Concidering Buying This

[computervillan]

Hey guys, so im kinda new to this band wagon. Ive been thinking for a while about converting my vhs to dvd, ive got lots of old tv shows and things ive recorded that simply dont exist on dvd, so ive spent a while looking at amazon etc at vhs conveters and stuff to plug in computers and edit and do this and that, and randomly came across the Neuros OSD. firstly, what are your thoughts? i guess you all love this thing, is it really up to the job of converting these for me? my main question is that ive seen one comparrison of the neuros converted video against another of the same, and the neauros wasnt as good a recording, it was a little grey, kinda lost its colours. I think im having a problem as i cant seem to find samples of recordings anywhere to watch, to see if its acceptable. have you guys got any? Is this the machine thats gonna do the job? I want to convert my vhs for tv viewing not psp or ipod so is the quality there, ofcourse its not hd but as good as the original vhs? All i want is simple vhs recording, and if it goes ok, then i might clear up the harddrive on my pvr a little.

[ChadV]

You're never going to get perfect copies, there's always some analog loss.

However, the recordings I've done are generally no worse than if the VHS has a slight bit more wear than it did when I recorded it.  Just make sure you're recording to a good, fast SD card or network drive at a high bitrate and you'll likely not see much of a difference.

[heyrick]

Hi,

I posted some short samples at http://www.heyrick.co.uk/blog/index.php?diary=20100410 (about 3/4 way down, look for the Asian chick with the sword, it's just above). This will show what the different bitrates are like.

And at http://www.heyrick.co.uk/blog/index.php?diary=20100726 is a recording of me for my blog taken with a generic low-band 8mm video camera and recorded on the OSD. Yes, I know I look and sound like a prat.

I think how well the OSD works will depend upon the quality of the VHS recordings. What I can say is the OSD has fared better with old/noisy recordings than an expensive PCI capture card. I think the TVP5150 (video decoder chip inside the OSD) is quite a bit better at obtaining decent signals than many.

VHS tends to be a bit 'flat' on the colours, so try a few sample recordings to see what bitrate works out best. And remember, what you see on your computer will often look worse than what you see on your TV as computers tend to try to show accuracy while TVs often are a bit smudgey (which helps to hide the imperfections).

Given the age/availability of VHS kit, I'd be inclined to copy my old videos fairly soon. I just don't have the time, it's a shame there's no 2X or 4X copy option. Oh well...

[computervillan]

thanks guys, and great to see some examples rick, thank you.

[pfft2001]

thanks guys, and great to see some examples rick, thank you.

Just out of curiosity, have you considered buying a VCR/DVD-writer combo device?  With one of these, you can copy directly from a VHS tape to (i.e., write to) a DVD.  Interestingly, I have one such device laying around here - that is supposed to be able to do what I just described, but I've have never had the need/opportunity to test it.  Maybe I should give it a run sometime.

Anyway, I think that would be easier and more straightforward, for this particular use case, than the OSD.  Of course, the OSD is good for a lot of other things...

[computervillan]

well i concidered it, but heard as many bad things as good. mainly that dvd recorders are loud, idk if thats right. but the osd sounds like it does alot, ive been brave and just ordered it, so il find out in a few days if i made the right choice, hope so.

[computervillan]

silly question i just thought, and one i stupidly didnt ask, the created files have no kind of drm right? and can be burned to dvd etc when theyre copied to computer?

[pfft2001]

silly question i just thought, and one i stupidly didnt ask, the created files have no kind of drm right? and can be burned to dvd etc when theyre copied to computer?

Correct - and here's the real question: Why bother burning to DVD at all?

Once you've got them as MP4 files on your computer - why not just play them from there?
Easier and uses less disk space.  It's what I do.

[heyrick]

I burn most of my recordings to DVD. I go through a 100-disc spindle in about a year, and my 230Gb (that's REAL Gb and not the crap the manufacturer claims) harddisc has around 200Mb free, time for another round of tedious burning.

I should point out, mind you, that I drop the MP4 files directly to disc. I don't do anything silly like try converting them to DVD-video! As far as I'm concerned, DVD is a convenient way to purchase movies, but it's outdated for recording. MPEG2 is too 'big', it is too clumsy (show me a video editor that will directly import from DVD, you'll have to search!) and it is slow (which makes editing out adverts to be troublesome). No, record directly to MPEG4.

The only crying shame is the OSD won't do an XviD AVI (or any sort of AVI) as I have a fair few DivX compatible things that would probably read the recordings if they understood the wrapper format...
...but these days I don't even watch with the OSD. I just push the USB memory device into my laptop (eeePC901) and start up MPlayer! 

The second not-so-crying-just-damp-around-the-eyes shame is you can't tell the OSD that a recording is 16:9 anamorphic. Makes no difference to MPlayer, I can force the size, but some software is, ahem, stupider. Not that this is likely to be an issue for old VHS recordings!

[computervillan]

I have a good converter, it was a free thing from the internet and converts almost anything without loosing an quality, it does mp4 great without making it, idk the word but like digi squares when images jutter a little, it doesnt do that, can download youtube videos or others and theyre pretty watchabe on tv so il be doing that. just waiting for it to come now and test it out, should be tomorrow or friday i hope. I have another question, i know this is open source, so i read about all these dif firmwares, what is best? i know it comes with a firmware, is that one not ok? then theres an update Torfu, and above that arizona which i need a cf card for. what is the Torfu one like,, is it worth just having that as i dont have a cf card? how do you exaxctly update? when i click the update option does it give me a few to choose from or something?

[pfft2001]

...firmwares, what is best? i know it comes with a firmware, is that one not ok? then theres an update Torfu, and above that arizona which i need a cf card for. what is the Torfu one like,, is it worth just having that as i dont have a cf card? how do you exaxctly update? when i click the update option does it give me a few to choose from or something?

Does your unit have a CF slot?  If not, then, somewhat paradoxically, you do have a CF card (almost - see below).  If you do have the slot, then it should be easy enough to purchase a card for it (in theory, at least, Neuros will send you one if you request it).

Anyway, here's my unofficial review of the 3 (yes, 3) firmware options:

1) Torfu - latest version is 1.77 (00-860).  I've not used it much, but I think it has some things going for it.  I think it is a *lot* faster - in terms of user responsiveness in the menus.  It also uses a lot less disk space (I.e., you don't need the CF card or the internal "extra memory" to run it).  It is also, IMHO, is prettier.  However, one glaring omission is that it lacks the "Jump to location" feature during playback - for me, this is a deal-breaker.

2) Arizona - latest version is 2.09 (00.871)  This came pre-installed on both of my units - so I've used it the most.  It's nice, but it is slow (although you won't really know that it is really that slow until you play with Torfu and notice the difference).  It has the "Jump to Location" feature.

3) OSDng - this is kind of "Arizona on steroids".  The latest (only) version is: 2.52.  In theory, this gives you a fully writable system (like a normal Linux system).  But, as loyal readers know, I've never been able to actually get it working in the fully writable mode.   However, just doing the "simple" upgrade to OSDng (without fully installing it - i.e., via the "setup" utility) allows x11vnc to work - which is really the one thing that makes it worth doing.  Just to repeat that - upgrading to OSDng will get you a working x11vnc, and that is cool.  It also gets you a few more utilities (such as mkswap and perl), but those are things you could compile yourself if you wanted to, so not really a big sell for OSDng, per se.

So, what does it boil down to?  I think that I recommend OSDng (at least in the "simple mode").  It gets you everything that Arizona gets you - plus a working x11vnc.

[Brother LC-61BK]

There should not be a problem especially if you have a good converter. But in case you fail, you can always settle for an MP4 or use your disk space