Digitizing old home videos

Here are the steps I took to digitize some old analog home videos. It might not be the best, but it works at least for me.

I have an old Sony Hi8 camcorder from around 1999, which has a composite video output. To connect the composite video output to a PC, I bought this 5-euro USB stick from AliExpress:

I have a Windows 10 Home PC. Do not insert the DVD that comes with the chinese USB stick, you don’t need it for anything. It has some outdated software with viruses. Just install VLC. Windows has drivers for the device.

Connect the camcorder composite video out to the USB stick. Connect camcorder audio out directly to PC microphone input (use a RCA->3.5mm stereo plug cable). You could connect audio to the USB stick but I had terrible sound quality with that setup.

Start up VLC. Follow these steps:

  1. Select “Media/Convert / Save…”: 
  2. Select “Capture Device” tab. Do selections as here, then click “Convert / Save”:
     
  3. Select “Deinterlace”, do *not* select “Display the output”, it ruined my output file at least. Select destination file. Choose profile “Video – H.264 + MP3 (MP4)”. Click the tools icon next to it: 
  4. Choose “Video codec” tab, select H-264:
     
  5. Choose “Audio codec”, select “MPEG Audio”:
     
  6. Choose “Encapsulation”, select MP4/MOV, click save:
     
  7. Click “Start”:
     
  8. Next, a series of pop-up windows should open. If not, make sure you checked “Device properties” in step #2 earlier. Choose “PAL_D”:
     
  9. Apply, OK:
     
  10. Apply, OK:
     
  11. Select “Video Composite In”, check “Link Related Streams”, click “Apply”:
     
  12. It should look like this now, click “OK”:
     
  13. Now the pop-up display disappears. Just press “Play” on your VCR/camera and hope for the best. Better first try a few minutes, then stop and check results, and possibly return to first square. I did that dozens of times to get the knowledge to write this post…

You may need to check windows control panel / microphone properties and lower the levels, to get less noise into output file. You need to experiment yourself, but this works for me:

I use ffmpeg to finalise the file. After that it plays on a Mac and on PS4. For some reason the windows build does not have all codecs so I do it on a Mac. This command will repackage the mp4, leaving the video original but converting the audio to AAC. It also cuts 5 seconds from the beginning and makes the video 1 hours and 35 minutes long:

ffmpeg -i original.mp4 -c:v copy -c:a aac \
                -ss 00:00:05 -to 01:35:00 fixed.mp4
Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail

Amazon Video and it’s lame geographic restrictions (for Android)

Got interested in Amazon Video due to their new series “The Grand Tour”, a.k.a. TGT, a.k.a. “Top Gear Two”. I decided to try Amazon Prime 30-day trial, that includes the video service. To my big surprise, I could register in a minute and was watching the show in HD. With a laptop browser. Video quality was very nice.

However, it is convenient to be able to watch the videos on a tablet or a phone as well. Amazon does have apps for Android, however they’re not in the official Google Play Store, but in their own Amazon Underground. I got the Amazon Underground App installed, but when trying to install the Amazon Video from there, it told me I was unable due to “geographic restrictions”. Sigh. Yet another artificial problem.

Solution: install Amazon Video App from http://www.apkmirror.com/apk/amazon-mobile-llc/instant-video/ and watch all the videos you want.

No need for fake mail addresses, fake IP/DNS or VPNs. At least not for the TGT. At least not today.

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail

Win XP and IE 6 – WTF?

Looking at the stats of this blog, the most popular OS by far is Windows XP and the browser is IE 6. What is wrong with you guys using that old software? Do you run Windows update, ever? Have you heard of the word “security hole”, ever? Virus? New features? Come on, you’re so anti nerd that you don’t have a life either!

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail