home movies on dvd to hard drive and quality improvement

[hammer]

hi I have searched but coudnt find specificly what I hope to do.
I have around 40 dvds of home videos all with menus and sub menus because of so many short clips. some early ones are 4.3 but mostly 16.9.
I want to now transfer them to hard drive.
copying them over is fine as dvds I have done the 1st one.

is there a way of improving the quality while tranfering to hard drive.
simple preferred as I do not have time to spend over each individual dvd

on a 4k qled tv it does look a bit rough

[mariush]

I would suggest using a software like DVDFab to make a DVD image of the disc and storing on your hard drive... this way you have a 1:1 copy, no losses, no recompression, nothing. You can use any virtual cd/dvd software to mount images as virtual discs in Windows or Linux. Personally, I use ImDisk RAM Drive (which as the name says can also create virtual hard drives using RAM): https://sourceforge.net/projects/imdisk-toolkit/

Send me a PM if you want me to give you a copy of an older version of the software which I use it often and works perfectly fine.

[Ghitulescu]

is there a way of improving the quality while tranfering to hard drive.
simple preferred as I do not have time to spend over each individual dvd
Unless the mastering engineer did a lousy job, there is usually no way to "improve" a DVD.
But there is only one way NOT TO deteriorate it: a bit-perfect transfer.

As for automatic (=simple) "improvers", well, if it were so simple, we all would have been medieval art restorers, wouldn't we? :)

A straight movie-only ripping (transfer) is usually regarded as an "improved" process over the 1-click suites that claim to "save" your precious memories via various conversions (eg to MP4, as this is the fashion format nowadays).
on a 4k qled tv it does look a bit rough
get a Sony Trinitron, then: it matches the DVDs' resolution.

PS: I don't have a 4k qled TV, because I don't believe in Samsung as a TV-maker. However, on the many 4k and FHD premium TVs from Sony and Pioneer I have, no DVD ever looked "rough", maybe because premium TVs also have premium upscalers: easily to spot the differences towards the cheap upscalers found in budget DVD-players.

PS2: sometimes a Bluray version of the same movie may be a better and cheaper alternative to "conversion'n'improving" processing of DVDs. Also a BD has more image points to work upon, thus even a bad upscaler (to 4k) could do a good job.

[foxyshadis]

How much time are you willing to spend? QTGMC is the gold standard for converting interlaced 30i video to 60p or 30p, but it's incredibly slow; for movies faster ones like YADIF tend to work well, but aren't suited to the quick jerky motions of home video. YADIF is a common default for DVD conversion.

You can never really get 480i to look amazing on 4K. You can give it fancy upscalings like nnedi3, but the time it takes might not be worth it. In the end, accepting that old things look old is something we all have to do.

[videoh]

In the end, accepting that old things look old is something we all have to do. A truth I am forced to acknowledge every time I look in the mirror, or try to swim fast. :(

[Sharc]

A truth I am forced to acknowledge every time I look in the mirror, or try to swim fast. :(

LOL, you are not alone ……..

[laserfan]

...is there a way of improving the quality while tranfering to hard drive.
simple preferred as I do not have time to spend over each individual dvd

on a 4k qled tv it does look a bit rough
There is a fascinating thread here on restoring 8mm home movies (https://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=144271) and I suggest you look that over, if for no other reason than to see that it is possible to improve old material, but by no means "simple". I am nowhere near the technical level of the folks in that thread, but I have spent many hours trying to make some videos look better and it's not easy nor are the results very satisfying.

Regardless, you should just firstly do the 1:1 transfer as others have suggested as there is no loss to quality in doing so. Then later if you want to tinker with the videos you can do so w/o any risk to the intial quality.

If the vids are precious/priceless/family heirlooms then the idea too that you would have an old analog TV dedicated to their playback is one that I have considered. Unfortunately my Trinitron XBR's power supply went back and I gave-up on fixing it.

:o

[hammer]

Thanks for the input guys. with my home movies to hard drive
hopefully getting on with it now
and i like my tv thats all that matters.