datahoarder
Who are we?
We are digital librarians. Among us are represented the various reasons to keep data -- legal requirements, competitive requirements, uncertainty of permanence of cloud services, distaste for transmitting your data externally (e.g. government or corporate espionage), cultural and familial archivists, internet collapse preppers, and people who do it themselves so they're sure it's done right. Everyone has their reasons for curating the data they have decided to keep (either forever or For A Damn Long Time). Along the way we have sought out like-minded individuals to exchange strategies, war stories, and cautionary tales of failures.
We are one. We are legion. And we're trying really hard not to forget.
-- 5-4-3-2-1-bang from this thread
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I was just thinking that the cleaning process might damage the VCR (as one is rummaging around in its internals [1]), so it'd be better to use a worse quality VCR for cleaning, and a good quality one for digitization.
References
What "default deinterlacing techniques" are you referring to?
How do I find out that information for the 2 things that I purchased (mentioned in the post)? How would I even control that? Only the composite to HDMI converter has a single switch from 720p to 1080p. I don't see anything else that would control what interlacing technique is used.
What method do you recommend to accomplish this?
Is this possible in OBS?
If I did want to capture the raw signal, do you have any methods and/or tools that you would recommend to accomplish this?
It's been a while since I've done this but unless you're recovering the Ark of the Covenant, it should be enough to follow these simple steps: use H.264 in OBS with high bitrate on a fast PC and preferrably using a USB 3.0+ port (even if the capture card is 2.0) to avoid clashing with other devices on the bandwidth-limited 2.0 bus. Check that the output is indeed interlacd. Look at stats/logs to see of any frames are dropped and investigate if it's just the 59.94 Hz compensation, actual blank sections of tape or some part of the processing chain unable to keep up. Adjust audio levels; you might get better results using your PC's mic socket rather than the capture card's audio ADC (most tapes are mono anyway) but make sure to disable auto-gain or else quiet sections will get boosted like crazy, increasing the noise.
Is it possible to see this in OBS? I see an option to select an interlacing technique if I right click the scene
Are you referring to "stats/logs" within OBS?
If you are referring to a toggle on the capture card or the converter, neither have a button for that, so I think my setup is fine in that regard?
First question addressed in other today's comment.
Yes, within OBS. IDK where it shows if frames were dropped but it most likely at least writes it to some kind of log. It is a key statistic for most use cases of the software so it would be bonkers if you couldn't find it.
Auto-gain is a microphone thing, you likely won't see it with line inputs on converters and capture cards because line levels are standardized and there will most likely be no overshoot.