I'm attempting to convert some VHS tapes to DVD and I'm having a problem that has me stumped. The VCR I am using to play the taps is a RCA VR706HF - it's a 4 head HiFi VCR. My first attempt was to the VCR to my Datavideo DAC-100 video converter which was then connected to my computer thru a firewire card, and I was using Ulead Video Studio 11 to do the capturing in AVI format. The video and audio were coming through perfectly in the capture preview window prior to hitting the "begin capture" button. As soon I pressed this button the video became horribly choppy - almost like stop motion. The video would freeze for a couple of seconds then move a couple frames, freeze some more, etc. And the audio was doing the same. I was hoping it was just the preview and not the actual recording - but it wasn't.
If I changed the format to MPEG everything came out fine. If I was just burning these right to DVD I wouldn't have a problem but I would like to do some editing (especially to the long wedding videos) so I would prefer everything in AVI if possible. Thinking it was a software problem I tried using Nero Vision, Windows Moviemaker, and VirtualDub to capture but they all came through with the same results. So I looked towards the hardware and changed the setup. This time I tried using a Digital Camcorder as a pass through instead of the video converter. Same results with all the different software packages.
The only thing I haven't changed is the VCR but since it plays fine while not capturing I didn't think that's where the problem is. I've done alot of research on this but haven't come up with any solutions.
Any thoughts, suggestions, or ideas? If there's any further details I could provide to help with the solution please let me know.