This follows up a post I wrote back in August 2025 when I tried to use an 'Honestech' DIGITNOW! video capture device with my HP laptop.
Back then I had a very frustrating time tying to get this to work so I could make a digital recording of my first edition Star Wars VHS tapes. Firstly the software which came with the device proved to be useless. At the time I did try an earlier version of Open Broadcaster Software (OBS) as an alternative without success. I resorted to a very long-winded process of using a very old video capture device and software on an equally old Dell laptop running Vista. Anway, that was covered in detail in my earlier post.
This whole issue recently came to mind once more and I had an idea to try a different approach using the latest version of OBS.
I began by searching for the DIGITNOW! official website and finding their software download page. To my surprise it linked to an OBS version 27.0.1 download (not the newest). So I decided to download the latest OBS from the official webiste which was version 32.1.2.
I don't always have the patience to watch tutorials, so I dived straight into OBS. The user instructions which came with DIGITNOW! provided the device name for video as AV TO USB2.0 and the audio device as USB2.0 MIC. I plugged in the capture device into the USB slot and checked on Windows 11 device manager to make sure these were listed, which they were. I then went into OBS looking for those names.
Here's some screenshots with the steps I took to set things up. I suspect this could also work with other branded converters made in China. The hardware is probably made in the same factory and just packaged differently. That’s good news if you have a converter but no longer have the original software.
With the cables, I plugged the scart socket switched to 'OUT' into the bottom of the two sockets at the back of my VCR.
Once I inserted a VHS and played it, I could preview the playback in OBS. Previously, I had to playback the video on a TV screen to capture it. So it was recording the signal directly this time.
After a test run I found I also had the option to adjust some lighting and colour settings. I did adjust the colour slightly so the faces no longer appeared so red and now had a better skin tone.
The other significant improvement with using OBS directly with the VCR signal was that I had a far better replay with no lines and scratches as before. Also no 'Macromedia' copyright blocks. I even tested a Disney VHS and could now record ut without any copyright blocks.
This was very satisfying after the frustrations when I tried last year. I'm not sure if the success was due to a newer version of OBS or just that I worked out how to get the correct settings.
The final recording came out as 2.66GB.
I’ll be adding step by step screenshots here soon.
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