VHS to DVD conversion

[Mojo300]

I was wondering how do I go about converting my home VHS movies to DVD? What type of hardware and software would I need and how difficult is it to do? Please Help

[DJ Bobo]

You need a VCR :eek:
Well, a VCR that supports S-VHS ist the best, as you can use its S-Video output.

You need a tv-card or capture card or a VGA-card with TV-In.
If your VGA-card has already a TV-In, you can capture directly without any further equipment.
TV-cards are quite cheap (Example of a good TV-card: PINNACLE PCTV for 70 Euro/US$), but don't give you the best quality.
So if you're looking for the highest possible quality, get a pure capture card like the PINNACLE DC10+, which costs about 300 Euro/US$

You need a capturing software.
It is delivered with the card.
You can also use the very good VirtualDub (most of the time better than the solutions delivered with the cards)
Capturing is very easy! you can find guides here: http://www.vcdhelp.com/capture

You need a powerful PC, say 1GHz or more if you want to capture in full DVD resolution, say 720x576 for PAL or 720x480 for NTSC, without frame drops.

You need a DVD burner :D

[Mojo300]

I have a G Force 3 with TV in but I dont think It came with any software.

[DJ Bobo]

That's no problem, you can use VirtualDub to capture.
Just follow one of the guides in the site I mentionned above.

[ppera2]

I must tell that it is very bad idea. VHS at DVD resolution will look very bad and unsharp. For VHS is VCD resolution fair enough.

[DJ Bobo]

@ ppera2
VCD has a limited bitrate of only 1150kbps, which will make the picture only worse.
If he makes DVD, even if he chooses VCD resolution (352x288 for PAL or 352x240 for NTSC), he can still go up to 1856kbps.

Another advantage of DVD is the possibility to get full vertical resolution, say 576 for PAL and 480 for NTSC, and VHS offers full vertical resolution.

Most people estimate the ideal resolution for VHS2DVD-conversion by 352x576 for PAL and 352x480 for NTSC. This is the double of VCD-resolution => 2x better sharpness
In those resolutions, MPEG-2 compression must be used, which gives the possibility to use a video bitrate of up to 9800kbps => less compression, better picture quality ;)

So with the DVD format, he has the possibility to get a picture very close to the original VHS, where VCD will make it worse anyway.

[ppera2]

I didn't say VCD but VCD resolution. Big vertical res. will only cause troubles with interlace with minimal quality improvement. In some cases deinterlaced picture can even look worse than low res. of 288.

With VCD res. you can store 2-3 hrs on 1 CD with DivX compression, and I would never spend DVD's on such bad source material.

[DJ Bobo]

Oh sorry, I misunderstood you.

Still, DVD can be encoded in interlaced mode, so full vertical resolution isn't a big deal, if he don't want/can deinterlace.

Add to this that most movies and series are telecined on the NTSC VHS tapes. So taking the lower 352x240 resolution will result in jerky playback.
Many PAL series and some PAL movies are also interlaced (I'm not talking about native PAL productions, or field shifted video). So taking here 352x288 will also result in jerky playback.

[Ookami]

Originally posted by Mojo300
I was wondering how do I go about converting my home VHS movies to DVD? What type of hardware and software would I need and how difficult is it to do? Please Help

How about reading the FAQ in the capture forum?

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=32575 (esp. question 28.)

@all

People, where do you get your infos from? So many wrong infos on one place...

-Capture card quality

Read the threads in the capture forum, it is simply not correct that standalone cards always give you the best quality. Not to mention that most of them are not versatile...

-Capture PC

1 GHz? How did, for instance, Tsunami managed to capture at full PAL with a Celeron 333 (IIRC). BTW, I don't have a 1 GHz PC, either...

@ppera

Sigh.

You are not correct. Ever heard of filters? Ever heard of losing information when capturing to such low resolutions? I recommend you to check this thread about the aproximate "resolution" of VHS http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=34122 .Not to mention that you don't have to deinterlace when you encode to SVCD or DVD...

Cheers,

Mijo.

[ppera2]

What I wrote here is based mostly on my experiences. And I know very well specifications of VHS.
Ookami, you are right that deinterlace is not required for DVD or SVCD.

[DJ Bobo]

@ Ookami
1) Standalone capture cards are the best IMHO! some people may prefer VGA cards with TV-In, but I prefer standalone capture cards, like the DC10+.
And a card like the DC10+ has AFAIK its own hardware compressor/decompressor, so it consumes less ressources
2) Yes, he needs a 1GHz CPU if he wants full quality. Capturing with celeron 333 in full resolution will require that you go down with the quality setting in PicVideo MJPEG quite much. Just put 720x576 25fps and MJPEG quality 19 or 20 on a celeron 333 and you'll see how many frame drops you get! you will also have to lower the x:y:z color setting. Besides, RGB24 capturing will never work on that particular celeron 333 at full resolution!

[srsstvs]

Hello? Have you guys noticed that you've lost Mojo300, the original question poster? You've scared him away!!!;)

Mojo300, if you're still there, if you got a lot of vhs tapes to convert then consider Canopus ADVC systems (ADVC-50, ADVC-100, or ADVC-1394). Best converters for analog to DV, but that's all they do! After capturing to raw AVI file (about 13GB per hour) then you can use TMPGEnc or whatever you feel comfortable with to encode to mpg2 and burn to DVD. Canopus ADVCs range from US$200 to $300 depending on the model. They are GOOD! Trust me, I have one.

[Ookami]

My first answer was a bit harsh, sorry for that :) . Now, let's discuss this further...

@ppera2

:)

@DJ Bobo

I am aware of the fact how the standalone cards work... I agree that there are many pros. But I don't like this black and white answers. If I would have the time I would write a very long reply, what are the pro and cons of the various systems... And mind you, I will buy a standalone capture card, too... I would probably not spend several hundred EUR, on something I don't respect. But one thing I really don't get, why do people always drag the very old DC 10 from the grave as THE standalone capture card? IMO, this card is for the last century :D . Altough, you should get it very cheap now, so...

To 2),sorry, again, you are wrong... IIRC, he was capturing Huffyuv! I was capturing Huffyuv too without framedrops from the non GHz CPU (I will not mention my crappy soundcard or, now, my defect capture HD :scared: ).

IMO, further dropped or doubled frames discussion is unecessary, because the FAQ covers that fairly well.

Why would someone want to capture at RGB? This was only used, before, because the crappy BT drivers had field swap issues with other color spaces (don't ask me why). For instance, this thread has a few links that explain it further http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=37827 .

@srsstvs

I hope that I scared the original writer to the FAQ. I don't like questions that have been answered several times. BTW, I will buy the ADVC 100 :) . What Canopus model do you have?

Cheers,

Mijo.

[srsstvs]

I have ADVC-50. They are all the same you know (in terms of quality and codec), I just wanted to save $$$ and got the cheapest one. Afterall, it'll have no use for me after I've converted my 700 plus VHS tapes to KVCD (I like that better than VCD) or DVD later (thinking of buying the SONY DRU-500A).

[Swan]

@srsstvs
Can you please check this out? http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&postid=220840#post220840
I have a few questions about the audio handling.
I'm interested in buying a Canopus ADVC (after reading your and Darksoul's posts).;)

/Swan

[Mojo300]

Hey, No I am still here trying to take it all in. And deciding which way I should go. Which Card etc...

[ppera2]

I had ATI Radeon VIVO and it captured very well in full PAL or NTSC resolution, directly in MPEG 1 or 2. With deinterlace etc. You can buy it for less than 100 bucks. For VHS capture more than good.

[Mojo300]

What is the best software to use with this converter for VHS Tapes then to DVD?

[^^-+I4004+-^^]

>I didn't say VCD but VCD resolution. Big vertical res. will only cause troubles with interlace with minimal quality improvement. In some cases deinterlaced picture can even look worse than low res. of 288.


this is as wrong suggestion as you can give!my recent tests (with interlaced divx 352x576 & svcd 480x576) show that vertical res. is MORE important than horizontal !
i think you're VERY wrong saying that ". Big vertical res. will only cause troubles "..........
(by now you know of scanlines vs. horizontal resolution issue i hope....)
DO NOT make thing worse by making your VHS rips 288 or so
( captured to 288 OR downsized to 288 )


>With VCD res. you can store 2-3 hrs on 1 CD with DivX compression, and I would never spend DVD's on such bad source material.

VHS needs bigger vert. res even more,as VHS already lost some info from original
broadcast...making it 288 will destroy even more....(either you downsize or capture on 288 as i said.....)
yesterday i compared my 288 rip and 576->432 rip........the latter is twice as sharp.........
and indeed it's true that 2x pixels will give cca. 2x sharper image......

also another problem came in to my attention:
if you make it proper (keepin it mpeg2(576)+interlaced)
then you're keeping the noise on 50hz (mpeg2 will play 50hz video to tv-out or dvd player) and NOT making noise 25hz (25fps)

i say that converting video COMPLETELY to 25fps(for progressive display,etc.) wil make noise more visible.....!

so..if possible DVD (interlaced mpeg2 stream for interlaced content)
is way to go......
why destroy (352x288) something that's already not excellent (VHS)

also you can't say "for vhs capture more than good"!
vhs is poor source and therefore you need BETTER equipment to make it look good.....
you must aim to have more (NOT LESS) of the original VHS signal...!

>2) Yes, he needs a 1GHz CPU if he wants full quality. Capturing with celeron 333 in full resolution will require that you go down with the quality setting in PicVideo MJPEG quite much. Just put 720x576 25fps and MJPEG quality 19 or 20 on a celeron 333 and you'll see how many frame drops you get! you will also have to lower the x:y:z color setting. Besides, RGB24 capturing will never work on that particular celeron 333 at full resolution!


no,he doesn't need 1ghz cpu!
(my cel600 does huff and mjpeg at 720x576 without problems......)

>Besides, RGB24 capturing will never work on that particular celeron 333 at full resolution!

this is funny if you're capturing on bt8x8 system:it has native yuy2 support and must do conversion to rgb (therefore it must drop more in that color space..)
(so capturing to rgb with such device is pratically useless.......i myself use picvideo with 4:1:1 sampling and can't spot any difference in color information....)

cheers

Ivo

[Jolard]

Mojo300

If you are still around (and if anyone else is looking for info), here is my recent experience capturing VHS to DVD. I am fairly new at the process, and have done heaps of research, and so much of the info is contradictory or confusing. Here is the process I was using that worked fine for me.

Capture card - I am using Gainward GeForce 2 TI Video card with VIVO. It has S-Video in, which makes a big difference. As far as I can tell from all the opinions on the board, the card doesn't make all that much of a difference, especially if you are capturing and doing compression on your PC, not in an external card. However I may be wrong on that.

Capture Software - I am using VirtualDub, after trying many programs, this really does seem to give the best quality. It is a free download, and you can find it here at doom9. For compression I have tried MJPEG, Huffyuv and no compression. MJPEG was good, but Huffyuv and no compression were better, but I couldn't tell a difference between them, so Huffyuv was definitely the best because of the size differences. Check the guide for VirtualDub, it is decent.

Transcoding - After you have your VirtualDub avi, you need to transcode it to MPEG2 for DVD. There are literally many ways to do this, and I tried a heap of them. I ended up using TMPGenc which seemed to work well, but I have also heard that CCE is good. I use 2 passes with variable bit rate, averaging about 4000. I tried constant bit rate but whenever there was too much movement on the screen it got blocky. Unfortunately the 2 pass method of VBR means it is twice as long. It was taking about 2 hours for every half hour of video on my 2 GHz PC.

Once the transcoding is complete (usually overnight) I then used SpruceUp for DVD authoring. I have also tried a lot of different apps for this, and this is the best balance between ease of use and features for me. The SpruceUp Guide will give you the basics, and it is a wonderful program, very easy to use. After creating my DVD, I would use Spruce's "create an dvd image" option to save the DVD, and then you can use any program that can burn an img to burn it (I used DVDDecryptor).

Anyway, I hope that helps. This may not be the absolutely best way to do this, but I was happy with the results (after MANY failures) and I can use this process over and over simply. If you are like me sometimes it just helps to have a full successful process described.