Basic newbie question

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

Jeff Mead wrote:
> Hi guys.
>
> I have a P4, 2.8GHz 1 Meg of RAM and a 7200rpm hard disc with plenty
> of space.
> I want to transfer some VHS tapes to DVD so I bought a Dazzle 90 USB2
> video capture kit. I am very disappointed. When I try to capture
> video I get lots of dropped frames. The resultant video is completely
> out of synch with the sound and, when I transferred it to a disc just
> to see what it would look like on my TV, the picture quality was
> terrible with very obvious JPG type artefacts.
>
> I was hoping that, with my system, I would be able to produce DVDs
> that were of equal quality to the original tapes (and this is
> certainly what it implies on the "Dazzle" packaging).
>
> Are my expectations too high? Even if I managed to overcome the
> dropped frames and synch problems, the picture quality I am getting is
> still way below the quality of my VHS tape.
>
> Is my provlem with the USB2 in general, the dazzle box in particular
> or something else?
>
> Has anyone god good results with the dazzle box?
>
> Can anyone reccomend something I could buy instead that would give me
> VHS quality?
>
> Many thanks in advance for your replies.
Yes, your expectations are high for this product. Many report less than
stellar results.

Much depends on the quality of the 'old' vhs tapes. The transfer from
analog tape to digital will 'usually' leave you with some significant
quality loss. People spend hundreds to thousands of dollars for
equipment to get better quality.

If you were to feed new storebought quality tape through the dazzle you
might get the results they imply on the box. But in the real world,
individual results may vary.

What can you do? You could try other capture cards. Seach this group for
recommendations. The questions as asked at least on a weekly basis. You
could buy a DVD recorder and shoot Svideo from the vcr to the recorder.