Quality of Video

[ckrajasingh]

I have Honestech TVR 2.5 tuner card with windows XP. The video signal comes from VCR through cable. When connected to TV the picture is good. When connected to the computer the picture quality is very bad with dots and lines. Even the picture for the test signal from VCR is of poor quality while it is good connected to TV. The VCR is an old model by SHARP Can anyone help.

[CaptionWorld]

The Tuner card you have may only be configured for the old PAL 625 Lines. The computer will not recognize this format. The video signal from the VCR Needs to go via a converter to S-VHS for the computer to read video. These are available from most computer retailers.

Hope this helps.

[vidmanners]

Do you mean S-VHS? - or S-video (one of those funny round plugs where the pins get confused easily!). On another thread I've solved this (playing old VCR tapes) using a DVD/HDD recorder - then burn a DVD which goes into the PC.

Not a cheap solution, but you do get a useful piece of HD recording kit, for the price.

However, mine recognises commercial Films and won't copy them (so I'm stuck with a tape version). Fortunately the last VHS m/c were direct-drive and I think should be working well into the next decade - by which time they will have been shown on commercial channels desperate for quality airtime.

[CaptionWorld]

Whoops! Yes I meant to say S-Video. The 5 pin plug.
I seem to remember that in the early days of video tapes from the hire shops, the distributors started encrypted them so they couldn't be copied.

[vidmanners]

My understanding is that many video-hire tapes had poor sync, so a copy would be almost unwatchable. Encryption is a separate issue as pirates became more numerous companies applied special codes to prevent copying because the copy-device was also chipped. However, there is nearly always a fix, if the stakes are great, criminals will think it's worth ripping.