how to best capture time-lapse footage w/audio from VHS?

I need to capture in realtime some footage from a time-lapse recorded VHS tape. It does have audio recorded on the tape.

i have a G5 with a Kona-LS card, so the interconnect isn't an issue. i'm getting a video signal, albeit not a very stable one, into the computer, but it's not giving me any audio. I have the VCR that was used to record it - it's a Samsung SLV-960A. The VCR has one BNC in and one BNC out for video, then it has one RCA IN for audio and one RCA OUT for audio. When I playback from the time-lapse VCR, I get video, but nothing registers audio-wise. When I play the tape back in a normal VCR, I get some audio (not very good), but the video quality is pretty horrible.

When I watch the counter on the front of the time-lapse VCR, it's about 5 seconds in realtime for every one second on tape (make sense?).

Any ideas of what I could try to get this into my system?

thanks

You could try using a timebase corrector. This would certainly help with the unstable video. It may also help with the audio playback on the VCR that you are hearing audio on.

i could be wrong, but i think the canopus devices have some degree of automatic cleanup functionality

<<<i could be wrong, but i think the canopus devices have some degree of automatic cleanup functionality>>>

What he said. Mine is remarkably good at straightening out "loose" video. It will not make pictures brighter or correct messy color, but I suspect it may go a long way to correcting timing or geometric problems.

Koz

Just a guess, but you might not be in Standard Play speed-- this is a surveillance deck with several speeds available, according to lit.

Can you play the tape out from a standard VHS deck? That should tell you something.

You may have to dub to a standard VHS tape and then capure from that as an uncontrollable device.

- Loren
Today's FCP 4 / 5 keytip:
Do a virtual Audio Mixdown to lighten playback load with Command-Option-R!

The FCP KeyGuide?: your power placemat.
Now available at KeyGuide Central.
www.neotrondesign.com

Those things worked by running the capstan at a really slow speed and switchng the record amplifiers on only in time for every fifth or eighth or tenth frame. Strictly speaking, they do not produce a standard VHS tape. The track produced by the rotating heads is not standard because the forward speed of the tape is wrong, but generally speaking, the deck that made it, should be able to play it.

There is one thing that bites everyone. Because the motor controls have to be so sloppy, it always takes the first 8 to 10 seconds to get the tape up to speed. That can be a half-hour of surveillance missing.

Many people discover new and colorful language skills then they have to use these machines.

Koz