1 00:00:00,040 --> 00:00:07,759 I spent thousands of dollars over the past 10 years on my perfect VHS capture 2 00:00:05,640 --> 00:00:11,799 system and I realized it was all for nothing when somebody messaged me on 3 00:00:09,360 --> 00:00:17,080 Twitter and told me about the Doomsday duplicator this is the Doomsday 4 00:00:14,360 --> 00:00:22,800 duplicator back in the day I would use something like this which it digitizes 5 00:00:19,680 --> 00:00:26,560 and captures over firewire composite 6 00:00:22,800 --> 00:00:27,679 video it worked at the time however 7 00:00:26,560 --> 00:00:35,000 you're still going through your composite out there's a lot of processing done on the actual VCR as 8 00:00:32,640 --> 00:00:39,040 well as in the device itself in the early 2000s it worked but there were 9 00:00:37,000 --> 00:00:44,079 always issues that's where this guy came in it does have a BNC connector right 10 00:00:41,600 --> 00:00:49,920 here but that's not capturing composite video that's capturing the RF signal 11 00:00:47,280 --> 00:00:56,600 from the VCR now something like this has its limitations you need a really Bing 12 00:00:53,320 --> 00:00:58,879 VCR to get decent quality if you're 13 00:00:56,600 --> 00:01:02,879 capturing older tapes which I am you need something that has the TBC with 14 00:01:01,039 --> 00:01:10,600 something like the Doomsday duplicator you don't need any of that in fact you 15 00:01:05,799 --> 00:01:13,520 can get the cheapest $20 VCR on Facebook 16 00:01:10,600 --> 00:01:19,080 Marketplace and get the same result because you're capturing from the RF 17 00:01:15,799 --> 00:01:20,799 test Point inside of this that doesn't 18 00:01:19,080 --> 00:01:26,119 give you the footage itself that gives you the RF samples digitized to 19 00:01:23,960 --> 00:01:32,240 something that you can decode on your computer at home so in my use case I'm 20 00:01:28,680 --> 00:01:35,720 capturing old family tapes and some of 21 00:01:32,240 --> 00:01:38,720 them you can't even recognize who's in 22 00:01:35,720 --> 00:01:41,759 them anymore and through the magic of 23 00:01:38,720 --> 00:01:44,960 VHS decode it's reversed the whole 24 00:01:41,759 --> 00:01:48,200 process and I can actually see people's 25 00:01:44,960 --> 00:01:50,399 faces again and it's kind of magical so 26 00:01:48,200 --> 00:01:56,399 another use case is preserving old media that has never been digitized or brought 27 00:01:52,640 --> 00:02:00,399 to DVD or any other digital platform one 28 00:01:56,399 --> 00:02:03,560 example is the Doomsday 86 project which 29 00:02:00,399 --> 00:02:07,439 was produced by BBC and this product is 30 00:02:03,560 --> 00:02:10,560 named after it was mastered to laser dis 31 00:02:07,439 --> 00:02:12,280 but never properly digitized and it 32 00:02:10,560 --> 00:02:17,640 would have otherwise been lost if it wasn't for the team that made this but 33 00:02:16,200 --> 00:02:21,720 that's not what we're going to do today we're going to capture a VHS 34 00:02:22,080 --> 00:02:30,280 tape you pick uh Mrs delire all right 35 00:02:30,440 --> 00:02:39,440 Pierce broen's PEC are glorious in this movie but not as glorious as our sponsor 36 00:02:36,400 --> 00:02:41,840 charge as Slim as a few credit cards 37 00:02:39,440 --> 00:02:46,120 their aluminum dis plus SSD enclosure magnetically attaches to practically any 38 00:02:44,040 --> 00:02:51,560 device letting you bring along up to 4 terabytes of additional storage for your 39 00:02:48,319 --> 00:02:53,480 music movies games and more it supports 40 00:02:51,560 --> 00:02:57,560 transfer speeds of up to 10 GB per second and even comes with a built-in 41 00:02:55,360 --> 00:03:02,159 data cable plus you don't even have to hog a USB slot thanks to its dual port 42 00:02:59,840 --> 00:03:06,760 ports that allow for up to 85 watts of pass through charging check it out using 43 00:03:04,200 --> 00:03:10,120 our Link in the video description today one thing I forgot to show you is the 44 00:03:08,599 --> 00:03:13,519 actual RF test point that we're connecting to there's many different 45 00:03:11,840 --> 00:03:20,640 little test points here and they're usually listed on this particular unit 46 00:03:16,920 --> 00:03:24,200 as TP so the one that I was looking for 47 00:03:20,640 --> 00:03:26,120 is called TP something envelope EnV all 48 00:03:24,200 --> 00:03:31,280 right so that's right there and this here is a ground there's also a test 49 00:03:28,319 --> 00:03:36,439 point for Hi-Fi audio which will give you a high-fi audio signal this guy 50 00:03:34,519 --> 00:03:41,319 can't capture it there are other products out there that can for today we 51 00:03:39,200 --> 00:03:46,599 are just capturing the video with that said let's uh let's watch Mrs doire so 52 00:03:44,200 --> 00:03:52,200 in order to connect to this I need to connect to this so that's the test point 53 00:03:49,599 --> 00:03:57,680 and that's the ground and it all comes down here and around and out here that 54 00:03:55,319 --> 00:04:03,840 is new that shouldn't be there Dan did this I am not good with solder Ing and 55 00:04:00,760 --> 00:04:05,680 that is connected to the RF test point 56 00:04:03,840 --> 00:04:09,879 now if you're not good at soldering there's also options for like alligator 57 00:04:07,959 --> 00:04:14,799 clamps like these two so you can just connect these to your test points and 58 00:04:12,079 --> 00:04:18,880 have uh your little BNC come go into this so capture software is pretty 59 00:04:16,759 --> 00:04:23,400 straightforward just got a big capture button right here and uh I'm just going 60 00:04:21,479 --> 00:04:27,360 to start playing the video I'm not doing a full capture because that would take 61 00:04:25,639 --> 00:04:32,160 hours so we're just going to start capturing now so as you can see there 62 00:04:29,720 --> 00:04:37,360 there are some issues visually with this tape right now we're capturing video 63 00:04:34,039 --> 00:04:40,039 only you can capture audio however I 64 00:04:37,360 --> 00:04:43,919 don't have anything set up for that at the moment I also don't need audio 65 00:04:42,280 --> 00:04:49,840 because most of the tapes that I'm capturing are family videos so there's 66 00:04:47,800 --> 00:04:55,080 not going to be much difference in terms of audio quality from an actual 67 00:04:53,120 --> 00:04:59,080 conventional capture once the capture is done you'll have to run it through the 68 00:04:56,360 --> 00:05:02,160 VHS decode software it is command line but don't worry 69 00:05:00,240 --> 00:05:08,000 it's very straightforward you'll be left with two TBC files one is for Chroma one 70 00:05:05,560 --> 00:05:13,120 is for Luma you can open them in LD analyze to see what everything looks 71 00:05:10,560 --> 00:05:18,280 like and check out the signal to noise ratio see if you have any line dropouts 72 00:05:15,680 --> 00:05:23,479 it's very straightforward and finally you can get your final output video 73 00:05:20,759 --> 00:05:27,880 through TBC tools again it's command line just make sure your files are all 74 00:05:25,560 --> 00:05:32,840 in the same folder as the software for more information there's a mass massive 75 00:05:29,960 --> 00:05:36,880 Wiki with all the steps it's very straightforward you might need about an 76 00:05:34,800 --> 00:05:40,360 hour to read through everything but once you're done you're good to go so looking 77 00:05:38,759 --> 00:05:44,960 at the side by side it should be pretty obvious the capture from the Doomsday 78 00:05:42,160 --> 00:05:49,280 duplicator is much cleaner it's much sharper there's way more color 79 00:05:46,560 --> 00:05:55,840 information it just looks better but this does come at a cost 80 00:05:51,759 --> 00:05:58,240 $500 or about $500 you can also build it 81 00:05:55,840 --> 00:06:02,400 yourself but currently there are other options that are pretty much better than 82 00:06:00,319 --> 00:06:07,599 this in every way the CX card with the clock gen mod is the gold standard Harry 83 00:06:05,440 --> 00:06:12,960 one of the main developers from bhsd code informed me that they are currently 84 00:06:09,560 --> 00:06:15,919 working on a new card the merch card 85 00:06:12,960 --> 00:06:23,440 that just has more options and can do everything the CX card can do and run 86 00:06:19,120 --> 00:06:25,680 through USB the CX card is a PCIe addin 87 00:06:23,440 --> 00:06:29,840 card if you're running it on a laptop this is probably your best bet there 88 00:06:27,759 --> 00:06:35,840 really is a lot and it's really hard to cover it all today you can check out the 89 00:06:32,360 --> 00:06:38,840 Discord and the wiki and the GitHub and 90 00:06:35,840 --> 00:06:40,960 it's a very active and Vibrant Community 91 00:06:38,840 --> 00:06:45,080 International and they are always looking for new contributors and people 92 00:06:43,479 --> 00:06:49,880 who are just interested in this project I know I am interested in this project 93 00:06:47,199 --> 00:06:52,960 so if you are to comment down below maybe we'll check out more stuff like 94 00:06:51,199 --> 00:06:58,720 this in the future maybe I'm going to get a merch card have a great day 95 00:06:55,520 --> 00:06:58,720 subscribe to ShortCircuit