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00:00:00,720 --> 00:00:05,060
[sound of VHS cassette being inserted into
VCR and heads spinning up]

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00:00:06,820 --> 00:00:11,260
As the world steadily moved from the realm
of analog signals to digital information,

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00:00:11,260 --> 00:00:16,669
we kept facing the challenge of how to convert
our beloved and wholesome analog recordings

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00:00:16,669 --> 00:00:21,370
into sterile, never-changing strings of ones
and zeroes.

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00:00:21,370 --> 00:00:24,579
Remember kids, vinyl is better because it’s
imperfect!

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00:00:24,579 --> 00:00:28,680
Anyway, converting analog *audio* to digital
audio was no big deal.

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00:00:28,680 --> 00:00:33,160
I mean, technically it all starts as analog
signals from microphones anyway, so once we

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00:00:33,160 --> 00:00:37,190
figured out how to record sound waves as a
series of instantaneous intensity samples

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00:00:37,190 --> 00:00:40,980
taken at a frequency of at least twice the
highest sound frequency we’d like to capture

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00:00:40,980 --> 00:00:44,760
and bandlimiting the input and output which
guarantees the sound will be reproduced exactly

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00:00:44,760 --> 00:00:49,230
as it was captured because the Nyquist-Shannon
sampling theorem proves that to be the case…

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00:00:49,230 --> 00:00:52,941
once we figured out how to Digital Sound it
was simply a matter of recording an analog

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00:00:52,941 --> 00:00:58,390
source and then all your favorite artists
are now immortalized on Compact Disc!

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00:00:58,390 --> 00:01:03,570
It is almost hilariously easy to get a decent
digital sound recording from an analog source.

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00:01:03,570 --> 00:01:05,210
Need to digitize a cassette?

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00:01:05,210 --> 00:01:10,200
Just plug a walkman into your laptop, download
everyone’s favorite open-source audio software,

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00:01:10,200 --> 00:01:12,790
hit play, hit record, and look at that!

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00:01:12,790 --> 00:01:16,360
Sound waves make samples, samples make soundwaves.

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00:01:16,360 --> 00:01:22,110
Of course if you’re not using a $10,000
ADC and the latest in gold plated Oleum Anguis

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00:01:22,110 --> 00:01:25,390
cables, you’re really not getting the true
experience.

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00:01:25,390 --> 00:01:26,200
Pfft.

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00:01:26,200 --> 00:01:28,580
People who listen to music for what it IS.

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00:01:28,580 --> 00:01:33,910
But, converting analog video into digital
video has remained a frustrating process full

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of forum posts about which deinterlacing algorithm
is the best, which video capture cards work

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00:01:38,810 --> 00:01:44,450
best and which don’t, dealing with audio
synchronization issues, and even once you’ve

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00:01:44,450 --> 00:01:51,000
settled on something that works reliably,
it almost never looks like analog video actually looked.

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No one is pretending that captures from a
VHS tape should look as good as this gorgeous

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00:01:55,310 --> 00:01:57,220
video you’re watching right now.

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But, I’d say a good 90% of the VHS captures
I’ve seen floating around the Interwebs

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00:02:02,689 --> 00:02:09,090
look washed out, kinda blocky, and in general
just a lot worse than VHS actually was.

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00:02:09,090 --> 00:02:11,159
[ upbeat music ]
It doesn’t have to be this way!

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With this one weird trick, you’ll find out
how to take your VHS captures from this

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00:02:16,920 --> 00:02:17,840
-- to this.

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00:02:18,600 --> 00:02:22,560
Now as is the usual case with this
channel, we’re gonna go into far more detail

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00:02:22,560 --> 00:02:27,130
than a casual viewer may need so if you really
just want to know what I use to get captures

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00:02:27,130 --> 00:02:33,200
like this go ahead and skip to here, but be
warned that in some ways this is very easy,

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and in other ways it’s frustrating and in
either case will likely require video editing

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00:02:37,470 --> 00:02:42,550
software of some kind to produce an output
file worthy of publishing anywhere.

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00:02:42,550 --> 00:02:43,760
But I mean.

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00:02:43,760 --> 00:02:45,000
Those results.

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00:02:45,000 --> 00:02:46,580
Mmmmm…

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00:02:46,580 --> 00:02:51,980
Alright, so let’s start with what makes
the process of analog video capture so gnarly.

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00:02:51,980 --> 00:02:56,819
An analog video signal is far more complicated
than simple audio signals.

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Since it’s designed to synchronize the raster
pattern of a television set and define the

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00:03:00,800 --> 00:03:05,900
intensities of the red, green, and blue electron
guns in a CRT, all the while doing so with

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00:03:05,900 --> 00:03:11,450
weird complicated math designed to produce
a color output from a single monochrome signal,

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00:03:11,450 --> 00:03:15,860
it’s not as easy as taking some samples
of the signal’s intensity and reconstructing

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00:03:15,860 --> 00:03:17,120
them later.

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00:03:17,120 --> 00:03:21,680
Especially because digital video is nothing
like digital audio.

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00:03:21,680 --> 00:03:26,370
Any video capture device has to take that
analog signal, actually build an image with

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it by approximating how a CRT would natively
draw it, break that image up into an array

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00:03:31,209 --> 00:03:36,909
of logical pixels, take RGB values of each
one, and then encode that as digital video

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00:03:36,909 --> 00:03:38,690
however you like.

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00:03:38,690 --> 00:03:42,519
And because that’s not difficult enough,
it also has to decide whether to keep it as

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00:03:42,519 --> 00:03:47,330
interlaced video and let whatever device will
play it back decide how to deal with that,

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00:03:47,330 --> 00:03:52,490
or whether it should deinterlace the video
now and then be stuck with however good its native

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00:03:52,490 --> 00:03:54,370
deinterlacing algorithm is.

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00:03:54,370 --> 00:03:55,480
Oh right.

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00:03:55,480 --> 00:03:56,600
Interlacing.

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00:03:56,600 --> 00:04:01,120
That thing we did in the analog video space
because it was the 1940’s and bandwidth

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00:04:01,129 --> 00:04:03,099
wasn’t just growing on trees.

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00:04:03,099 --> 00:04:07,560
We needed the CRT to refresh fast enough to
make flicker imperceptible, so we drew the

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image in alternating lines called fields twice
as frequently as we could if we filled it

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all in at once.

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00:04:13,159 --> 00:04:17,000
Said the engineers of the day, that won’t
ever cause a problem down the road, will it?

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Well here we are in the 21st century and it’s
a problem.

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Captain Disillusion just made a really greater
primer on interlacing if you want to know

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00:04:23,780 --> 00:04:27,919
a little more about it, but now that we use
televisions, computers, and smartphones with

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00:04:27,919 --> 00:04:29,380
LCD, OLED, and

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00:04:29,380 --> 00:04:30,260
*future*

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00:04:30,260 --> 00:04:33,270
displays that stay
constantly lit and thus don’t have to deal

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with flicker, deciding how to deal with an
image source that effectively is doing

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this

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00:04:39,539 --> 00:04:41,259
can be a tricky thing.

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00:04:41,259 --> 00:04:47,789
And yet, even now in 2019, new television
sets include a composite input, and they manage

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00:04:47,789 --> 00:04:55,779
to spread those 480 interlaced lines into
1,080 or even 2,160 rows of progressive pixels

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with grace and dignity.

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00:04:57,810 --> 00:05:02,440
And once you process that a little bit, you’ll
start to wonder why video captures tend to

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00:05:02,440 --> 00:05:03,759
be so bad.

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00:05:03,759 --> 00:05:08,020
See, this television doesn’t have an electron
gun blindly following orders from the little

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00:05:08,020 --> 00:05:09,020
yellow cable.

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00:05:09,020 --> 00:05:13,770
It’s got a giant grid of pixels, so just
like any capture device, it has to take this

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00:05:13,770 --> 00:05:19,830
incoming signal, approximate how a CRT would
draw it, and then … draw it.

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00:05:19,830 --> 00:05:24,300
And of course it also has to de-interlace
that signal because the panel runs at 60p

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00:05:24,300 --> 00:05:30,479
not 60i, so it does everything an analog-to-digital
converting capture device does.

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00:05:30,479 --> 00:05:32,189
But it doesn’t make blocky video.

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00:05:32,189 --> 00:05:34,210
It’s not weirdly interlaced.

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00:05:34,210 --> 00:05:35,399
And the colors are vibrant.

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00:05:35,399 --> 00:05:36,800
It looks fine.

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00:05:36,800 --> 00:05:39,659
Dare I say it, it looks GOOD.

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00:05:39,659 --> 00:05:43,389
I bought this TV just a couple of weeks ago,
and I put some pictures of it up on Twitter

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00:05:43,389 --> 00:05:46,259
praising how good its composite input is.

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00:05:46,259 --> 00:05:50,180
And the responses to it (particularly this
one) got me thinking.

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00:05:50,180 --> 00:05:54,909
See, almost by accident, I’ve been using
a pair of devices to capture analog video

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00:05:54,909 --> 00:05:59,740
for various clips here on YouTube, and one
of them probably uses the same methods this

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00:05:59,740 --> 00:06:04,809
TV does to get that analog signal turned into
digital video.

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00:06:04,809 --> 00:06:09,429
And if my memory is right, this all got started
from a video Techmoan made about (or perhaps

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00:06:09,429 --> 00:06:14,779
simply featuring) a new A/V receiver which
upscaled composite video and spat it out to

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00:06:14,779 --> 00:06:16,719
the TV over HDMI.

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00:06:16,719 --> 00:06:21,220
I’ve looked for that video and can’t figure
out which one it was but suffice to say I

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00:06:21,220 --> 00:06:25,789
was intrigued by the prospect of a device
which could “upscale” composite video,

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but I wasn’t in the market for an A/V receiver.

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00:06:28,150 --> 00:06:32,760
So I went to my friendly neighborhood Amazon
and spent a whole $30 on this thing.

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Tried it out.

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00:06:33,979 --> 00:06:36,310
Wasn’t overly blown away by it.

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00:06:36,310 --> 00:06:40,370
It seemed perhaps marginally better than what
my TV could do on its own, but nothing so

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00:06:40,370 --> 00:06:42,849
extraordinary that I couldn’t live without.

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But then it hit me.

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If this thing is outputting to HDMI, that
means it’s done analog-to-digital conversion,

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and clearly it doesn’t suck because it’s
actually a little bit better than what my

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TV could do on its own.

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00:06:54,509 --> 00:06:58,699
So, I went back to my friendly neighborhood
Amazon and looked for something which could

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capture HDMI and spit it onto something.

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00:07:02,580 --> 00:07:06,379
These exist because gamers, and in my case
I wouldn’t have to worry about any sort

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of HDCP compliance because the signal it’s
getting isn’t copy protected, so I went

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with cheap.

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00:07:12,439 --> 00:07:15,300
Even then it was around the $70 mark.

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These things in general just aren’t very
cheap, but all-in now we’re at $100.

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I tried it out, and whoa.

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00:07:21,619 --> 00:07:22,619
This is it.

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00:07:22,619 --> 00:07:26,639
This is how to capture analog video when quality
matters over all else.

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For those of you just joining us, here’s
how to capture analog video with the same

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quality that your TV displays it.

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Find yourself a composite to HDMI converter.

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You may want to use the search term “upscaler”.

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This $30 one works reasonably well enough,
though there might be --nay, certainly are

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better options.

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00:07:43,849 --> 00:07:46,929
Next, get some sort of HDMI capture device.

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00:07:46,929 --> 00:07:50,749
I’ve been using this cheap stand-alone thing
that records to a flash drive and while it

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presents some limitations, it’s perfectly
fine for my needs.

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If you want, you could get one that allows
your computer to directly record the source.

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Whatever floats your boat.

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Just make sure it can record whatever your
chosen digital-spitter-outer thing spits out.

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And that’s… it.

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00:08:06,599 --> 00:08:09,629
Now for my use case, this is extremely hassle
free.

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I have my composite-to-HDMI converter attached
to the output of my A/V receiver, and the

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actual capture device sits atop this VCR.

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Now, anything that goes through the A/V receiver
can be captured just by plugging in a flash

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drive and hitting that button.

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00:08:24,289 --> 00:08:27,919
And when I’m done, I hit the button again,
wait for the flash drive to stop writing,

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00:08:27,919 --> 00:08:28,919
and boom.

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00:08:28,919 --> 00:08:30,330
There’s my file.

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00:08:30,330 --> 00:08:34,149
You might also be happy to know that Macrovision
doesn’t bother this thing.

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00:08:34,149 --> 00:08:39,030
I of course don’t know why that might make
you happy, but if it does, well now you know.

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00:08:39,030 --> 00:08:42,650
And now is where things may or may not get
a little weird.

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00:08:42,650 --> 00:08:48,160
My capture thingy only records 60 frames per
second in 720p, so I have the output of my

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00:08:48,160 --> 00:08:51,370
digital-spitter-outer thing set to 720p.

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00:08:51,370 --> 00:08:55,740
Which honestly, we’re dealing with 480i
footage so that’s still capturing the whole

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thing and then some.

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00:08:57,170 --> 00:09:03,800
But, the output file is stretched to 16:9
because one of these two devices isn’t smart enough.

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00:09:03,800 --> 00:09:06,720
And that means you probably want to un-stretch
it.

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00:09:06,720 --> 00:09:09,100
If you don’t want to we can’t be friends.

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Also of note is that, at least in my situation,
the audio level in the resulting recordings

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is really, really low.

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00:09:15,470 --> 00:09:19,699
I can boost it well enough in Premiere but
noise does start to poke through.

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I haven’t tried running the audio separately
into the line-input of the capture device

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which I think would almost certainly fix that,
but I’m just warning you could run into this.

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The biggest inconvenience is that the files
do eventually get split.

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Depending on what you want to do this may
or may not be an issue, and for how I use

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00:09:36,160 --> 00:09:37,790
this it’s no big deal at all.

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00:09:37,790 --> 00:09:42,300
I’m typically just grabbing one or two minute
clips to put in a video, and then I’m only

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00:09:42,300 --> 00:09:44,660
using 10 or so seconds at a time.

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00:09:44,660 --> 00:09:48,399
But if you’re looking to backup home videos
or other longer content, you’ll have to

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00:09:48,399 --> 00:09:50,449
stitch these files together.

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00:09:50,449 --> 00:09:54,550
If you don’t have any experience with video
editing software this might seem daunting,

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00:09:54,550 --> 00:09:56,089
but you’ll pick it up quick.

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00:09:56,089 --> 00:10:01,430
Plus, other solutions such as USB devices
for your PC which capture HDMI may not do

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00:10:01,430 --> 00:10:05,339
this, but I don’t have experience to comment
with authority on that matter.

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00:10:05,339 --> 00:10:09,259
For me, if for instance there’s a home video
I want to back up, I’ll start a new Premiere

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00:10:09,259 --> 00:10:11,910
project, and throw each file on the timeline.

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00:10:11,910 --> 00:10:13,829
Now I want to un-stretch this.

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00:10:13,829 --> 00:10:18,259
I personally am OK with them being rendered
as a widescreen video with black bars on the

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00:10:18,259 --> 00:10:22,589
side, so I’m not going to bother resizing
the output file into a 4:3 aspect ratio and

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00:10:22,589 --> 00:10:24,040
suitable resolution.

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00:10:24,040 --> 00:10:29,660
Instead I’ll keep it at 720P widescreen,
but with the actual video source scaled correctly.

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In Premiere, you can save a preset so you
don’t have to keep doing this manually,

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00:10:33,320 --> 00:10:35,639
and apply it to multiple clips at once.

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00:10:35,639 --> 00:10:39,910
Another small wrinkle I deal with is the fact
that the image isn’t perfectly centered

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00:10:39,910 --> 00:10:44,699
and there’s a black bar along one edge,
but if you’re placing it on a floating background

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00:10:44,699 --> 00:10:47,170
of black that isn’t visible anyway.

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00:10:47,170 --> 00:10:51,170
As it currently stands I put a big audio gain
on all of the clips so that they’re not

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00:10:51,170 --> 00:10:54,180
super quiet, and now I’m done.

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00:10:54,180 --> 00:10:57,290
I’ll re-render this into whatever video
format I like.

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If I’m just putting this as a clip into
an existing project

185
00:11:00,200 --> 00:11:02,520
(like I’m doing for this very video)

186
00:11:02,520 --> 00:11:05,480
I simply take the original
file and scale it accordingly.

187
00:11:05,480 --> 00:11:07,310
And that’s it.

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00:11:07,310 --> 00:11:11,009
For me personally, this is the best situation
imaginable.

189
00:11:11,009 --> 00:11:15,220
The capture device stays as part of my video
equipment setup, always ready to capture from

190
00:11:15,220 --> 00:11:19,449
a Laserdisc, VHS tape, PS2, or whatever else
I may throw at it.

191
00:11:19,449 --> 00:11:21,019
All I need is a flash drive.

192
00:11:21,019 --> 00:11:24,579
And the output files are not only better than
any conventional capture method I’ve used

193
00:11:24,579 --> 00:11:27,750
so far, they’re more convenient.

194
00:11:27,750 --> 00:11:29,470
There are two small caveats, though.

195
00:11:29,470 --> 00:11:34,470
The first is that its deinterlacing is very
close to perfect, but not quite.

196
00:11:34,470 --> 00:11:37,629
Every once in a while there will be a frame
showing two fields at once.

197
00:11:37,629 --> 00:11:42,610
I’ll take that over bad deinterlacing any
day, especially because it’s only noticeable

198
00:11:42,610 --> 00:11:44,180
under certain circumstances.

199
00:11:44,180 --> 00:11:49,189
PLUS, and this is especially important, since
it produces a non-interlaced file, it’s

200
00:11:49,189 --> 00:11:54,300
easier to incorporate these into a progressive
video like everything we do today, so you’ll

201
00:11:54,300 --> 00:11:59,259
be sure that the output file isn’t deinterlaced
poorly upon being converted to 30 frames per

202
00:11:59,259 --> 00:12:03,980
second, or 60 frames per second should you
decide to preserve the analog smoothness we

203
00:12:03,980 --> 00:12:05,879
all know and love.

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00:12:05,879 --> 00:12:09,680
And the other thing is that, on some occasions,
it’s produced output files that Premiere

205
00:12:09,680 --> 00:12:11,649
does NOT like.

206
00:12:11,649 --> 00:12:15,760
It hasn’t happened in a while, so it may
be that Premiere updates have fixed it, or

207
00:12:15,760 --> 00:12:20,629
perhaps it improved with time somehow, but
whatever the case, I was able to run the file

208
00:12:20,629 --> 00:12:25,610
through Media Encoder and get something out
that Premiere would import without crashing.

209
00:12:25,610 --> 00:12:29,949
Weirdly, Windows never had a problem playing
the files as they were.

210
00:12:29,949 --> 00:12:32,709
But, worst case scenario, just capture it
again.

211
00:12:32,709 --> 00:12:37,911
So, if you do a lot of video capturing and
are looking for quality above all else, you

212
00:12:37,911 --> 00:12:39,610
might want to consider trying this.

213
00:12:39,610 --> 00:12:43,639
I’ve been quite pleased with it, and while
it may seem a bit absurd compared to more

214
00:12:43,640 --> 00:12:49,720
conventional options, I really think this
is on the whole among the best options right now.

215
00:12:49,720 --> 00:12:55,140
My previous method for capturing analog video,
which you saw in the earlier comparison clip,

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involved recording onto a DVD-RAM disc at
the highest bitrate possible and then importing

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that into a video editor to be re-exported
as natively interlaced video.

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I had previously considered this to be the
best option for quality, (and it was used

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in some of my earlier videos) but I’m eating
my words now.

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And given the convenience advantage of my
admittedly kinda weird capture setup, I’ll

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deal with piecing clips together if I have
to.

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Now, is this night-and-day better?

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Not quite.

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I find it to be much less blocky, particularly
with scenes involving motion, but that’s

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mainly down to the fact that it’s encoding
these clips with more modern h.264 compression.

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You can still notice some blocks in areas
like the sky here or other almost-solid-color

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areas, but for my money, this looks far truer
to real analog video than does my old method

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of capturing, and many others I’ve seen.

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Since this method might very well be improved
with a better upscaler and/or a better recorder,

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I’m pretty confident in saying this is worth
a try.

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Thanks for watching, and I hope this video will be
helpful to some of you.

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There are a lot of dedicated people who are
archiving all sorts of analog video recordings,

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which is increasingly important as those old recordings
wear out or degrade and may be lost to time.

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While this solution may not be the best for
doing large amounts of archival work, I’d

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say for personal use (particularly for saving
home videos, etc) its added hassles make it

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worth it.

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I’ll be back with a full-on video soon.

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For now, enjoy a selection of VHS and Laserdisc
captures done with this device.

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♫ progressively smooth jazz ♫