Blackmagic Forum

Hello all,

I bought the Intensity Pro 4k to capture for a few different applications. The one application I'm having trouble with is capturing from VHS homemade movies. I cannot get sound to come in via Media Express with the blank VHS tapes you could buy to film homemade movies on. Yet, if I put in a pro VHS, like Godfather. It works just fine, levels come in and I can capture that. I've tried multiple recordable VHS' and no luck.

Here's the signal flow to help understand:

Panasonic AG-7350 VHS to Intensity Pro 4k in a Mac Pro 5,1 into Media Express (I've also tried capturing to Premiere Pro and same thing, I can use pro VHS and the sound comes in but not with homemade VHS).

Let me know your thoughts.

Thanks,
Brian

Are you connected to the "NORM/HiFi" audio output and have you checked the "NORM/HiFi" audio switch? A pro tape will probably have HiFi audio whereas your home movies may not.

Regards,

Dave.

Hi..What i have experienced with vhs that they do not keep picture in sync so to say and if it jumps, has break on it etc then all the pro kind capture cards go mad. I have solved this pretty eazy capturing from Sony small DV camera in such way that i have connected VHS output to DV cameras analogue input and on pass trough mode sent all the picture then to computer as DV. Never had sync or jumping problem this way.

This "pass-through" method is one that I used in the late '90s and early '00s and - as you correctly say - it does tend to work OK because the incoming signal is corrected by the input converter in the camcorder. However, you're a bit limited in that you only have either a DV-MOV (Apple) or DV-AVI (Windows) file at the other end of the FireWire cable due to the very nature of the interface, and the DV stream is subject to a 5:1 compression by default.