I still have PCs from around 2002 and they do SD analog video transfer just fine. Your older PC is almost certainly not a part of the problem. Timeline performance is fantastic, and most NLE's will let you do "cuts-only" editing (to cut out bad stuff and also rearrange your clips) without having to do any re-encoding. The plus side is that not only does the video (and audio) always transfer perfectly, but DV is, by a wide margin, the easiest video format to edit. DV also produces a little more macroblocking than more modern codecs, but again, with a VHS source, you'll never notice this.
SCLive) as the capture software.ĭV has a somewhat limited color space compared to other codecs, but this doesn't matter because VHS color is awful to begin with. The one absolutely bulletproof "never fail" method of transferring analog video to the PC is to use a DV or Digital 8 camera with 1394/Firewire output (or a dedicated DV transfer device, like some of the old Canopous units), and then use a Firewire card in the PC, running Scenalyzer (a.k.a. I have tried all sorts of capture cards and devices, and was able to get most of them to work, but with one exception, I would always "lose the recipe" and what used to work, would suddenly start giving me problems. I have transferred thousands of hours of VHS.