The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/pastelmoonart on 2025-07-05 22:40:12.
I’m wondering if anyone can help with some capture issues.
I live in the UK, where getting hold of a Japanese or North American VCR is really difficult. Instead, we mostly have PAL/NTSC players. The VCR I’m using is an AIWA FX7700, and it’s actually a really solid machine - NTSC tapes look fantastic, and the manual says it supports “true” NTSC playback.
I’m also using a Panasonic DMR-ES10 as a passthrough device, along with a Diamond VC500 capture card.
When I capture PAL tapes in VirtualDub2, everything looks great. Honestly, I’m really happy with this setup - but when I try recording NTSC tapes (after switching the DMR-ES10 to NTSC, of course), I’m getting this:
black and white when using video (composite), and chroma issues with S-Video or SCART. There are no frame rate issues (which are easy to spot in animation), and interlacing is just as sharp as with my PAL captures but the colour issues just won’t go away. Even when capturing directly from the VCR without the DMR, I get the same results.
I’ve captured many LaserDiscs from my Pioneer player (which also supports PAL/NTSC playback), connected to the DMR-ES10, and I don’t have any issues there. The picture and frame rate are perfect.
I feel like I’ve tried everything: different cables (SCART, S-Video, composite), tweaking VirtualDub2 settings, using OBS, EzGrabber, PowerDirector (just to see if it looked any different) - even connecting directly to my CRT and trying to record on DVD with the DMR-ES10. I also tried a few cheap AliExpress capture cards - one of them actually worked in colour, but the quality was something else...
Is this happening because my VCR is actually PAL60 and not true NTSC, and the capture card and DMR just can’t handle it? But then, why doesn’t my LaserDisc player (also PAL/NTSC) have the same issues? I just want to understand why this is only happening with VHS tapes. Ideally I’d like to buy just one thing that will address the issue (a different capture card? An American NTSC VCR? Something else?).
When I use a SCART to HDMI converter and plug it into my HDTV, the picture looks perfect. But when I connect that to an HDMI capture card, it just doesn’t work. Not sure if that’s because I’m using a cheap one from Amazon or what, but the picture was completely black. Besides, I’d prefer to get a proper capture from the DMR - not an upscaled HDMI signal.