I’ve recently started digitizing my mother-in-law’s collection of home movies. What I would love is some recommendations or tweaks I can do to improve the quality and remove any combing or minimize static. I am not particularly concerned with audio quality, but I’ll list it below as well.
And so far I’m enjoying the processes. It’s really fun to see old videos and to learn a bit about video formats and encoding. I’m an amateur when it comes to these kinds of things so I’m learning as I go along. Each tape I make the picture clearer and the file size smaller!
Recording
- Sony Handycam (DCR-TRV27)
- Various DV 60/90 cassette tapes
- Seemingly ran in standard recording mode (tapes are 60 minutes)
VCR
- Elgato USB Analog Video Capture Device
- Handycam’s VCR mode connected via S-Video Cable and 3.5mm audio jack*
* I have ordered a A/V to RCA cable which is the manufacturer’s recommended connection, but unsure about the effects on quality
Software
- OBS for recording the VCR feed
- Downscale Filter: Bicubic (Sharpened scaling, 16 samples)
- Deinterlace - Linear 2x
- 720x540 @ 29.97 FPS (NTSC) (upscaled from 720x480)
- “Indistinguishable Quality, Large File Size”
- .mkv format with H.264 encoder
- Audio Encoder AAC
- Audio 48khz steroe
- Handbrake for re-encoding
- 720x480 @ 29.97 FPS
- H.264 (x264) MKV format
- No additional deinterlacing
- “Constant Quality” set to 20
- Audio Encoder AAC
I’d look into that a bit, it’s Sony so the software may be out there somewhere. But you may run in to driver or windows version problems.
I’ll check and see if I have a Mini-USB lying around somewhere and plug it in and see what happens. Ideally I’d prefer not to have to install software to record but I suppose if it results in the best video quality that may be the best option
Update: Found the cable, but connecting to the computer results in an unrecognized device. Sony stopped hosting the drivers in 2019, so I fear I may be out of luck in terms of a USB connection - unless I risk downloading a driver off the internet which I’m not inclined to do…
Archive.org would probably be the one place I’d trust if you can find it there
Use a VM if you’re concerned.
Unless there’s something very unique about the camera, the USB is only going to transfer still images off the memory card (and possibly supply a low-res webcam function) - you won’t be able to transfer video through it.
There should be a mini-firewire/mini-DV/iLink port hidden under a flap - that will connect to a firewire port on a desktop, or an older laptop.
If you don’t have access to a firewire port, your existing S-Video/AV cable is still your best option.
Unless anything magical has happened recently, a firewire to USB will not help you for video capture.