How to convert VHS videotape to 60p digital video

This tutorial will teach you how avoid the most common mistake people make when trying to convert VHS/videotape to digital video -- and all it takes is a $50 piece of hardware and free software. Intended for pure beginners, this tutorial walks you through every step to produce perfect conversions every time, with output ready to upload to YouTube or share with friends.

Chapter markers:
00:00 - Intro
01:04 - What we'll cover
01:38 - An attempt to stay on-brand
01:57 - Scope
02:58 - The Secret: Frames vs. Fields
03:50 - Hardware
06:04 - Configuring OBS and performing your first capture
21:36 - Troubleshooting
25:11 - Outtro

Devices shown in this video:

ALTERNATIVE DEVICES:

Some cheap devices that force deinterlacing can sometimes provide all deinterlaced fields if you set them to capture at high rates. To use these devices, you must **modify this tutorial** by setting them to capture at 50 (PAL, Europe) or 60 (NTSC, North America) fps. When adding the device in OBS, make these changes:

- Resolution/FPS Type: Custom
- Resolution: 720x480 (or 720x576 for PAL)
- FPS: Highest FPS

Also, do *NOT* perform the Deinterlacing--Yadif 2x step in the tutorial, since the signal is already deinterlaced. By doing the above, you can use some cheaper devices whose drivers force deinterlacing. I have personally tested the following devices successfully:

FREQUENTLY-ASKED QUESTIONS:

Q: Can you recommend a capture device for Mac?
A: I haven't tested with a Mac, sorry.

Q: I just want a quick hardware solution and I don't care about quality.

Q: I have my video already captured to interlaced 480/486/576-line files, how can I process them without re-capturing them?
A: Download FFMPEG for your operating system and run it with the following command-line:

Q: I am ready for the next step in making my videos look great! Is there anything additional I can do?
A: Look into avisynth or VapourSynth, which let you run better deinterlacing scripts like QTGMC, which is a huge improvement over yadif. I personally bring interlaced captured video into Premiere Pro and perform noise reduction using NeatVideo, correct bad levels, and clean up the audio using Izotope RX. Then I export to a new intermediate file using a lossless codec for the QTGMC portion and final encode to .MP4.

Q: My tapes are DV -- should I use this tutorial?
A: No, you should transfer DV tapes via firewire (IEEE 1394) instead, then use the FFMPEG command-line above to convert them. In Windows, I've used WinDV for this.

Q: My audio is out of sync, or the sync drifts.
A: Try these videos for some OBS audio sync tips:

Q: I cleaned my VCR with a cleaning tape, but things didn't get much better.
DO NOT TRUST ANY VIDEO that tells you to clean your vcr heads with a q-tip or cotton swab -- you will damage your VCR! That's why cleaning videos recommend using either paper or a pre-moistened alcohol pad.

NOTES AND CAVEATS:

- If the above drivers don't work for you exactly, then search the web for alternate or updated drivers. They worked for me, but they might not work for you.

Contact info:
Twitter: @MobyGamer
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[ihartmacz]

I’d love to see an archival master video!

[MarshallAxani]

This video was even more helpful than I could have hoped for! Not only did it allow me to recover a number of old projects I never have been able to properly capture from tape (even some I thought I had lost) but did so at a higher quality than anything else I had tried. The troubleshooting section at the end probably save me hours of trying to get the sound to connect properly on OBS as well. Genuinely one of the most helpful videos on this subject I could have asked for and highly recommend for anyone trying to digitize their VHS tapes!

[Intelligentsia]

After trawling through 100's of tutorials, I have finally found what I've been looking for, please keep on expanding on this subject. Thank you

[ashok]

This the best video I have ever seen about converting VHS tapes. I am also interested in upscaling, archival and specially restoration and would greatly appreciate these topics in your future uploads.

[vwestlife]

FYI: Some video editing software, like Apple's iMovie, automatically stretches out any 1440x1080 resolution content to widescreen, since that resolution is commonly used for anamorphic 16:9 1080i video. That's why I prefer to use 960x720 for upscaling standard definition 4:3 NTSC video, because it's 1.5x the resolution of 480i video so you get clean upscaling, it avoids this widescreen stretching problem, it's good enough to get 60fps on YouTube, and 1080p is overkill unless you're using advanced upscaling techniques.

[stevekulick]

Excellent tutorial. However I cannot agree that the DVC-100 and driver provided in description really works with Win10 or Win11. I had to use the audio workaround in the description footnotes. If you already are down the DVC-100 path, here are the workaround details:
1. Acquire a stereo RCA to microphone cable or adapter to connect your source to your PC.
2. under OBS source menu additionally select "Audio Input Capture".
3. configure crossbar" so Audio Input Capture shows up in the Audio mixed along with your (unused) Video Capture Device.
4. Probably good to set volume for the Video Capture Device to -inf DB or use the 3dots>properties> deactivate option, but I did not verify this myself.

[wigm]

Thank you for this, for years I've been looking for a quality device, everything I tried was horrible, picked the the GV-USB2. It is working flawlessly. Now I can finally digitize my wedding video before it dies and my wife doesn't break the VCR over my head 🙂

[JohnHowell]

I've watch your original video countless times! I appreciate the bump up in production, very nice! Would love to see Denoise, Upscaling and other conversion tips! Cheers

[StandingStoneVideo]

Thanks so much! I've been checking daily for this gem. As before, your teaching style is just perfect. I'm a semi-retired video professional having some fun with old family vhs videos, but thanks to your tutorials, I have developed a real commitment to obtaining the best possible transfer results. "Advanced Level Tutorials" would be very welcome some day.
By the way, I had started to experiment with OBS and had nothing but trouble. This tutorial helped me solve those issues. So double thank you!

[taymur]

Oh I'm so grateful the new VHS processing tutorial is finally released, Thanks very much Oldskool PC

[kyleparker]

Since this is a beginner video, I think it would only make sense to make a tutorial on advanced capture. Great work as usual!

[GRFLMDAD]

I’m suuuuper interested in all those topics you mention for a future video! Thank you for explaining everything so clearly!

[MB-kemi]

Please do a video on restoration, upscaling, and interlacing. Basically how do you make our new analog to digital videos even better.

[dbsean]

Like many others here, I've watched my fair share of tutorials for capturing analogue video from a VHS source on YouTube. Your video is hands down the most clear and concise of them all and it produces the best results by a long shot compared to the countless other methods I've tried. I swear the IO DATA GV-USB2 is magic. Quality of the capture is light years ahead of any other option out there. Leave it to the Japanese. The driver support for Windows 11 was tricky but I was able to download it from their website. Amazing stuff, absolutely amazing. THANK YOU!

[KADSL]

To insure a near perfect copy, I used a time base corrector. Gets rid of video flagging and
lost frame video hits. Also color and tint correction. It creates perfect horiz and vert sync
pulses essential for mpeg2 to HEVC recording. A must have. (ex-TV Broadcast Eng)

[ewashock]

I am extremely well-versed in video capture and editing, but I have a project that requires use of some older tech that I haven't touched in many years. This was a GREAT refresher.

[michaelbishton]

You are an outstandingly clear presenter. I have ordered the dazzle device based on your recommendation. I look forward to transferring old videos from VHS to MP4. Thank you!

[vincentpicpic]

i have watched maybe 50 videos about VHS capture devices and none of them come close to what you have done, you have been extremely helpful, thank you sir! also, quick question : i have the i-ODATA GV-USB2 and lately i have been trying to move my operations from PC to MAC and i was wondering if there might be a similar product supported by Mac, let me know if you can help, thanks!

[myronachtman]

This is a fantastic tutorial for those who want to use OBS Studio. However, I achieve much better results capturing my native files from S-VHS tape at 640 x 480 pixels in conjunction with the capture software that came with my capture card. More details are provided below.

As a side note, for my testing, I'm using a S-VHS source tape, the original recorded tape, that was shot at my wedding with a professional 3-chip camera. So the image quality is super clean.

There are two major problems with the methods used in this tutorial. First, is video "noise" which shows up as graininess or coarseness in the 1440 x 1080 output. Using Adobe Premiere, I "upscaled" my 640 x 480 digital file to 1440 x 1080 and it looks way better than the OBS result. I can easily compare the two results by using a split screen of the two videos in the Premiere Pro timeline. My upscaled native video appears slightly "softer, " but there is none of that grainy texture that shows up in the OBS file. Simply stated, the 640 x 480 file is superior.

The second problem is more distressing. It is the residual interlacing in the OBS file that persists despite using the exact optimal deinterlacing parameters presented in this tutorial. By residual interlacing, I'm referring to the pixelated edges that are still visible in the 1440 x 1080 output by OBS. Sure, it's way better that an interlaced video, however, it doesn't come close to the deinterlacing algorithm that my 640 x 480 capture card uses. When I "upscale" my 640 x 480 digital file to 1440 x 1080 in Adobe Premiere, there is no visible residual interlacing. The difference is astounding.


So what capture tool am I working with? I'm using an internal PCIe capture card that I purchased from AVerMedia for $130.00. It's called the C725 and I don't even know if they're still selling it. The card has both composite and S-VHS jacks, but I use S-VHS because my source tapes are S-VHS. The capture software that came with the card is called AVerMedia Capture Studio. The user interface looks like something from the days of Windows 3.1. The interface is rather clunky (not elegant like OBS) but it offers the essential parameters for setting the data rates for video and audio, the file format, and the deinterlacing options (but there are only 4 options).

One final note. I'm using a typical consumer grade S-VHS deck for playback, and I'm NOT using a TBC (Timebase Corrector).

Jim, keep up the great work. Your presentation manner and voiceover are spectacular.

Here is a link to an AVerMedia capture card that is very similar to mine:

[myronachtman]

There is one other important setting to consider when using the Windows platform. Microsoft updates sometimes change your PRIVACY settings. In my case, a recent update turned off "Access to My Camera." As a result, none of my video capture cards showed up in the OBS Studio drop-down menu. Very frustrating. Fortunately, I remembered to go back to the PRIVACY settings and turn Camera Access back on. This solved the problem and my capture devices came up properly in OBS.