VHS to DVD; best way to capture?

[ViX44]

I intend to begin archiving my old VHS tapes to DVD. I have capture hardware and am quite experienced with VirutalDub and XviD authoring. Knowing that DVD requires MPEG, which VDub doesn't perform natively, I seek the wisdom to capture at a resolution and to a codec that can be properly encoded for DVD use with minimal quality loss. (I have plenty of harddrive if raw-to-MPEG is required.)

Thank you for your time and consideration.

[ppera2]

There is lot of threads with similar or same problem at forum. Try search - it often results in faster 'answer' to your questions

Plenty HD = huffyuv

[ron spencer]

canopus ADVC100

[classVcd]

If you use virtualdub to capture and encode the files into xvid or another codec for avi compression , you could simply once captures are completed open the first avi you recorded , and frameserve it too avi2mepg2 , and its simple

Grab this guide to know more

Guide : http://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=270071

Just dont serve more than 50,000 frame's at a time if you is using anything other than xp with a hard drive formatted into fat32 type partitions , or the dvd mpegs will exceed the 2 gigabyte barrier and nothing will open them .

Under xp and fat32 , this is not a problem .

[ppera2]

Originally Posted by classVcd

If you use virtualdub to capture and encode the files into xvid or another codec for avi compression , you could simply once captures are completed open the first avi you recorded , and frameserve it too

Just dont serve more than 50,000 frame's at a time if you is using anything other than xp with a hard drive formatted into fat32 type partitions , or the dvd mpegs will exceed the 2 gigabyte barrier and nothing will open them .

Under xp and fat32 , this is not a problem .

That's not correct. There is segmented capture in Virtual Dub, what means that longer captures will be divided in more files.
And AviSyntth has option for work with segmented AVI files, for instance.

[jggimi]

ClassVcd has been a member since early 2003, and made his first post only yesterday, after more than two years of lurking. To date, that has been 9 posts, all on the same day. All 9 have been advertising the same three videohelp guides. I can't speak to the value (or even applicability) of the recommended guide, but I can speak to the process that was recommeded.

• Capturing into an MPEG-4 codec -- with the intent to post-process -- is not best practice. MPEG codecs are lossy, and a process that introduces additional loss (such as his recommended analog -> MPEG-4 -> MPEG-2 process) would not meet most members' image quality needs.

If you take a look at Doom9's collection of capture guides, you'll find our analog guide that discusses capturing to lossless avi with a typical PCI capture card. Chapter 8 of that guide discusses encoding and authoring DVD during post-processing. You'll also find DV -> DVD and DVB -> DVD guides at the same link, should you elect to use either a digital camcorder or digital broadcast signals in your process. These latter have their own forums -- see this Announcement for more info.

There are some cards that do hardware MPEG-2 capture, such as the ADVC that Ron mentioned.

But the typical PCI capture card does not include hardware MPEG-2 encoding. These cards usually include packaged softare that will do software MPEG-2 encoding; usually, these software solutions are inadequate -- either they introduce excessive dropped frames or significantly low bitrates, or both. In addition, these prevent further image manipulation without loss.

Over the years, we have found that lossless capture followed by postprocess encoding provides both high quality and image control, which is why the analog guide recommends it with typical low cost (non-H/W MPEG-2 encoding) PCI cards, or the typical VIVO video card.

[zilog jones]

Originally Posted by classVcd

Guide : http://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=270071

That's a pretty awful guide. I'm sorry, but bbMPEG for MPEG encoding!? There's at least 3 better free MPEG encoders available these days. And "nearest neightbour" resizing? And no mention of framerate conversion or anything...

[ppera2]

What expect from someone who knows not about segmented AVI ?

[FredThompson]

hardware MPEG2 capture can be more than adequate with the proper devices. The stated end result is MPEG2. Duh!

The Canopus ADVC device has some enhancement circuitry so it's playback looks better than the source. It's also DV, not MPEG2. Also, unless there's been a change in the past year or so, the Canopus codec shipped with it did a horrible job with saturated red and blue. DV doesn't work well with thin vertical lines. NTSC DV uses one chroma (color) value to represent 4 horizontal pixels. MPEG2 uses a 2x2 square for the color sample.

I've done all three, lossless, DV and MPEG2. The vast majority of my stuff is captured with high bitrate full D1 MPEG2 (via ADS Instant DVD 2.0) then post-filtered and encoded. Inline filtering is a horrible idea.

DV capture when the end format is MPEG2 is the least attractive of the 3 options. Don't believe me? Look at the history of ReInterpolate411 and 411Helper. It goes back to capture of the original Star Wars laserdisc. The Canopus ADVC gave absolutely horrible results. Xesdeeni has images from that test sample on his site.

There is nothing inherently wrong with software compression if your system has sufficient power. I wouldn't do it, however.

[JeremyIrons]

We use a VITEC card to do our capturing, straight to MPEG2. We typically encode 720x480 VBR 4500-6000 KBps. Gives you about 2 hrs per 4.5 GB disc. If it goes over, you can always DVD Shrink it once you've got it in VOB format.

For editing, we use VideoReDo. Fast, accurate, and easy-to-use. Also supports batch processing for nearly every one of its functions, which may be attractive to some.

For DVD authoring, it's dvdauthor all the way. It's free, bit of a learning curve, but you have full control. However, there are a number of dvdauthor GUI's that make it a snap to use.

Good luck!

[lucindrea]

hauppauges pvr-150 has hardware mpeg-2 encodeing on it and it can be found for under $100 now ... not to mention it makes a half way decent pvr heh

[guada 2]

convenient aspect:
one must never disregard the source, in spite of the performances of the treatment tool.