though! But definitely not always :)
BTW, why don't you use FCPX for importing the DV stream (via Firewire) and use the hardware encoders? They're (both H.264 and H.265) are superfast (a lot faster than realtime on anything Apple Silicon) and are now pretty good.
Absolutely fantastic! Thank you so much for this. Currently using the 5x pro, but just ordered the 4k tink today and this is going to be perfect for setting up my tape transfers. Do you have profile setup for Japanese tapes? I have them as well, in addition to my NA tapes. Thanks again!
Thanks! For Japanese tapes, I'd just try that same color profile I showed, that should already be loaded on the RT4K's SD card. If that doesn't look right, you'll have to do some more digging. Sorry, I just don't know enough about Japanese tapes to offer more info that that.
Seeing this makes me realize I'd love to have a physical media player for my VHS and DVD rips that that emulates scanlines and VHS-style fast-forward and rewind, maybe in a VCR shell/case. It would be great for VHS anime rips in particular.
Emulating VHS fast-forward and rewind would be hard. Well, more that it'd be really CPU-intensive, as doing so would require decoding the video much faster than real-time. The stuttering of digital FF/RW is down to just decoding the rare frames that are compressed using only information within the frame (i-frames). The rest store differences between frames, either between itself and the last i-frame (p-frames), or between itself and the neighbouring i-frames or -p-frames (b-frames).
Does the time base correction fix field alignment? Like would it straighten out the vertical border in the top right corner of the samples at 26:07? Seems like it does based on how the Tink output looks later on but a side by side would have been nice - geometric distortion is in my experience a more commonly encountered flaw than time desync when transferring VHS.
Bought a retrotink5x last year to transfer my parents wedding, my grandparents wedding anniversary and videos of my brother after we found them when cleaning my abuela's house. Bought a s-VHS player with a built in TBC since their was warping on the top of the picture but now the retrotink5x fixes the warping by its self now. My parents where happy that the tapes are now on the computer since one my mom overwrote the her original wedding tape by mistake so she though it was lost and we don't have anything of my brother digital since he wasn't around in the digital world.
My family has a whole stack of Hi-8 tapes that i promised id digitize years ago, but after a few days playing with a Dazzle, j wasnt satisfied enough to wanna continue, as I'd likely wanna re evaluate my process. Very excited to learn from this video - perhaps I'll finally finish the project!
Thank you so much Bob for this amazing deep dive. I don't have a capture card and although that's a basic first step, I didn't really know what I would need to attempt this. I have a 5X and have been considering upgrading to the 4K, especially since I've been having trouble getting the firmware updater to recognize the 5X. Your video made me realize with my current setup I'm not quite ready to get the 4K for video capture and I really need to upgrade my computer setup first. After doing that, I do feel I'll have the confidence to digitize some of those old home movies, with this reference in tow.
This came at the perfect ish time. I just used my tink5x yesterday to transfer a recent tape I recorded over the last year. Gonna now watch this and see if there’s any tips I can use for my next tape
4:53 I've been using the enhanced s-video mode for VHS and laserdisc playback and the increase in quality is staggering. Why wouldn't you use it when it works so well?
It's designed for the sharpness of video games, not TV content. While it might work well with some sources, it's something you should test on a case-by-case basis and not just leave it on.
@@RetroRGB Thanks. Side-by side comparisons have been really sparse on that. Looks like it makes the luma transitions "tighter" for lack of a better term.
It looks amazing in person. Very sharp, but it also got rid of issues I had with colour bleed on laserdisc. It doesn't work 100% of the time with PAL VHS, but I haven't had any issues with NTSC. This comment thread is the first I've seen about it only really being meant for video games - nothing on the firmware release or the videos going in to it when the firmware was released.
Great Video Bob. I live in Brazil and an important thing to have in mind if you pretend to digitize VHS with brazilian VCR's, you have to use a VCR that has the option to chage from Pal M to NTSC because as far as i tested scalers wont work correctly with PAL-M signals, it will be in black or whit or all wobbly and no good to watch, so for you to properly capture you will need to set your VCR to NTSC, not all VCR's released in brazil have that option, but lots of them will, in same cases you will need the VCR cotroller to change the video region.
@@sos.gamers Pal N was created in Argentina in 1976-77, Pal M is from 1972, the question would be why not NTSC since Brazil had the monochrome system M, 525 lines 30 FPS, (Brazil's AC is 60 Hz) and changing to a 625 line system would have been very expensive, well, that was due to the intensive advertising campaign Telefunken and Philips carried out in Brazil in 1972, which included colour test broadcasts of popular shows (done with TV Globo) and technical demonstrations with executives of television stations. Another advantage of Pal M is the simplicity of converting to and from NTSC, since only the colour carrier is changed.
another minus for the SoundBeast device (and most other devices I've tried in this class) is that is "de-interlaces" by discarding half the frames. You can see this by stepping frame by frame in the comparison section at around 23:37 (press , or . on the keyboard) and the retrotink maintains 60fps while the Soundbeast only steps every other frame. Thank you for uploading the video in 60fps by the way!
Bookmarking this for later/ adding to RUclips engagement with a comment. This is going to be so helpful. God bless you, Bob. Or Beer bless you, if you prefer.
Congratulations on your tips and solutions for RetroTINK. An experience I had with a promotional video that came as bonus media on a CD. The video came in a MOV file that was certainly compressed to fit on the 700mb CD (this CD is from 2001). This video was recorded at 15fps and the promotional video was probably recorded on a digital camera from the 90s, as the song is from 1995. Due to the blurred colors it could be that it was recorded on an analogue camera. very likely. The most interesting thing is that I tried to scale it to HD at 60fps using PC programs and the 15fps effect simply doesn't change. The only software I didn't use was TopazVideo due to my PC being limited and I don't have a dedicated video card. But it's incredible I used 4 video conversion and scaling software and the fps rate doesn't change. I managed to trick this by increasing the speed time which apparently disappeared the feeling of video recorded at 15fps. I even uploaded the video on my channel of this version that I supposedly cheated on. ajajaja.
I have used so many devices to capture vhs and so many suck. My favorites have been a standalone Sony DVD recorder with internal time base correction, a combination of a cheap AV2HDMI dongle with an $11 hdmi capture dongle using QuickTime to record, and a very old windows XP PC using Dazzle usb 1.1 capture have been my go to vhs capture methods among the dozens I’ve tried. This looks very cool but I don’t see myself spending $500+ on a retrotink to digitize vhs tapes. I’m happy to see the analog to digital conversion community still striving for perfection though. Preservation is so important.
Every video I see on the RT4K makes me want one more. Looking forward to the OLED CRT video you mention. Curious on what you think of filters like that potentially causing burn in.
I once came across combing artifacts in a PAL movie I recorded from TV (PAL, obviously) in 25p. It was the only time I saw them in a PAL movie. I can't remember now if I got rid of them in full, but I know I used a very CPU-intensive deinterlacer plugin in Virtual Dub in 2003...
@@gamecubeplayer you're right, one has to be precise. A PAL movie recorded from TV, that is, 50i - but should have deinterlaced easily into 25p with 2:2 pulldown, right? That's what I thought, but the combing artifacts were all over the place, so I don't know what the problem was. It was the only instance of a 50i PAL movie I recorded from TV which produced combing artifacts. Have you had any experience with 50i PAL movies?
@@gamecubeplayer could be. What is even weirder then that it was a European movie, so they should have been aware of the problems of 24->50 conversion and opted for the speed-up instead...
I am extremely satisfied with the Retrotink 5X Pro I bought some years ago, it's been delivering on it's promises and I couldn't be happier. The 4K version is bound to be even better and I'm looking forward to see it's capabilities in the future. Perhaps some RUclips videos got some info on it in great detail, I'll definitely go look for them. Digitalizing analog video seems like a conversion process of VHS tapes to digital media, it would be cooler if it was the other way around to digitalize into analog video. But that's just my take on it. Even better would be if it was possible to simulate a CRT screen using modern hardware and monitors.
The easiest way to record digital video to tape would probably be using an older game console that has analog outputs and can play video files, like a PS3, and recording that through your VCR. You can do the same thing with a Raspberry Pi as well, since they all have composite video outputs, but if your VCR has an S-Video input, the better option would be to use that with a game console
Great video, thanks. In the clips of the 4K & 5x after 26:30 the 4K clips looked a lot better than the 5x ones to me. Would you say this this typical for these devices, or was there some other reason for the difference in quality in this case?
If you’re specifically talking about the TBC test clips of Eurotrip, they’re actually not a good representation of either - I didn’t bother tweaking any settings, as I was ONLY running a TBC test. I probably should have gone back and recorded the full movie again with the pre-configured profiles, but I just used what I already had. The main difference between the two is the RT4K’s more advanced scaling and deinterlacing. It IS better, but the RT5x is still very good.
I would suggest turning the RT4K off completely and back on after upgrading firmware. I've had issues with mine losing one audio channel after upgrading until properly restarted
I've digitized a ton of my VHS tapes, old home videos etc, using Retrotink 5X Pro. Now that I have the Retrotink 4K, I'm almost tempted to go back and try it again. The results were good already.
I'd re-capture just one of your favorite old video tapes and see what you think. You will see a difference...but is it worth re-capturing everything? Probably not, as the RT5x is already great. But who knows, maybe the RT4K will be a great match for your tapes?
Great work Bob, looking forward to the upcoming video. We all know modern screens are pretty bad at upscaling for games, but they are kind of built for handling video content. De-interlacing on the fly can be a bit of a mixed bag so I will de-interlace when digitizing but I personally don't see much reason for storing captures in 1080p or 4K when pretty much everything that plays video can upscale SD on the fly just fine and takes up less storage space. Just my opinion, would love to get more info about capturing in 480i or 480p from either the Tink 5X or 4K, or other methods. VHS decode looks very impressive but also a lot more work to set up and much more time to process.
I agree: If you have the ability to play back lossless 480i, your TV should do it just fine. That said, if you're uploading to RUclips, Facebook, etc, you should really scale to 1080p or 4K, otherwise they'll apply their terrible deinterlacing and compression.
None of my 3 (PAL) VHS players do RGB via SCART, so you’ll still be doing Composite or S-Video (I haven’t checked if I actually get S-Video out from the SCART ports. Only used composite as of yet). I had no issues using the newly released VHS profile on my RT4k. (I only had to switch from S-Video input to Composite). It looks great, and when I side-by-side compare the image on my Panasonic TX-65EX780 with the one on my B&O MX 7000, it looks almost identical on both monitors (Worth mentioning my player has two SCART outs, so no possibility for signal quality loss). I’d like to get all my main monitors (re-)calibrated using Calman tools some time soon though. I believe my 4K input is pretty off, which might be the reason they don’t look identical. That or the fact that the MX 7000 is 20 years old now ofc😂
Thank you! And both TINK's have a TBC, however the 4K's TBC can run at both 59.94 and 60. So if you're a video purist, it's a better choice. But both are excellent!
I’m new to RetroTINK stuff but I must admit it sounds impressive. I am thinking to get the old school NES console and get Super Mario Bros 1, 2, 3 games. I notice that on older CRT TVs the Super Mario Bros 1 for instance had a robust sky blue color for the sky backon world 1-1 whereas on modern tv the game screen is stretched and darker blue to purplish color. I am looking for the best possible upscaler for the NES console to my Samsung OLED TVS95 so the colors match up perfectly from older CRT TVs. What do you recommend regardless of the price? Thanks!
Thanks for making this video! I’ve been messing with RT5X VHS capture for a couple months and have some questions about your recommendations. #1, you say not to use the ‘TBC’ V-Sync option, though Mike Chi’s patch notes for the 3.7 firmware specifically mention this option for VHS capture. Can you clarify why you avoid it? #2, I don’t have a ‘MA Smoothing’ deinterlace option on firmware 3.71 which also seems to be the latest publicly available, but in your video the firmware version is 3.94. Is this option added in 3.94, and is there any information on a public release of this version?
#1 That’s for 480i output only. And almost no capture card supports true 480i over HDMI, so I thought it was best to leave that “expert only option” for the deep-dive video. #2 That must be a mistake. I’ll check with Mike and get that sorted. Check the firmware page again tomorrow please.
I just realized the RT5x "VHS Beta" Firmware is still on the experimental page. Load this one up...and whenever the main public one releases, you can just switch to that: retrotink-llc.github.io/firmware/5x-experimental.html
How does it handle Macrovision copy protection? My Laser Disc player only has composite output. I got Toy Story on LD for Christmas and want to play it through my RetroTINK 4K to watch on my 4K TV. If I remember correctly Disney was heavy handed with Macrovision on their VHS tapes so i assume their Laser Discs are no exception.
@RetroRGB - Hey man, awesome video! Just to clarify, are there any advantages to the RetroTINK 5X-Pro versus the 4K in terms of capturing S-VHS specifically via S-video? As in things like time base correction, frame sync, filtering, or anything else? I'm looking at these two devices to try out another workflow for VHS digitizing, and I want to understand if there are any advantages / disadvantages of going with 5X-pro or 4K for VHS home video capture (assuming latest firmware for both devices). Also any advantages or disadvantages between these devices for NTSC 525i (480i or 486i visible lines) passthrough?
Thank you! If you’re doing 480i capture (the other TINK VHS video), they’re both the same. If you’re capturing in HD, the RT4K is better…but I wouldn’t recommend spending that much more money just for VHS capture. That said, if you’re using the RT4K for video games or watching TV/Movies, they’re go for it :)
Great video, i do a lot of VHS capture and i offer VHS capture service in Montevideo City, Uruguay. I bought the RT4K for this and for my video games. It really looks amazing, but i have one question, i have my PRO S-VHS Panasonic NV-FS200B (PAL-B) I use PAL-N tapes, the vcr can handle all the PAL formats, and it has TBC built in, do i need to use Triple buffer with TBC on? Or i just leave it ON and change to lock frame? Also in OBS i guest i need to set the capture to 3850x2160 and 23.97 fps...
Great question! I'd try both TBC's and see if one gets better results with your setup: Turn on your player's TBC and set the TINK to framelock. Then turn off your players TBC and set the TINK to Triple Buffer. See which works better. ...and the OBS resolution would be 3840x2160 @59.94 for NTSC. I have no PAL-M experience, so I'm not sure what that refresh rate would be...sorry!!!
@@RetroRGB Great thanks for your response, PAL-M is Brazil only, PAL-N its Uruguay and Argentina, the refresh rate is the same as PAL-B (europe) but i have also NTSC VCR and a DRM-ES15 so i will use 59.94, dumb me.. i was using 60hz lol
This is a great video! I wonder how the Tink4K handles color space since SD used the 601 standard and HD/UHD use the 709 color standard. Does the Tink4K correctly convert 601 to 709? Also I noticed Bob using a RGB capture setting rather than YUV? I was curious why since video uses the YUV standard. Lastly, since this is HDMI, how does setting full or partial impact the video levels?
All excellent questions. The TINK should auto-detect and convert 601 to 709 with no issue. And my recording settings were RGB when capturing the TINK's output, as it's outputting 4K in the RGB colorspace. But I'll dig MUCH deeper into capture settings in the upcoming video!
That makes a lot of sense. Thanks! I work in TV and film making docs that use archival material. So I have tons of experience digitizing tapes, along with a full TBC analog capture system running on WinXP haha. I dabbled with the 5x on my last feature film as test. Have the 4K and been following the progression of tape capture. Thanks a ton for documenting all this work.
Hey Bob. In the video, you seemed to somewhat suggest we output to the highest resolution our particular scalers can handle - 1080p for the 5X and 2160p for the 4K. 480 doesn't go evenly into either of those numbers - wouldn't it make sense then to just output and capture at 480p to keep integer scaling?
Excellent question, however you're thinking like a retro gamer :) Integer scaling is crucial for games with 2D graphics, but with both 3D graphic games and *especially* with video content, it doesn't matter. In fact, sharp scaling looks terrible with video content. Give it a try on your TINK and see. ...actually, sharp, integer scaling sometimes helps when adding scanlines for *viewing* video content. But neither sharp scaling or scanlines should be used in capture.
@@RetroRGByes, that makes sense. Well said - I was thinking like a retro gamer. 😂 So, I guess the idea then is that the RetroTINK 4K can probably do a better job at scaling up to 2160p than our TVs, so it's better to use that scaling once and then know it will look good on any TV, right?
Have you tried capturing VHS through YPbPr? For some reason this looked so much better to me. My VCR is a DVD combo unit and has component out which also works for VHS and while it looks the same as composite connected to a TV it really makes a difference with the Tink5x. YPbPr is handled by a different part of the system (for lack of a better term) and not by the SDP. It's really strange and I like the look.
would taping over a second of let's say the the very beginning of the VHS with color bars be an adequate solution to the color correction? or if you don't want to mess with the tape, another tape that HAS color bars? I'm thinking either dubbing it from a VHS tape that has that or somehow dubbing it from an MOV file or a dvd. It's a chaotic DIY idea but it's possible.
I'm experimenting with this now: I found a Video 8 home movie that had a ton of space left at the end. I'm recording test patterns on that to help calibrate. The only issue is, how that will compare to whatever the camcorder originally outputted? So, what if I calibrate to the tape, but the camcorder itself recorded too dim? I'll test this for the deep-dive video.
@@RetroRGB I know some camcorders GENERATE their own color bars, so that's probably the most ideal output huh. Obviously that would be a very very limited use case since it wouldn't be worth/ be impossible to track down the og camcorders of every tape haha, but that doesn't totally discount the use case if you're shooting footage yourself and remembering to put a second or two of those bars on your tape, or if you're digitizing family videos and happen to have access to the og camera as well. the hi 8 test patterns sound exciting! can't wait to see your results with that, who knows maybe it'll turn out to not be all that different.
Japanese auction sits are a gold mine of cheap high end VCR, I bought a Victor HR-VFG1 which is the japanese equivalent of a JVC hr-9911U in box with boat shipping for $250 CAN.
As a wild idea, if you copy the video at least 3 times, with different levels of brightness, and use some HDR software on the individual images, I wonder if there is enough info to get an HDR effect? Would be interesting to find out.
Regarding the comb filter-I’ve been working on an AI upscale model for making NES composite look closer to RGB. It would be interesting to do a comparison.
Yup! I'll show those in the upcoming deep-dive. They can introduce their own issues though, like messing with the picture quality. But overall, they can be a great choice.
Thanks for a totally absorbing video. I already have a Panasonic VCR with built-in TBC. Would there be any advantage to turning the TBC off and using the RetroTINK instead? Many thanks and keep up the excellent work 😎
I took a totally different approach to digitalizing my old VHS. I used a Panasonic DVD Recorder as a passthrough device to take advantage of its TBC elements and capture in my PC with an analog capture device (Diamond VC500). I kept everything in 480i to let the upscaling and deinterlacing to the reproducing device. This way I can always take advantage of better upscaling and deinterlacing algorithms that will come in the future, like AI-based upscaling, for example.
Fantastic video. I feel like there's a niche crowd (based on my random assumption) looking to preserve analog video using a video upscaler/line doubler, and it's great you made such a detailed and informative video for us. I had a general idea of what a TBC does, but this video really helped explained what they do and the results one can expect. I think you've practically convinced me to pick up a Retrotink 5x for my tape conversion. Fortunately my tapes aren't near the level of damage as the one you tested with during the video, so I think other than a small amount of distortion which shouldn't take much away from the conversion, my tapes should be looking great in digital formats. I do have a question. During the 6 way comparison around 7:24, I noticed the RT5x is a bit more washed out than the other captures. Is this due to whatever settings you had the RT5x set to?
Thanks! So, that TBC comparison was ONLY testing the TBC. Setting were all over the place and not a good representation of ANYTHING other than TBC. Sorry about that, I should have specified.
Man this was an excellent video. It just kills me the 4K can't do 576i output yet. :C I had to buy an Intensity Pro 4K to use temporarily to get around that and capture raw interlaced. If that day ever comes, I will immediately slap down all $750.00 for one.
I've been using a VCR with component output, run through a fancy expanded GBS-C from aliexpress ($70), and it's fantastic! the config is a little strange compared to a retrotink but the quality is superb for the price! just need to find a way to get composite into it so i'm not relying on the VCR for that.
5:38 - you flip through the Picture Control setting without commenting on what it is or what it does. It controls the noise reduction on JVC decks. - edit = NR OFF - sharp = minimal NR + edge sharpening (causes halos) - soft = heavy NR - auto/norm = standard NR, mostly to remove chroma, some softening may occur (depends on source) The recommendation is either Auto/Norm or Edit -- test with each source to see which looks better. Also, as someone with a bunch of import anime laserdiscs, I wish you hadn't mentioned a different Japanese color standard and then immediately moved on. I had never heard of it. A tutorial on how to compile/install Brovicon would be good, too. A simple interface doesn't mean much if you have no idea how to run it.
I skipped over JVC VCR settings, as that wasn't the focus of the video - Same with Brovicon. You're correct about the JVC settings though and I always leave it at "edit". Here's all the info you'll need on the Japanese color standards: www.retrorgb.com/colour-malarkey.html Brovicon is getting some updates and I'll cover it in detail in the upcoming video. If you want more info, check out the podcast I did with the creator: www.retrorgb.com/discussing-video-conversion-with-simon-aarons.html
About magnetized tapes, my VCR lost HiFi sound once when I was playing a tape that looked like it had been magnetized by me as a teenager. In the end I tried recording for a few seconds and it started working again. I don't know if the head got magnetized or clogged with magnetic dust from that tape, or something else. The first thing I would do is adjust the tracking, so it wasn't that. Unfortunately I'm not sure anymore if I took the tape out or not, feels like I would have tried that. Anyone know if that's possible, do the heads magnetize and do they automatically demagnetize when you take the tape out or something?
My use case is exclusively to compensate for the new TVs not having composite in. So I need a box to zip tie behind the flatscreen that will take in the composite video from the AVR and convert it to HDMI for its 2 ft run to one of the HDMI inputs on the back of the flat panel tv. Key is , not having to use a remote to turn it on or configure it after I’ve got it set up. This is to watch VHS tapes , both recorded from broadcast TV in the 1990s, as well as commercial purchased VHS tapes (that would likely have macrovision ). What’s a good solution for that?
It depends on your budget. If you’re looking to just try something out and see how it works, I’d start with the $25 “composite to HDMI” boxes on Amazon. They’re not good, but maybe that’s all you need. If you decide this is important to you - especially if you ever digitize them - Get a RetroTINK. The 4K is best, but probably overkill unless you have a high-end home theater. The 5x is really great too. Hopefully there were enough examples in this video to give you a sense of what to expect.
That’s the ONLY video of his that is filled with mistakes. His channel is so good, but those process color wrong, have no time base correction and often mess up the aspect ratio. They’re only good when on a tight budget.
When using Black frame insertion on modern OLED displays, which cuts down 50% of motion blur, can you compensate for the 50% OLED BFI brightness loss by using the TINK4K's HDR brightness boosting trick, like you can with the darkening caused by using scanlines? If so, does it have any negative impact on colours? Thanks!
What I'm very curious about figuring out, is how to keep that "smooth" look of the VHS tape in a 23.98 premiere pro timeline...I'm working on a documentary with new footage that's shot in 23.98 so the timeline is set to that. When I add in the VHS archival footage I captured that's now at 59.94, it looks quite choppy compared back to how it looks when played back on the vcr on a crt. I realize there's a frame rate different so frames are being dropped to do the interpolation in premiere, but I swear I've seen old vhs footage in films where it looks smooth. Thoughts?
@@gamecubeplayer to be clear, I am trying to avoid putting 59.94 in the 23.976 timeline. We don't like the quality of frame rate interpolation / reverse telecine that Premiere gives natively. So we are trying to save money by not sending the 59.94 footage from the VHS archival to a expensive shop that does the frame rate conversion. Companies like Cinnafilm, do a lot of this work for companies like Netflix etc. Premiere Pro does it as I mentioned, but it doesn't give the best quality when doing that as it looks a bit stuttered due to it having to drop frames to fit into 23.976. There are many tools out there that do reverse telecine like Handbrake, Davinci Resolve, Topaz, I'm looking for the best quality we can get ourselves without sending it out to be processed. Our film is going to big festivals and eventually one of the streaming networks, maybe even Netflix. Also as I typed this I just used a tool called Shutter Encoder @Bob you might enjoy this! It has GPU acceleration and is built by video editors for transcoding and has a TON of options + is free. The 59.94 conversion looks quite good and it can output to all manners of codecs from ProRes (we are using this one) to DNx and many more. Hope that helps explain!
@@gamecubeplayer Yea I am aware, but I am not capturing pal, I'm capturing ntsc VHS, so interlaced 29.97, which converted to progressive is 59.94. I am running vhs tapes through a RetroTink4k and capturing like Bob suggests. The discussion that Bob has with Dan Mons in the archiving 480i video he did was quite helpful and worth watching.
Nice video, with one caveat: Even if you're in North America, home camcorders often used 0 IRE rather than 7.5 IRE, so if you're using 7.5 and the shadows are all black, you probably need to use zero.
Oh, really? I had a few VHS and Video8 camcorder tapes to choose from and both seemed more accurate to a CRT when in 7.5IRE. I should look into this more.
I'm pretty sure all home movies were just shot in standard 480i, so there's no need for IVTC...because it wasn't "telecine'd" in the first place :) If for some reason your home movies were shot in 23.97 (was that a thing?), then absolutely use it. Feel free to experiment though - The worst thing that'll happen is it won't work and there's no chance of harming your equipment.
@@RetroRGBah, that makes sense. Thanks for explaining that. So, another question I have is in the video, you seemed to somewhat suggest we output to the highest resolution our particular scalers can handle - 1080p for the 5X and 2160p for the 4K. 480 doesn't go evenly into either of those numbers - wouldn't it make sense then to just output and capture at 480p to keep integer scaling?
I have a lot of home movies on 8mm, Hi8, and Digital8 tape. I have a Sony camcorder that transfers video losslessly in DV CODEC (I think). Should I use Firewire for all three 8 mm formats or just for the Digital 8? The camcorder does output regulal 8 over Firewire or I can use s-video or composite for all. My question is should I rip everything in the digital domain (using the camcorder to do the analog to digital conversion) or just rip the Digital8 via Firewire?
In a previous video you mentioned to buy the Laserbear VGA to Svideo adapter + an audio cable which I did in order to use the Tink4K Svideo new sharpening feature for capture. So now you are saying to use the front port only because it goes directly to the DAC? The videos are quite conflicting. IMO not enough emphasis is made regarding the player, the biggest difference for capture is how good the source is. Using a cheap 2 heads will lead to poor results versus an high end device. I have been using for 2 decades the AG-1980P and the NV-SV1 (Japan only) which have been doing a fantastic job. The NV-SV1 is relatively unknown here but can be purchased for a bit over 200 USD on eBay (has TBC as well), its a total workhorse and sometimes gives better results than my AG-1980P. I tested devices like the TBC-1000 and they are very poorly built imo and definitely not worth how much they are selling for. I have been capturing lately using the Tink4 and the Atomos Ninja V and it does a pretty good job. I find the 4K resolution is quite useless since the source is SD. However I capture at 4K and the extra resolution helps when cleaning up the footage through other software's such as Topaz Labs video AI. Then the final results could be easily scaled to 1080P.
I think your misunderstanding - The rear S-Video adapter is better FOR VIDEO GAMES. You can still try it with tape transfer, but the front input is probably safest.
Just got my RT4K this morning and have a whole pile of tapes to digitize, so this upload’s timing is pretty ideal. This is extremely useful so thanks for another great explainer vid, Bob!
Thanks very much!! I’d love to collab sometime. We could totally nerd out!
Hi,
Was gifted a bunch of VHS tapes containing recordings of Red Wings Playoff games from '97. I wanna digitize them with my new Retrotink 4k but don't have a capture card. What do you recommend?
My goal is to upload them to RUclips.
@@RetroRGBgreat video. Thanks for making this video
The Retrotink 4K is the best analog-to-digital solution there is, especially for the cost. However I wish the time base correction did more correction. At places where I paused the original camcorder tape in camera, it will often jump and sometimes even show a quick frame from several minutes ago that for some reason is still in the RT4K's buffer. The RT5X also does this. It doesn't seem to have issues where I paused the recordings on a VHS tape, just old 8mm and Hi8 tapes that were then transferred to VHS. EDIT: I'm gonna try to get a JVC Super VHS as that's how the recordings were made. I currently only have a Mitsubishi S-VHS so maybe it doesn't like JVC recordings I dunno. Wouldn't hurt to have a spare VCR anyway.
*Lordsmurf doesn't like this*
@@JnL_SSBM Who the F is Lordsmurf?
UPDATE: I have a real Time Base Corrector arriving. I hope it works. The JVC VCR did not work. I have a lot of stuff to digitize while I still can.
@@GameSack lordsmurf once said that Retrotink 5x or 4K are inaccurate since it's a retro gaming scaler, not a Time Base Corrector. I have a decent Panasonic Diga DMR ES-15 as a TBC.
@@JnL_SSBM I'm not sure LordSmurf is entirely wrong about the TINKs, but until Mike implements proper 576i passthrough it's hard for me to test/compare and get accurate results as I only have PAL tapes.
I have an actual standalone TBC, and playback wise through when compared to the TINK-5X, it seemed to perform comparably. I'd still love to perform some more robust testing though if a 576i mode comes.
As someone who used to work in a post house tape room, I really appreciate you covering this. Great results without hunting for costly, bulky and old equipment or spending weeks messing with vapor synth.
Bob! This is a great video! I’m a sysadmin at a library and help with a variety of patron needs, especially VHS to digital conversations, up until this video, there just wasn’t a solution that could be implemented without a substantial amount of staff time, until now!
We’ll be able to offer this service again! Genuinely grateful for this!
Even though I can't afford to get into Retro Gaming or Pro-Level Tape Transfer yet, this is still really informative and entertaining to watch. RUclips channels such as yourself, MLiG, and MVG really make my mind run wild with different scaler and hardware possibilities!
Considering we both own old VHS Players and Consoles using analog connections, including the Xbox 360, PS3, and Nintendo Wii, it's awesome to capture stuff with a Retrotink 5x device, as it's my go to device for 1080p stuff, including recording stuff on my PS2, PS1, Nintendo Gamecube, Nintendo 64, Nintendo Wii, and Xbox 360 to be exact.
This is BRILLIANT! My skater friends have TONS of videos still locked on VHS. What a godsend!
This is what I'm using this mostly for! I have the whole 411VM VHS-only releases collection. Epic.
@@shredbraahh8606 please let us know if you end up uploading those to RUclips. Loved 411VM growing up.
Yeah please @ me as well if any of you upload any digitized old skating stuff❤
I wanna see y'all stuff tbh. Love skating
Thank you for this guide. I am recording my mom and dad's old home VHS tapes, and I will give them to my dad on a flash drive for Father's Day. Thank you!!!
Great video! I'm glad we're seeing modern capture techniques like this and domesday. I'll be happy to see us move on from the current "recommended" techniques involving WinXP, huffyuv and insanely priced TBCs.
I remember speaking with Mike years ago about the abundant pros of developing a TBC for the Tink 5x-Pro (both for him and for the community). People were already playing with using the 2x-Pro for VHS capture (I was one of them) - and it was good! I already owned TBC hardware but it seemed obvious that with the 5x's increased capabilities, it would be the perfect modern device for added TBC functionality if he was able to swing the focus and time for development because as anyone doing VHS capture or archiving knows, TBCs were (and still) are insanely priced! He was pretty resistant to the idea for quite a while (who else remembers?). But I think enough of us ended up hounding him about it (I definitely kept bringing it up to him haha), he came around and we ended up getting it for our 5x-Pros! Amazing work! Now here we all are a few more years later, the 4K is out and enthusiasts are sitting pretty! My RetroTINK 4K is excellent and it couples well with my other TBC hardware just like my 5x-Pro did (Thanks, Mike!). Also, thank you for the video, Bob! I love deep dives like this - keep up the great work!
I can't get over how wonderful this video is. Thanks so much for all the work that went into it (and your expertise)!
Thank you!
What timing! I literally used my retrotink 5x to digitize over 100 hours of family videos that were stored on mini vhs. The tink made it so easy that the hardest part was swapping the mini vhs’s out every hour. Glad to see this practical use of the product being covered, especially since I didn’t realize how expensive/ low quality the “home videos digitize” market was.
I heard some recorder's which have TBC will produce image with altered colour, so it looks kind of washed out and not like how it looks on the original tape, how closely do your digitised files resemble the original mini VHS footage?
Had my 5x-pro laying around because of how much retro gaming I do. This video informed me a ton and I'm glad it can "replace" an expensive vintage TBC for something more cost effective for general home use.
Can't wait to see your Domesday Duplicator video...btw, the team over at VHS-Decode are in the process of finalizing the MISRC hardware, a successor to the DdD, which will be able to capture multiple streams simultaneously(so manually syncing multiple audio/video captures will finally become a thing of the past).
Besides having to jack into the the VTR/VCR hardware, the separate audio recording and manual syncing process is the main reason I never went with that process. Besides the huge processing times.
On behalf of my laserdisc collection, thanks.
Thanks very much!!!!
Will this capture the digital and AC-3 audio tracks perfectly?
@jonrobinson6851 I'm just running composite and stereo into the RetroTink and then HDMI out of that into my capture card, so it's just a basic stereo capture. Not sure if any capture cards are capable of doing surround sound. I know mine can't.
@@cnrobinson5401 Which capture card are you using, Mr. Robinson?
@@jonrobinson6851 I'm using the AVerMedia Live Gamer Portable 2 PLUS. Specifically in the "PC-Free" mode where it just captures direct to an SD card. It isn't the fanciest capture card available, but it works well enough for some basic captures.
Also it should be noted that if you use S-video, be sure to disable 3D Comb Filtering completely in the ADC menu. If left enabled, you'll get a trailing afterimage that can be noticed mostly on fast-moving objects. You don't need 3D Comb Filtering with S-video anyway, so just turn it off.
Oh, really? I gotta go back and test that. I didn’t notice anything like that…but my focus was composite. Thanks for the heads up!
Thank you! This made my day. I've been eagerly waiting for this video ever since I got my RetroTINK 4K.
Wow what a dope video. We make documentaries on VHS here in Prague and have been looking for a better method to transfer. Thanks for the in-depth video!
have you seen the japanese & korean dvd masters? they're better than your original masters
just commenting to express my appreciation for your content and ability to cover complicated topics in digestible ways.
been interested in VHS digitizing for a while now and i learned more in this video than in countless hours of googling.
Thanks so much!!!
I digitized all of my family’s home videos with my TINK 2X mini and HD60 Pro in late 2020. There were lots of signal drops and other issues. Going to redo this project with my TINK 5X and your tips! Thank you!!
Let us know if it improved things.
This is extremely timely and helpful! My family was just talking yesterday about how we need to digitize our tapes before they go bad, I realized I could probably do it with the RT4K, and low and behold you posted this only 10 days ago! Thank you!!
32:02 inverse telecine works wonders on 25fps PAL film content too. Just wish there was a 25hz de-judder option like there is for 24hz!
Вы прекрасно все обьясняете! Рад,что нас сближают наши увлечения!Спасибо вам!
You mentioned the QTGMC process in one of your titles-that’s generally the best way to handle mixed framerate content like 24p animation with 60i overlays. I’ve used it extensively in my AI upscale of the Super Mario Bros. Super Show.
I just ordered a Retrotink5x for VHS ripping after getting an HDMI capture card! I'm very excited to try out the TBC in it, especially for tapes you can't buy on DVD!
Truly appreciate the amount of effort you put into these videos, this is outstanding information and will be a reference for people for years. I have some old tapes I would like to convert and this is probably overkill, but I still enjoyed all the detail.
Thanks so much for the kind words!
Great timing on this video Bob as I’m hoping to backup some old 8mm and vhs tapes. This was super informative. Looking forward to that upcoming archival vid too!
Thanks so much!!! That was really nice of you!
Thank you - Thank you - Thank you! This is precisely what I needed to know. Great video!
Thanks Bob! Being a fan of your concise summaries and reasonable methodology, I've been looking forward to this video since that first VHS live stream!
I JUST ORDERED A TINK 4K AND I AM SO EXCITED THAT I HAD TO COMMENT HERE
Considering my $1000 vcr went kaput this vid could not have come at a better time
finally someone talking about time base correction, thanks for making this!
Correcting IVTC issues especially on Anime is especially difficult and often comes down to throwing out individual fields and then scaling the one you keep, or (hopefully) manually matching them with specialized tools, so I wouldn't expect the Retrotink to be able to handle every case. But running it through the Retrotink with no filter and then working on the upscaled output later would still prove very useful for Anime with no HD re-release
Thanks Bob! Absolutely fantastic video that helped me set up my RetroTink for VHS capture.
What an excellent video! I really liked how you highlighted the aspect of time & effort per transferred tape. Personally, I’ve used an old SVHS deck by JVC that has a DV out and then done deinterlacing and upscaling in ffmpeg, and this has definitely meant that I’ve skipped capturing certain tapes completely because the amount of effort required (tranferring files from my MacBook to NAS and then running ffmpeg for half an hour to produce the two H264 files I want).
Yeah, you really experienced the "time" aspect of it all. I can spend a day getting an amazing transfer of a tape...or spend an hour getting an almost-as-amazing version using a TINK. Sometimes it's absolutely worth the effort though! But definitely not always :)
BTW, why don't you use FCPX for importing the DV stream (via Firewire) and use the hardware encoders? They're (both H.264 and H.265) are superfast (a lot faster than realtime on anything Apple Silicon) and are now pretty good.
Absolutely fantastic! Thank you so much for this. Currently using the 5x pro, but just ordered the 4k tink today and this is going to be perfect for setting up my tape transfers. Do you have profile setup for Japanese tapes? I have them as well, in addition to my NA tapes. Thanks again!
Thanks! For Japanese tapes, I'd just try that same color profile I showed, that should already be loaded on the RT4K's SD card. If that doesn't look right, you'll have to do some more digging. Sorry, I just don't know enough about Japanese tapes to offer more info that that.
Just bought a Retrotink 4k from the restock!!! YES
Seeing this makes me realize I'd love to have a physical media player for my VHS and DVD rips that that emulates scanlines and VHS-style fast-forward and rewind, maybe in a VCR shell/case. It would be great for VHS anime rips in particular.
Emulating VHS fast-forward and rewind would be hard. Well, more that it'd be really CPU-intensive, as doing so would require decoding the video much faster than real-time. The stuttering of digital FF/RW is down to just decoding the rare frames that are compressed using only information within the frame (i-frames). The rest store differences between frames, either between itself and the last i-frame (p-frames), or between itself and the neighbouring i-frames or -p-frames (b-frames).
Does the time base correction fix field alignment? Like would it straighten out the vertical border in the top right corner of the samples at 26:07? Seems like it does based on how the Tink output looks later on but a side by side would have been nice - geometric distortion is in my experience a more commonly encountered flaw than time desync when transferring VHS.
It should, yes. Just make sure you're on the newest firmware for either, as Mike recently fixed that on the RT5x and tweaked the TBC on the RT4K.
Bought a retrotink5x last year to transfer my parents wedding, my grandparents wedding anniversary and videos of my brother after we found them when cleaning my abuela's house. Bought a s-VHS player with a built in TBC since their was warping on the top of the picture but now the retrotink5x fixes the warping by its self now. My parents where happy that the tapes are now on the computer since one my mom overwrote the her original wedding tape by mistake so she though it was lost and we don't have anything of my brother digital since he wasn't around in the digital world.
Thanks for sharing! Glad it worked out :)
My family has a whole stack of Hi-8 tapes that i promised id digitize years ago, but after a few days playing with a Dazzle, j wasnt satisfied enough to wanna continue, as I'd likely wanna re evaluate my process. Very excited to learn from this video - perhaps I'll finally finish the project!
Thank you so much Bob for this amazing deep dive. I don't have a capture card and although that's a basic first step, I didn't really know what I would need to attempt this. I have a 5X and have been considering upgrading to the 4K, especially since I've been having trouble getting the firmware updater to recognize the 5X. Your video made me realize with my current setup I'm not quite ready to get the 4K for video capture and I really need to upgrade my computer setup first. After doing that, I do feel I'll have the confidence to digitize some of those old home movies, with this reference in tow.
So glad I could help!
I have been waiiting for this video forever
I miss when RUclips intros when commonplace. Now nobody has the attention span to appreciate it. Thanks for reminding me of a better time of RUclips.
This came at the perfect ish time. I just used my tink5x yesterday to transfer a recent tape I recorded over the last year. Gonna now watch this and see if there’s any tips I can use for my next tape
4:53 I've been using the enhanced s-video mode for VHS and laserdisc playback and the increase in quality is staggering. Why wouldn't you use it when it works so well?
I’ve heard about this feature. Can you describe what it does?
It's designed for the sharpness of video games, not TV content. While it might work well with some sources, it's something you should test on a case-by-case basis and not just leave it on.
@pokepress www.retrorgb.com/retrotink-4k-vhs-enhanced-s-video-firmware.html
@@RetroRGB Thanks. Side-by side comparisons have been really sparse on that. Looks like it makes the luma transitions "tighter" for lack of a better term.
It looks amazing in person. Very sharp, but it also got rid of issues I had with colour bleed on laserdisc. It doesn't work 100% of the time with PAL VHS, but I haven't had any issues with NTSC. This comment thread is the first I've seen about it only really being meant for video games - nothing on the firmware release or the videos going in to it when the firmware was released.
Great Video Bob. I live in Brazil and an important thing to have in mind if you pretend to digitize VHS with brazilian VCR's, you have to use a VCR that has the option to chage from Pal M to NTSC because as far as i tested scalers wont work correctly with PAL-M signals, it will be in black or whit or all wobbly and no good to watch, so for you to properly capture you will need to set your VCR to NTSC, not all VCR's released in brazil have that option, but lots of them will, in same cases you will need the VCR cotroller to change the video region.
I never understud why Brazil uses PAL-M instead of PAL-N like Uruguay and Argentina or NTSC like the rest of America
@@sos.gamers i dont know either, but it sucks, i've gotta to change my retrogames console from pal m to ntsc to use with the retrotink 2x
@@matherzinsstuff3410 RT2x doesn't support PAL-M? Retrotink 4K can handle PAL-N and PAL-M just perfect
@@sos.gamers the rt2x does not, the 5x and 4k i've never tested
@@sos.gamers Pal N was created in Argentina in 1976-77, Pal M is from 1972, the question would be why not NTSC since Brazil had the monochrome system M, 525 lines 30 FPS, (Brazil's AC is 60 Hz) and changing to a 625 line system would have been very expensive, well, that was due to the intensive advertising campaign Telefunken and Philips carried out in Brazil in 1972, which included colour test broadcasts of popular shows (done with TV Globo) and technical demonstrations with executives of television stations. Another advantage of Pal M is the simplicity of converting to and from NTSC, since only the colour carrier is changed.
another minus for the SoundBeast device (and most other devices I've tried in this class) is that is "de-interlaces" by discarding half the frames. You can see this by stepping frame by frame in the comparison section at around 23:37 (press , or . on the keyboard) and the retrotink maintains 60fps while the Soundbeast only steps every other frame. Thank you for uploading the video in 60fps by the way!
Ugh, I didn’t even realize that. Lol, but to be honest, it was SO BAD, I didn’t pay much attention to it. Thanks for the heads up.
Bookmarking this for later/ adding to RUclips engagement with a comment. This is going to be so helpful. God bless you, Bob. Or Beer bless you, if you prefer.
Thanks Jimmy!
Congratulations on your tips and solutions for RetroTINK. An experience I had with a promotional video that came as bonus media on a CD. The video came in a MOV file that was certainly compressed to fit on the 700mb CD (this CD is from 2001). This video was recorded at 15fps and the promotional video was probably recorded on a digital camera from the 90s, as the song is from 1995. Due to the blurred colors it could be that it was recorded on an analogue camera. very likely. The most interesting thing is that I tried to scale it to HD at 60fps using PC programs and the 15fps effect simply doesn't change. The only software I didn't use was TopazVideo due to my PC being limited and I don't have a dedicated video card. But it's incredible I used 4 video conversion and scaling software and the fps rate doesn't change. I managed to trick this by increasing the speed time which apparently disappeared the feeling of video recorded at 15fps. I even uploaded the video on my channel of this version that I supposedly cheated on. ajajaja.
I have used so many devices to capture vhs and so many suck. My favorites have been a standalone Sony DVD recorder with internal time base correction, a combination of a cheap AV2HDMI dongle with an $11 hdmi capture dongle using QuickTime to record, and a very old windows XP PC using Dazzle usb 1.1 capture have been my go to vhs capture methods among the dozens I’ve tried. This looks very cool but I don’t see myself spending $500+ on a retrotink to digitize vhs tapes. I’m happy to see the analog to digital conversion community still striving for perfection though. Preservation is so important.
Thank you very much for this hugely informative vid def gonna help everyone
Finally got one coming in later today. May have to revisit the Coliseum Video project of mine…..
Great stuff! This is extremely useful information for me!
Every video I see on the RT4K makes me want one more. Looking forward to the OLED CRT video you mention. Curious on what you think of filters like that potentially causing burn in.
How can you know if your cables are "shielded" and why do they have to be?
I once came across combing artifacts in a PAL movie I recorded from TV (PAL, obviously) in 25p. It was the only time I saw them in a PAL movie. I can't remember now if I got rid of them in full, but I know I used a very CPU-intensive deinterlacer plugin in Virtual Dub in 2003...
what's a pal movie? it has 3 different meanings:
1. 24p sped up to 25p then interlaced to 50i
2. 24p converted to 50i
3. 25p interlaced to 50i
@@gamecubeplayer you're right, one has to be precise. A PAL movie recorded from TV, that is, 50i - but should have deinterlaced easily into 25p with 2:2 pulldown, right? That's what I thought, but the combing artifacts were all over the place, so I don't know what the problem was. It was the only instance of a 50i PAL movie I recorded from TV which produced combing artifacts. Have you had any experience with 50i PAL movies?
@@radiozelazait was most likely 2
@@gamecubeplayer could be. What is even weirder then that it was a European movie, so they should have been aware of the problems of 24->50 conversion and opted for the speed-up instead...
@@radiozelazathey could've done it like pat & mat that was shot on film at 25fps which makes 3 the best option
I am extremely satisfied with the Retrotink 5X Pro I bought some years ago, it's been delivering on it's promises and I couldn't be happier. The 4K version is bound to be even better and I'm looking forward to see it's capabilities in the future. Perhaps some RUclips videos got some info on it in great detail, I'll definitely go look for them. Digitalizing analog video seems like a conversion process of VHS tapes to digital media, it would be cooler if it was the other way around to digitalize into analog video. But that's just my take on it. Even better would be if it was possible to simulate a CRT screen using modern hardware and monitors.
The easiest way to record digital video to tape would probably be using an older game console that has analog outputs and can play video files, like a PS3, and recording that through your VCR. You can do the same thing with a Raspberry Pi as well, since they all have composite video outputs, but if your VCR has an S-Video input, the better option would be to use that with a game console
Definitely check out my video on the RT4K...it's CRT Simulation is even better than the RT5x's: ruclips.net/video/E3ep6sw0c8Y/видео.html
Thanks!
Thank YOU!!!
Great video, thanks. In the clips of the 4K & 5x after 26:30 the 4K clips looked a lot better than the 5x ones to me. Would you say this this typical for these devices, or was there some other reason for the difference in quality in this case?
If you’re specifically talking about the TBC test clips of Eurotrip, they’re actually not a good representation of either - I didn’t bother tweaking any settings, as I was ONLY running a TBC test. I probably should have gone back and recorded the full movie again with the pre-configured profiles, but I just used what I already had.
The main difference between the two is the RT4K’s more advanced scaling and deinterlacing. It IS better, but the RT5x is still very good.
I would suggest turning the RT4K off completely and back on after upgrading firmware. I've had issues with mine losing one audio channel after upgrading until properly restarted
I did have to deal with PAL VHS in 24fps, but I couldn't decide if I need to use 2:2 or 2:3 IVTC as it's 50 field per second
I've digitized a ton of my VHS tapes, old home videos etc, using Retrotink 5X Pro. Now that I have the Retrotink 4K, I'm almost tempted to go back and try it again. The results were good already.
I'd re-capture just one of your favorite old video tapes and see what you think. You will see a difference...but is it worth re-capturing everything? Probably not, as the RT5x is already great. But who knows, maybe the RT4K will be a great match for your tapes?
Excellent work Bob.
Could you make a video tutorial explaining how to configure RetroTINK 4K also for the PAL VHS format of VCRs, please? Thank you
Great work Bob, looking forward to the upcoming video. We all know modern screens are pretty bad at upscaling for games, but they are kind of built for handling video content. De-interlacing on the fly can be a bit of a mixed bag so I will de-interlace when digitizing but I personally don't see much reason for storing captures in 1080p or 4K when pretty much everything that plays video can upscale SD on the fly just fine and takes up less storage space. Just my opinion, would love to get more info about capturing in 480i or 480p from either the Tink 5X or 4K, or other methods. VHS decode looks very impressive but also a lot more work to set up and much more time to process.
I agree: If you have the ability to play back lossless 480i, your TV should do it just fine. That said, if you're uploading to RUclips, Facebook, etc, you should really scale to 1080p or 4K, otherwise they'll apply their terrible deinterlacing and compression.
So for someone permanently on a Eurotrip (living in pal territory and using a scart vcr) are there any other settings to consider?
I THINK the only real difference would be framerate. But I know almost nothing about PAL, so there might be more. Sorry!
None of my 3 (PAL) VHS players do RGB via SCART, so you’ll still be doing Composite or S-Video (I haven’t checked if I actually get S-Video out from the SCART ports. Only used composite as of yet).
I had no issues using the newly released VHS profile on my RT4k. (I only had to switch from S-Video input to Composite). It looks great, and when I side-by-side compare the image on my Panasonic TX-65EX780 with the one on my B&O MX 7000, it looks almost identical on both monitors (Worth mentioning my player has two SCART outs, so no possibility for signal quality loss). I’d like to get all my main monitors (re-)calibrated using Calman tools some time soon though. I believe my 4K input is pretty off, which might be the reason they don’t look identical. That or the fact that the MX 7000 is 20 years old now ofc😂
@@AdrianDX thank you both. I just start tinkering around. I have a mx7000 too still one of the best things I ever bought 😁
@@AdrianDX You still need to select the output to 4K 50hz, or create a profile to output 23.97 hz
Just subscribed. Truely awesome video. Just to clarify tho. Do both the 4K and the 5X have a TBC or just the 5X?
Thank you! And both TINK's have a TBC, however the 4K's TBC can run at both 59.94 and 60. So if you're a video purist, it's a better choice. But both are excellent!
I’m new to RetroTINK stuff but I must admit it sounds impressive. I am thinking to get the old school NES console and get Super Mario Bros 1, 2, 3 games. I notice that on older CRT TVs the Super Mario Bros 1 for instance had a robust sky blue color for the sky backon world 1-1 whereas on modern tv the game screen is stretched and darker blue to purplish color. I am looking for the best possible upscaler for the NES console to my Samsung OLED TVS95 so the colors match up perfectly from older CRT TVs. What do you recommend regardless of the price? Thanks!
Thanks for making this video! I’ve been messing with RT5X VHS capture for a couple months and have some questions about your recommendations. #1, you say not to use the ‘TBC’ V-Sync option, though Mike Chi’s patch notes for the 3.7 firmware specifically mention this option for VHS capture. Can you clarify why you avoid it? #2, I don’t have a ‘MA Smoothing’ deinterlace option on firmware 3.71 which also seems to be the latest publicly available, but in your video the firmware version is 3.94. Is this option added in 3.94, and is there any information on a public release of this version?
#1 That’s for 480i output only. And almost no capture card supports true 480i over HDMI, so I thought it was best to leave that “expert only option” for the deep-dive video.
#2 That must be a mistake. I’ll check with Mike and get that sorted. Check the firmware page again tomorrow please.
I just realized the RT5x "VHS Beta" Firmware is still on the experimental page. Load this one up...and whenever the main public one releases, you can just switch to that: retrotink-llc.github.io/firmware/5x-experimental.html
@@RetroRGB This is great information, really appreciate you taking the time to reply!
I use an original 2x to digitize my grandma’s camcorder tapes. She had a Hi8 camera so dropouts weren’t an issue. I now use my 5x and it’s great.
How does it handle Macrovision copy protection? My Laser Disc player only has composite output. I got Toy Story on LD for Christmas and want to play it through my RetroTINK 4K to watch on my 4K TV. If I remember correctly Disney was heavy handed with Macrovision on their VHS tapes so i assume their Laser Discs are no exception.
@RetroRGB - Hey man, awesome video! Just to clarify, are there any advantages to the RetroTINK 5X-Pro versus the 4K in terms of capturing S-VHS specifically via S-video? As in things like time base correction, frame sync, filtering, or anything else? I'm looking at these two devices to try out another workflow for VHS digitizing, and I want to understand if there are any advantages / disadvantages of going with 5X-pro or 4K for VHS home video capture (assuming latest firmware for both devices). Also any advantages or disadvantages between these devices for NTSC 525i (480i or 486i visible lines) passthrough?
Thank you! If you’re doing 480i capture (the other TINK VHS video), they’re both the same. If you’re capturing in HD, the RT4K is better…but I wouldn’t recommend spending that much more money just for VHS capture. That said, if you’re using the RT4K for video games or watching TV/Movies, they’re go for it :)
…oh, and if you use the RT5X, make sure it’s running the latest (always free) firmware: www.retrorgb.com/retrotink-5x-576i-passthrough-added.html
Great video, i do a lot of VHS capture and i offer VHS capture service in Montevideo City, Uruguay. I bought the RT4K for this and for my video games. It really looks amazing, but i have one question, i have my PRO S-VHS Panasonic NV-FS200B (PAL-B) I use PAL-N tapes, the vcr can handle all the PAL formats, and it has TBC built in, do i need to use Triple buffer with TBC on? Or i just leave it ON and change to lock frame? Also in OBS i guest i need to set the capture to 3850x2160 and 23.97 fps...
Great question! I'd try both TBC's and see if one gets better results with your setup: Turn on your player's TBC and set the TINK to framelock. Then turn off your players TBC and set the TINK to Triple Buffer. See which works better.
...and the OBS resolution would be 3840x2160 @59.94 for NTSC. I have no PAL-M experience, so I'm not sure what that refresh rate would be...sorry!!!
@@RetroRGB Great thanks for your response, PAL-M is Brazil only, PAL-N its Uruguay and Argentina, the refresh rate is the same as PAL-B (europe) but i have also NTSC VCR and a DRM-ES15 so i will use 59.94, dumb me.. i was using 60hz lol
@@sos.gamers Pal N was adopted in Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay.
This is a great video! I wonder how the Tink4K handles color space since SD used the 601 standard and HD/UHD use the 709 color standard. Does the Tink4K correctly convert 601 to 709? Also I noticed Bob using a RGB capture setting rather than YUV? I was curious why since video uses the YUV standard. Lastly, since this is HDMI, how does setting full or partial impact the video levels?
All excellent questions. The TINK should auto-detect and convert 601 to 709 with no issue. And my recording settings were RGB when capturing the TINK's output, as it's outputting 4K in the RGB colorspace. But I'll dig MUCH deeper into capture settings in the upcoming video!
That makes a lot of sense. Thanks! I work in TV and film making docs that use archival material. So I have tons of experience digitizing tapes, along with a full TBC analog capture system running on WinXP haha. I dabbled with the 5x on my last feature film as test. Have the 4K and been following the progression of tape capture. Thanks a ton for documenting all this work.
Hey Bob. In the video, you seemed to somewhat suggest we output to the highest resolution our particular scalers can handle - 1080p for the 5X and 2160p for the 4K. 480 doesn't go evenly into either of those numbers - wouldn't it make sense then to just output and capture at 480p to keep integer scaling?
Excellent question, however you're thinking like a retro gamer :) Integer scaling is crucial for games with 2D graphics, but with both 3D graphic games and *especially* with video content, it doesn't matter. In fact, sharp scaling looks terrible with video content. Give it a try on your TINK and see.
...actually, sharp, integer scaling sometimes helps when adding scanlines for *viewing* video content. But neither sharp scaling or scanlines should be used in capture.
@@RetroRGByes, that makes sense. Well said - I was thinking like a retro gamer. 😂 So, I guess the idea then is that the RetroTINK 4K can probably do a better job at scaling up to 2160p than our TVs, so it's better to use that scaling once and then know it will look good on any TV, right?
Yes, but it's not just the scaling - The comb filter and TBC are really big deal's these days.
Have you tried capturing VHS through YPbPr? For some reason this looked so much better to me.
My VCR is a DVD combo unit and has component out which also works for VHS and while it looks the same as composite connected to a TV it really makes a difference with the Tink5x. YPbPr is handled by a different part of the system (for lack of a better term) and not by the SDP. It's really strange and I like the look.
would taping over a second of let's say the the very beginning of the VHS with color bars be an adequate solution to the color correction? or if you don't want to mess with the tape, another tape that HAS color bars? I'm thinking either dubbing it from a VHS tape that has that or somehow dubbing it from an MOV file or a dvd. It's a chaotic DIY idea but it's possible.
I'm experimenting with this now: I found a Video 8 home movie that had a ton of space left at the end. I'm recording test patterns on that to help calibrate. The only issue is, how that will compare to whatever the camcorder originally outputted? So, what if I calibrate to the tape, but the camcorder itself recorded too dim? I'll test this for the deep-dive video.
@@RetroRGB I know some camcorders GENERATE their own color bars, so that's probably the most ideal output huh. Obviously that would be a very very limited use case since it wouldn't be worth/ be impossible to track down the og camcorders of every tape haha,
but that doesn't totally discount the use case if you're shooting footage yourself and remembering to put a second or two of those bars on your tape, or if you're digitizing family videos and happen to have access to the og camera as well.
the hi 8 test patterns sound exciting! can't wait to see your results with that, who knows maybe it'll turn out to not be all that different.
Japanese auction sits are a gold mine of cheap high end VCR, I bought a Victor HR-VFG1 which is the japanese equivalent of a JVC hr-9911U in box with boat shipping for $250 CAN.
Oh boy, I can't wait for... _someone's_ reaction to this... 😂
As a wild idea, if you copy the video at least 3 times, with different levels of brightness, and use some HDR software on the individual images, I wonder if there is enough info to get an HDR effect?
Would be interesting to find out.
Regarding the comb filter-I’ve been working on an AI upscale model for making NES composite look closer to RGB. It would be interesting to do a comparison.
Awesome video, very curious about this for watching and scaling laserdiscs
37:31
Doesn't some dvd recorders have tbc built in? I swear you showcased one in one of your livestream, are those not a factor?
Yup! I'll show those in the upcoming deep-dive. They can introduce their own issues though, like messing with the picture quality. But overall, they can be a great choice.
@@RetroRGB
Retrotink 5x after the dvd recorder worth it? Or is the improvement, if any, insignificant
@@CorruptedDogg
What about using both dvd and 5x?
Thanks for a totally absorbing video.
I already have a Panasonic VCR with built-in TBC. Would there be any advantage to turning the TBC off and using the RetroTINK instead?
Many thanks and keep up the excellent work 😎
I took a totally different approach to digitalizing my old VHS. I used a Panasonic DVD Recorder as a passthrough device to take advantage of its TBC elements and capture in my PC with an analog capture device (Diamond VC500). I kept everything in 480i to let the upscaling and deinterlacing to the reproducing device. This way I can always take advantage of better upscaling and deinterlacing algorithms that will come in the future, like AI-based upscaling, for example.
That's an absolutely excellent way to digitize VHS. LOL, no sarcasm, it's my preferred method in many cases.
Perfect timing man
Fantastic video. I feel like there's a niche crowd (based on my random assumption) looking to preserve analog video using a video upscaler/line doubler, and it's great you made such a detailed and informative video for us. I had a general idea of what a TBC does, but this video really helped explained what they do and the results one can expect. I think you've practically convinced me to pick up a Retrotink 5x for my tape conversion. Fortunately my tapes aren't near the level of damage as the one you tested with during the video, so I think other than a small amount of distortion which shouldn't take much away from the conversion, my tapes should be looking great in digital formats.
I do have a question. During the 6 way comparison around 7:24, I noticed the RT5x is a bit more washed out than the other captures. Is this due to whatever settings you had the RT5x set to?
Thanks! So, that TBC comparison was ONLY testing the TBC. Setting were all over the place and not a good representation of ANYTHING other than TBC. Sorry about that, I should have specified.
@@RetroRGB No worries and thanks for the explanation! Keep up the great work on the videos!
Man this was an excellent video. It just kills me the 4K can't do 576i output yet. :C
I had to buy an Intensity Pro 4K to use temporarily to get around that and capture raw interlaced.
If that day ever comes, I will immediately slap down all $750.00 for one.
26:59 what was the name of this show? I saw this long time ago but English was not good enough to find out the name
Eurotrip. I link to the Blu-ray in the description.
I've been using a VCR with component output, run through a fancy expanded GBS-C from aliexpress ($70), and it's fantastic! the config is a little strange compared to a retrotink but the quality is superb for the price! just need to find a way to get composite into it so i'm not relying on the VCR for that.
5:38 - you flip through the Picture Control setting without commenting on what it is or what it does. It controls the noise reduction on JVC decks.
- edit = NR OFF
- sharp = minimal NR + edge sharpening (causes halos)
- soft = heavy NR
- auto/norm = standard NR, mostly to remove chroma, some softening may occur (depends on source)
The recommendation is either Auto/Norm or Edit -- test with each source to see which looks better.
Also, as someone with a bunch of import anime laserdiscs, I wish you hadn't mentioned a different Japanese color standard and then immediately moved on. I had never heard of it.
A tutorial on how to compile/install Brovicon would be good, too. A simple interface doesn't mean much if you have no idea how to run it.
I skipped over JVC VCR settings, as that wasn't the focus of the video - Same with Brovicon. You're correct about the JVC settings though and I always leave it at "edit".
Here's all the info you'll need on the Japanese color standards: www.retrorgb.com/colour-malarkey.html
Brovicon is getting some updates and I'll cover it in detail in the upcoming video. If you want more info, check out the podcast I did with the creator: www.retrorgb.com/discussing-video-conversion-with-simon-aarons.html
@@RetroRGB I was confused at first because the VO was talking about auto tracking while you were flipping through the picture mode options.
About magnetized tapes, my VCR lost HiFi sound once when I was playing a tape that looked like it had been magnetized by me as a teenager. In the end I tried recording for a few seconds and it started working again. I don't know if the head got magnetized or clogged with magnetic dust from that tape, or something else. The first thing I would do is adjust the tracking, so it wasn't that. Unfortunately I'm not sure anymore if I took the tape out or not, feels like I would have tried that.
Anyone know if that's possible, do the heads magnetize and do they automatically demagnetize when you take the tape out or something?
Awesome video thanks dude! 🏴☠️🏴☠️
My use case is exclusively to compensate for the new TVs not having composite in. So I need a box to zip tie behind the flatscreen that will take in the composite video from the AVR and convert it to HDMI for its 2 ft run to one of the HDMI inputs on the back of the flat panel tv. Key is , not having to use a remote to turn it on or configure it after I’ve got it set up.
This is to watch VHS tapes , both recorded from broadcast TV in the 1990s, as well as commercial purchased VHS tapes (that would likely have macrovision ).
What’s a good solution for that?
It depends on your budget. If you’re looking to just try something out and see how it works, I’d start with the $25 “composite to HDMI” boxes on Amazon. They’re not good, but maybe that’s all you need.
If you decide this is important to you - especially if you ever digitize them - Get a RetroTINK. The 4K is best, but probably overkill unless you have a high-end home theater. The 5x is really great too.
Hopefully there were enough examples in this video to give you a sense of what to expect.
technology connections made a video where he said that a cheap av2hdmi converter looks good with vhs & it also ignores macrovision
That’s the ONLY video of his that is filled with mistakes. His channel is so good, but those process color wrong, have no time base correction and often mess up the aspect ratio. They’re only good when on a tight budget.
@@RetroRGBat least it's better than whatever odc 3 rynna used back in march 9th 1999
When using Black frame insertion on modern OLED displays, which cuts down 50% of motion blur, can you compensate for the 50% OLED BFI brightness loss by using the TINK4K's HDR brightness boosting trick, like you can with the darkening caused by using scanlines? If so, does it have any negative impact on colours? Thanks!
What I'm very curious about figuring out, is how to keep that "smooth" look of the VHS tape in a 23.98 premiere pro timeline...I'm working on a documentary with new footage that's shot in 23.98 so the timeline is set to that. When I add in the VHS archival footage I captured that's now at 59.94, it looks quite choppy compared back to how it looks when played back on the vcr on a crt. I realize there's a frame rate different so frames are being dropped to do the interpolation in premiere, but I swear I've seen old vhs footage in films where it looks smooth.
Thoughts?
This should clear most of that up:
www.retrorgb.com/archiving-480i-interlaced-video-with-dan-mons.html
why would you want to put 29.97fps or 59.94fps footage in a 23.98fps timeline? that doesn't make much sense
@@gamecubeplayer to be clear, I am trying to avoid putting 59.94 in the 23.976 timeline. We don't like the quality of frame rate interpolation / reverse telecine that Premiere gives natively.
So we are trying to save money by not sending the 59.94 footage from the VHS archival to a expensive shop that does the frame rate conversion. Companies like Cinnafilm, do a lot of this work for companies like Netflix etc. Premiere Pro does it as I mentioned, but it doesn't give the best quality when doing that as it looks a bit stuttered due to it having to drop frames to fit into 23.976. There are many tools out there that do reverse telecine like Handbrake, Davinci Resolve, Topaz, I'm looking for the best quality we can get ourselves without sending it out to be processed.
Our film is going to big festivals and eventually one of the streaming networks, maybe even Netflix.
Also as I typed this I just used a tool called Shutter Encoder @Bob you might enjoy this! It has GPU acceleration and is built by video editors for transcoding and has a TON of options + is free. The 59.94 conversion looks quite good and it can output to all manners of codecs from ProRes (we are using this one) to DNx and many more.
Hope that helps explain!
@@fixorbricksdid you know? pal inverse telecine is simply 25fps slowed to 95% 24fps
@@gamecubeplayer Yea I am aware, but I am not capturing pal, I'm capturing ntsc VHS, so interlaced 29.97, which converted to progressive is 59.94. I am running vhs tapes through a RetroTink4k and capturing like Bob suggests. The discussion that Bob has with Dan Mons in the archiving 480i video he did was quite helpful and worth watching.
Nice video, with one caveat: Even if you're in North America, home camcorders often used 0 IRE rather than 7.5 IRE, so if you're using 7.5 and the shadows are all black, you probably need to use zero.
Oh, really? I had a few VHS and Video8 camcorder tapes to choose from and both seemed more accurate to a CRT when in 7.5IRE. I should look into this more.
This is amazing! I just have a few questions. First, why would you not want to use the inverse telecine on home video VHS content?
I'm pretty sure all home movies were just shot in standard 480i, so there's no need for IVTC...because it wasn't "telecine'd" in the first place :) If for some reason your home movies were shot in 23.97 (was that a thing?), then absolutely use it. Feel free to experiment though - The worst thing that'll happen is it won't work and there's no chance of harming your equipment.
@@RetroRGBah, that makes sense. Thanks for explaining that. So, another question I have is in the video, you seemed to somewhat suggest we output to the highest resolution our particular scalers can handle - 1080p for the 5X and 2160p for the 4K. 480 doesn't go evenly into either of those numbers - wouldn't it make sense then to just output and capture at 480p to keep integer scaling?
I have a lot of home movies on 8mm, Hi8, and Digital8 tape. I have a Sony camcorder that transfers video losslessly in DV CODEC (I think). Should I use Firewire for all three 8 mm formats or just for the Digital 8? The camcorder does output regulal 8 over Firewire or I can use s-video or composite for all. My question is should I rip everything in the digital domain (using the camcorder to do the analog to digital conversion) or just rip the Digital8 via Firewire?
That's a great question. To be honest, I'm not 100% sure how it compares, but I'll have it answered in detail in the VHS video.
In a previous video you mentioned to buy the Laserbear VGA to Svideo adapter + an audio cable which I did in order to use the Tink4K Svideo new sharpening feature for capture. So now you are saying to use the front port only because it goes directly to the DAC? The videos are quite conflicting.
IMO not enough emphasis is made regarding the player, the biggest difference for capture is how good the source is. Using a cheap 2 heads will lead to poor results versus an high end device. I have been using for 2 decades the AG-1980P and the NV-SV1 (Japan only) which have been doing a fantastic job. The NV-SV1 is relatively unknown here but can be purchased for a bit over 200 USD on eBay (has TBC as well), its a total workhorse and sometimes gives better results than my AG-1980P. I tested devices like the TBC-1000 and they are very poorly built imo and definitely not worth how much they are selling for.
I have been capturing lately using the Tink4 and the Atomos Ninja V and it does a pretty good job. I find the 4K resolution is quite useless since the source is SD. However I capture at 4K and the extra resolution helps when cleaning up the footage through other software's such as Topaz Labs video AI. Then the final results could be easily scaled to 1080P.
I think your misunderstanding - The rear S-Video adapter is better FOR VIDEO GAMES. You can still try it with tape transfer, but the front input is probably safest.