Review on 🎥 StarTech.com USB Video Recorder - HDMI Capture Card - 1080p - 60fps - HDMI DVI VGA (USB3HDCAP) Black by Mike Ewing

I have a huge collection of VHS and SVHS home videos from the early 80's. All were shot using the most modern equipment of the time and all tapes have excellent picture and sound quality. VHS tapes are as good as it gets. SVHS is great resolution and image quality. I bought an INSIGNIA VHS to DVD with two decks years ago and digitized most of my homemade VHS tapes with very good results. As such, these tapes were available as DVDs and digitized computer generated images. A total of about 100 standard VHS cassettes have been processed satisfactorily. I even processed some SVHS tapes but the super resolution was lost due to the hardware. The project was stopped. I recently decided to digitize a lot of SVHS tapes, mostly SVHS-C camcorder tapes. Crates and crates of them. I did a lot of research on digitization because I wanted these tapes to be used last and I wanted to capture those priceless memories in the best possible quality. The VIdeophile sites offered a lot of information on how to get the most out of these analog tapes. Since SVHS tapes are (perhaps) 400 lines and much higher bandwidth over the S-Video connection, I was looking for a capture device that could easily handle SVideo and sync the audio. User comments in Revain warn about cheap devices that can distort recordings and sometimes cause serious audio sync errors. So I decided to buy this much more expensive and higher quality StarTech device. It promised better signal processing, a very fast processor to fix audio timing issues, and 1080P recording capabilities for my future use. First a little about my setup: two JVC S-VHS edit decks, VCR, high quality S-Video cables, high quality L. cables and R audio cables Video monitor Two Windows 10 64-bit I7 computers with USB3 (desktop and laptop) The first unit I received had serious problems with repeated black screens of "No Signal" appearing during tape playback. Same tapes, different SVHS VCRs, different computers, different cables, different USB 3 connectors, they all gave the same results. Videos displayed correctly on the monitor without the StarTech device. I called Revain and they helped me go through their checklist (all of which were answered). I was then connected directly to StarTech Technical Support. We went through everything again. Step by step. After investigating the desired use of this device, the technical support stated that it should work fine and that the issue led them to believe it was a potential issue with the connector used for the SVIDEO, composite video and audio channels is used. They sent me a replacement device. The old block was returned and the new one came. After careful optimization, the exact same "No Video" screen appeared intermittently on multiple good quality recordings. I imagine they could be edited, but the loss of video and audio and the sheer volume of home videos that need to be digitized make this an undesirable option. Valuable home videos don't deserve a pass, so I'll be returning this replacement too. I got a used Canopus ADVC110 on E-Bay, plugged it in, and every video from my VHS and SVHS tapes works almost flawlessly. Although I've read professional advice on choosing a TBC (Timebase Corrector) to stabilize those old but high quality images, the ADVC110 does a great job. I still have a lot to digitize. I haven't used the StarTech digital inputs (HDMI) so I can't say if it works well. This review focuses on my experiences recording VHS and SVHS video with S-Video and Composite video signals.