Vhs Capture Problem

[COBBY]

HELP

can anybody help me out i am trying to capture vhs video
and burn to dvd i have a leadtek nvidia geforce4 ti 4200 with 128mb
ddr with vivo using xp pro i cant seem to get the same quality
as the orginal VHS (PAL) AND ulead videostudio 6 which came with the
card can somebody surgest some settings for this setup or is it not possible using this setup ? my pc has a P4 2.4 cpu 80 gig 7200
hard drive and 512ddr ram i am new to this capture thing

would be gratfull for any advice

THANKS COBBY

[Swan]

What settings have you used in Videostudio?
What resolution did you use when capturing?
What format (Mpeg-1, Mpeg-2, Avi), etc, etc?

What is the problem with the file you've captured?
In what way does it not look as good as the VHS tape?
Have you output the captured clip to the TV and seen that is looks bad?

You have a powerful machine and VideoStudio can produce great looking video captures. I see no reason why your captured video should look less good than an VHS tape!
This can be worked out, I'm sure. Just give more detailed information, please.

/Swan

[^^-+I4004+-^^]

there's NO WAY you'll get same quality with (digital) copy
as with original (VHS)
you have to filter (this introduces quality loss in
motion...)
if you don't filter you get noise (particulary chroma!)

so filter it....... a bit (hehehe)

i don't agree (at all) with Swan:i don't think same quality is achievable!
especially with VHS.....
(also:i don't think that a tv->mpeg2 rip will beat good SVHS machine....count in the lousy quality of tv-out on graphics card!)

also i would say that combo boards generally tend to give worse picture quality than some other products....

but:few tips
capture at highest res. you can....(for pal that twould be 720x576..)
filter (smoothers),convert to mpeg2 etc.

i think that VHS capture MUST be filtered to get decent results!
(use vdub or asynth to frameserve this (now filtered) video to your mpeg2 encoder..)

cheers

Ivo

[COBBY]

OK
HERE ARE THE SETTINGS I AM USING TO CAPTURE
PAL 25 FPS
FEILD ORDER A
MPEG FILES
24 BITS 720X576 25FPS
(DVD PAL)
VIDEO DATA RATE VARIBALE (max 6000 kbps)

I HAVE NO PROBLEM WITH DROP FRAMES
WHEN I BURN THE CAPTURED VIDEO TO DVD AND VEIW IT ON MY
TV I GET SLIGHT PIXALATION AND FINE HORIZANTAL LINES WHICH MAKE
THE EDGES OF THE IMAGE SLITELY JAGEDED MY VHS PLAYER DOES NOT HAVE A S VIDEO OUT SO I AM USING THE 1
LEAD VIDEO OUT

IVO SAID I WILL HAE TO FILTER THE CAPTURED IMAGE
HOW DO I GO ABOUT THIS? I DID NOT THINK IT WOULD
BE THIS HARD TO GET THE SAME QUALITY ON DVD AS I WOULD
IF I COPIED IT BACK TO ANOUTHER VHS TAPE
I AM HAPPY TO TRY ANYTHING YOU GUYS SURGEST
AT THE MOMENT I AM USING A RW DVD
I HAVE A LOT OF HOME VIDEOS I WOULD LIKE TO PUT ONTO DVD
I HAVE A LOT OF TIME ON MY HANDS AT THE MOMMENT
AS I AM SITTING AT HOME WITH A BROKEN LEG

HOPE YOU CAN HELP OUT
THANKS
COBBY

[jbk]

^^-+I4004+-^^

No doubt you are technically correct regarding "image quality" comparissons, and I agree that various degrees of filtering is necessary. On the other hand, I have any number of digitized copies of VHS source material that passes the eyeball test. The resulting digital copies can indeed be very close to the VHS original. In many instances the digitized, deinterlaced and filtered copy is easier on the eyes than the original when viewed on a computer monitor. When both are viewed on the same TV, a casual viewer would never know which was which. At any rate, that's been my experience and i've been doing this stuff for a long time.

JBK

[COBBY]

JBK

THANKS FOR THE REPLY
I UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU ARE SAYING BUT SO FAR MY
EFFORTS ARE NOT CLOSE ENOUGHT TO THE ORIGNAL
FOR ME I THINK I MUST BE DOING SOMETHING WRONG
WHAT SORT OF SET UP DO YOU USE ?
IE PROGRAMS AND SOFTWARE
YOU ALSO MENTION FILTERS WHAT SORT OF FILTERS
YOU HAVE TO BEAR IN MIND I AM A RANK BEGINNER
AT THIS YOU SAY THAT YOUR COPIES ARE CLOSE
TO THE UNTRAINED EYE I HAVE NOT BEEN ABLE TO VEIW
ANYBODY ELSE"S EFORTS OR SHOULD I SAY RESULTS
SO I DID NOT KNOW WHAT TO EXPECT
AS I SAY THE RESULTS I AM GETTING ARE NOT WHAT I EXPECTED
BUT I WOULD BE GLAD OF ANY INPUT THAT CAN BE GIVEN
I THINK THAT I CAN GET A LOT BETTER RESULTS THAN I AM GETTING
BUT JUST DONT KNOW HOW YET

THANKS AGAIN FOR YOUR INPUT

REGARDS
COBBY

[Koepi]

COBBY,

YOU'RE NOT BY ANY CHANCE AN AOL USER?
WHY THE CAPS LOCK? DOES IT MAKE YOUR MESSAGE MORE IMPORTANT?

*veg* SCNR,

LOLOL,
Koepi

http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20020929

http://www.albion.com/netiquette/introduction.html

[Swan]

@Cobby
Sorry to hear about your broken leg. But it's good that you have a lot of time, since getting a perfect result sometimes involves testing and testing and testing, which takes time. :)

You should be able to get rid of the pixelation. A few things to test:
Try raising the video bitrate, set it to CBR (constant bitrate) instead of VBR (variable bitrate).
Use fewer B-frames and experiment with the "Performance" value.
These three variables (video bitrate, using or not using P and B frames, and "performance") are the main ones to mess with, to get better looking captures with VideoStudio, in my experience.

Also, make sure you have the *first* patch Ulead released for VideoStudio. Not the latest one, that was released about a week or two ago. The first patch replaced the Mpeg encoding filters from Ligos with Ulead's own, and the Ulead ones produce much better looking Mpeg, IMHO. When I applied the latest patch, I lost the ability to capture interlaced, so I removed it. But if you have a P4, you can try it out anyway. It was designed especially for increasing performance on computers with a P4 processor (I have an AMD Athlon XP, so..) :)

My setup is simple, VHS to the composite input on the capture card. I think the captures I make look virtually identical to the VHS tape.

/Swan

PS A friendly tip: don't use all caps when writing. It's the equivalence of shouting.
;)

[jbk]

Cobby,

Like most people, I found a suite of tools that works for me and that's what I use on a routine basis. What works for me might not be all that great for you, but here goes.

I have a Pinnacle DC30+ and use Virtualdub for capture as well as subsequent encoding. For most work I use Win2000, but for video stuff I use Win98 (dual boot). My VHS source material is all NTSC and I my capture resolution is 608x464. As for filters, there are several that I use, depending on the nature of the source. Applying filters is more of an art than a science, and each project is different. I simply have to try various filters and see if I like the results. This is quite easy to do using virtualdub where you can see the input and output frames simultaneously. The results of the filter operation are readily apparent.

I use Virtualdub's internal deinterlace filter choosing the "drop field 1" option. This eliminates every other scan line in each frame giving a resolution of 608x232. To get back to my original size I use the Virtualdub internal resize filter specifying 608x464. I don't pretend to know how all this works internally, but the net effect is to double the width of each remaining horizontal scan line.

Deinterlacing is a tradeoff, and the technique you end up using will be something that suits your personal tastes. As has been mentioned in earlier posts, you will probably go through a lot of experimentation before you are really satisfied with your results. By throwing away half of the scan lines in a frame, there is a slight loss of picture quality but not as much as you might think. After resizing, in most situations you really have to look close to find noticable degradation. On the plus side, the output is now essentially 30fps progressive images. The images are stable and with no evidence of "jaggies," lines, or other interlace artifacts. Keep in mind that other people prefer different approaches, but this is what works for me.

There are some good posts in the forum describing interlacing and alternative strategies for dealing with it. The technique I use was from one of these posts, and I tried several before settling on this one. Unfortunately, I can't point to the specific thread. All of this stuff gets blended together after a while and I can't remember where I found the info in the first place.

I also use the Dynamic Noise Reduction filter for Virtualdub quite frequently. It can be downloaded from Neuron's web site. Also available from that site is the Telecide filter for Virtualdub. Telecide is a great filter, but to the best of my knowledge it should only be used on NTSC material that was originally filmed at 24 fps. Since I don't do PAL, I don't know if telecide is relevant or if there is an PAL equivalent. Also, take a look at temporal smoothing. It helps a lot in certain cases as well. Each of these is described in other threads and on other web sites (Neuron's is a good source as is the virtualdub page).

There is other stuff that I use as well for special tasks and unusual situations, but that would probably just confuse the issue.

I hope this helps.

JBK

[COBBY]

OK
point taken about the caps lock did not relise
it made it look like i was shouting and did not intend to make
it look any more important
thanks for the tips i will keep trying diffrent things
as a note i did try a prog called mydvd (sonic) which came out
a lot better than anything in the past BUT it stops when i capture
i tried it a few times and it stops at diffrent times into the capture only thing i can think of is that it came as bundled softerware with the pioneer burner dont understand why it is doing a better job than anythingelse i have tried i cant seem to be able to find out what settings it is using anyway i will keep trying wont let it beat me

thanks again for the advice

regards

COBBY

[Guest]

Originally posted by jbk
Telecide is a great filter, but to the best of my knowledge it should only be used on NTSC material that was originally filmed at 24 fps.Not correct. It is useful in any case where the fields of the progressive frames have become separated into different frames. Many capture cards, for example, produce a one field phase shift of progressive PAL material that makes it look interlaced when it is not. Telecide can correct that.

[COBBY]

SWAN

Ureka (well nearly!) did what you surgested changed to a constant bitrate i also found there was anouther plugin option which
i tried seems the one it was set to was defaulting to ntsc settings
now i have more options to change the settings i still have
a slight pixalisation would uping the bitrate more help to fix
this? as i said i am 98% there in acheving the resaults i am after
i will stick with the ulead prog (want to learn how to edit the capture)wanted to get the quality right first! thanks again

COBBY
PS if your ever in perth western Australia look me up i will buy you a cold beer!!

[Swan]

Ureka (well nearly!) did what you surgested changed to a constant bitrate i also found there was anouther plugin
Oh, good! I am pleased to hear there's been some progress at your end! :)
Don't worry about the Caps Lock thing, everyone's been a rookie at one point or another.

tried seems the one it was set to was defaulting to ntsc settings
It doesn't surprise me one bit! VideoStudio, like so many other programs for "regular people" who want to capture and edit video, pretends it's so easy to get good results. Well, it isn't, at least if one has some sense of quality! I think you're doing the right thing by sticking with one program, in this case VideoStudio. It's better to learn one method first and understand what you're doing, before jumping on to the next thing. I also think VideoStudio is taking too much for granted that "it" knows what is the best settings. I encourage you to experiment. Select "User Defined" in the "Mpeg Settings" (don't let it use one of the presets) and mess around with the settings for bitrate, etc. You can always start the program and select for example "Pal DVD" preset and then, after you switch to the Capture "flap" (sorry about my English), select "User defined". Save your "Project", so you can use it again and tweak, tweak, until you get the video you capture to look as perfect as you want it.

Again, it is crucial that you install the first Mpeg-patch Ulead released, if it isn't already included in the version of VideoStudio you have. It's easy to check: when you select bring up the Mpeg-settings (where you can set the bitrate and so on), does the box have a logo in the upper right corner of the dialog box that says "Ligos Go Motion"? If so, you really need the patch. It will replace the Ligos filters with Ulead's own and they are much, much better. installing the patch will decrease the pixelation for sure. The patch is only available on Ulead's ftp site (ftp.ulead.com). On Ulead's web support page, only the latest patch is available for download.

PS if your ever in perth western Australia look me up i will buy you a cold beer!!
:) Thank you. I prefer red wine. Are there any good Australian red wines? :)

/Swan

PS, don't capture frame-based, OK? Keep the video interlaced! :)
Get well and have fun, OK?

[^^-+I4004+-^^]

ok-perhaps we forgot something
Cobby said he's going for the dvd(mpeg2)
& we're talking filtering.....
(some even mention deint. no need:he want's it that way for the
proper mpeg2 stream.remember:dvd's that he watches on his tv
...)
what are the effects of hardcore (smoothers) filtering on interlaced
video.....i guess that's not so good!

so after all,Swan is right & her experience in mpeg2 capture comes in
handy here.........

(although CNR can still be used...hehehe...but that includes capturing to avi,conversion to mpeg2....& that leg won't be broken forever will it.....hehehe)

@jbk
vhs capturings can indeed come pretty close to original!
not the same as original,but pretty close...

cheers

Ivo

[COBBY]

Just wanted to say thanks to everyone for there advice.

I found Swan's advice the most helpful.
"Your Expert Status is well deserved".
(Yes Swan Western Australia has some excellent Red Wines & I dont mind a drop myself).

This is an excellent site for information sharing (not that I have that much expertise to share).

Its sometimes difficult to explain what problems your encountering when your unsure of what you are doing being a beginner.

I found the same thing when I was trying to learn how to back-up DVD movies. Eventually after doing all the tutorials and finding out
how everything worked none of the guides worked 100%. But I found that playing around with a few different things I managed to be able to copy a DVD or split one.

I do think that some people who are professionals at Video Capture/Editing take for granted that us beginners know the basics & this is not always the case.

I will continue to use this site to expand my knowledge.

PS: If anyone wants to know anything about welding or steel fabrication I am a "expert" at this.

COBBY

[COBBY]

OK
i am still trying to get the results i want some things i do not understand please bear in mind i only want to capture pal vhs and pal hi 8 from home movies and place them onto dvd-r so that they can be veiwed on my tv and sent back to the uk to releys i am using video studio 6 (ulead) i am getting very close to the quailty i want
if i capture in mpeg2 720x576 using a constant bit rate (6000)the results are NOT BAD but if i capture in avi 720x576 and convert to
mpeg2 the results are a lot better only problem is in avi mode i run out of hard drive space after half an hour (35gig aprox)i have a 80
gig drive which i have split using 35gig fore capture
i realise i can do the job in 2 halfs (most of the videos are about 1 hour in length) but once captured it takes so long to recode to mppeg2 going back to the replys i had before SWAN said that capturing in mpeg2 was the way to go and as SWAN is familier with studio 6
this is what i went with swan also said reduce the B frames i can see there is a setting fore this but set it to what? and what does it do? also in the help it says for the best quality select I frames only! i am getting a bit frustrated because i am so close to getting the quality i want but dont know where to go from here or what to try!

REGARDS COBBY
ps legs getting better PINS come out on friday 11oct OUCH!!!!

[Swan]

Cobby, good to hear you're getting better.I was giving you some shortcuts to getting better looking Mpeg-2 before, but to go further, you need to understand a little more about what Mpeg-2 is, how the compression works, etc. This will answer your question on B-frames etc. Here's from Pinnacle's support pages:

----------------------------------------------------------
Question
How does MPEG-compression work?

Answer
In MPEG compression the data stream is first divided into different sections, the so called GOPs (Group of Pictures), each containing several frames. One GOP may consist of three types of frames: I-Frames, P-Frames and B-Frames. A typical GOP structure as you may find it on a DVD looks as follows:

IBBPBBPBBPBBPBB IBBPBBPBBPBBPBB IBBPBBPBBPBBPBB

The first and the last frame of each group is a so called intra frame or I-frame. I-frames consist of compressed data that reflects the entire video image without regard to previous or subsequent frames. If only I-frames were used, MPEG would be very similar to other compression formats such as MJPEG or DV.

What makes MPEG special compared to these are the other two frames types: P and B.

P-frames do not encode the entire image. Rather, they only contain the differences between the frame content and the previous I-frame. Think of a video clip where a car moves across a static background: a P-frame would only consist of the information "car has moved right", since nothing else has changed from the previous I-frame. This is called a "motion compensation".

Since information about motion is a lot less data than re-encoding the entire image, a P-frame requires—on the average—only approximately 300f the amount of data needed by an I-frame.

The B- or bi-directional frames are calculated from the previous and the following I- or P-frames - they make use of motion that happens backwards or forwards in time. Because of this, the B-frames require only 12.5 11f the amount of data needed by an I-frame.

MPEG takes - in contrast to less advanced CODECs such as MJPEG or DV - advantage of the fact that many times, subsequent frames of a video are not all that different. This makes MPEG much more efficient, meaning less data to reach a given quality level.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Here's some more info from Ulead: http://www.ulead.com/learning/video6/page3.htm

If you want to capture in avi-format, even with compression, I doubt 35 gigs will be enough. It depends on the lenght of your videos, of course. But to do that, you'll need a different program than VideoStudio. It's best for Mpeg.
If you want to go with Mpeg, play around with the settings I mentioned before. And make sure you install the patch for VideoStudio I wrote about.

In essence:
I-frames = Little compression
P-frames = More compression
B-frames = The most compression
You can set P and B to "0" and select "I-frames only".

If that,(I-frames only) and a bitrate of, say 8000 and "Perfomance" set to "15" doesn't give you a really nice looking video, then I'll be very surprised.
Then, all that can explain it is you probably didn't install the patch. Or you capture deinterlaced.

Get well soon! :)

/Swan

[COBBY]

thanks for the reply

hope i am not beocoming a pain in the A**E
i am doing what you said downloading the patch althougth
when i look at mpeg settings there is no ligos logo
so maybe i already have the up date if that is the case i get a lot
of dropped frames at a quality setting of 15 i can set it to 10
and get no dropped frames i will try the patch and use the settings
you surgest.

,(I-frames only) and a bitrate of, say 8000 and "Perfomance" set to "15"

thank again for the advice and info

COBBY

[Swan]

hope i am not beocoming a pain in the A**E
No, no. Sorry if I made you feel that way.

when i look at mpeg settings there is no ligos logo
Ok, if you go to the Ulead page I mentioned in my last post, there's a screen shot of the Mpeg-settings from VideoStudio. If your Mpeg settings window looks like that, then you need the patch.

of dropped frames at a quality setting of 15 i can set it to 10
Yes, I understand. But I have had it set to "8" and got brillant results, so "10" will do nicely.

Cobby, you've never said why the captured video does not look as you expected? What is the problem with it? Large squares in the image, or?

/Swan

[COBBY]

No, no. Sorry if I made you feel that way.
NO you did not make me feel this way i thought that you might be
getting fed up with all the questions
ok i went to the ulead site and downloaded the patch
after installing it i could not capture in mpeg i got a error mesage
saying could not build a mpeg graph so i ended up formating and reinstaling xp basically EVERYTHING went tits up!! ok no drama
every thing is back up and running i can now capture in mpeg
as before i am sure video studio is not using LIGOS i can set
i frames only on the output template but it will not let me set it
under mpeg settings in capture screen the problem with the quality
i am having is slight pixalation when veiwed on my tv set mostley
when the pitcure is stationary
as i said i am not expecting DVD quality just as close to the origanl
vhs as i can get will try some more settings tomorow
i am a bit un sure about installing the patch again i think it must be some thing to do with the drivers for the leadteck capture/video
card

REGARDS COBBY
ps thanks for listening to my iname drivvel !!!!

[Belgabor]

Originally posted by COBBY

if i capture in mpeg2 720x576 using a constant bit rate (6000)the results are NOT BAD but if i capture in avi 720x576 and convert to mpeg2 the results are a lot better only problem is in avi mode i run out of hard drive space after half an hour (35gig aprox)i have a 80 gig drive which i have split using 35gig fore capture


35 Gb should be enough for about 1.5h of avi capture if you capture in YUV2 and use HuffYUV as codec. I capture at 704x576 and get about 16 Gb/h of movie (including 44100 stereo sound uncompressed).

Cheers
Belgabor

[COBBY]

sorry me again

just seen the ligos logo on the web site
i do not have that logo so i should not need the patch
is that correct?

REGARDS Cobby

[RoopeT]

I capture at 704x576 and get about 16 Gb/h of movie (including 44100 stereo sound uncompressed).
How come people have so much different bitrates using huffuv? I capture at 720x576 and get about 30-35 Gb/h (from a VHS source). Even capturing @ 480x576 from television broadcast took about 20 gb/h.

(I just realised I need a 4th HD)

[Mac Sidewinder]

I've noticed that it depends on what program you use (I would think that every program would use the same huffy codec but evidentily they don't). For example, if I cap with vdub YU2 Huffy, 640x480, 48k audio, I average around 25gb per hour. But if I cap with Video Vegas using the same settings it is around 25% larger.

Mac

[^^-+I4004+-^^]

no,no,no,no.........
it always the same huff,but it depends what you feed it with

generally -->more noise=higher bitrate (& poorer compression)

if you have clean source=>lower bitrate (so higher compression)

cheers

Ivo

[Swan]

Originally posted by COBBY

just seen the ligos logo on the web site
i do not have that logo so i should not need the patch
is that correct?



Correctemundo, my friend! You only need it if you have the Ligos filters, because they suck! :D

after installing it i could not capture in mpeg i got a error mesage
Gosh, Cobby. Reinstalling your system was a bit drastic!
I'd have uninstalled VideoStudio, rebooted and installed it from the CD again. Did you go to Ulead's FTP and get the first patch? Or did you download from their web site? That's the second patch and it did me no good. I couldn't capture interlaced after installing it.

i frames only on the output template but it will not let me set it
Not if you're using one of the presets. They're locked. First, when you start the program, select PAL DVD. Then, after you switch to the Capture window, go into the Options drop down, box where you select video format, etc and select Mpeg Settings. In the drop down-box at the top of the window to the left; Change the value there from whatever it is set on to "user defined 1" or "user defined 2". Doesn't matter which one. This will unlock all the locked settings. After you've done that, and changed whatever else you want to change, click the floppy disc icon, under the window where you see your video playing. Save the "project". Next time you start Videostudio, select your project, instead of the Pal DVD preset.

i am having is slight pixalation when veiwed on my tv set mostley
OK. But test to increase the video bitrate. Use only I-frames, does it make a difference? If it does, try using "1" P-frame, etc. Play with the P- and B- frames settings until you have an acceptable-looking video and an acceptable file size too. I'm sure you'll succeed, if you just test, test, test.. :)

Good luck, mate :)

/Swan

[COBBY]

OK tried what you said still wont let me select i frames!
what pacth do i need 6.02 or 6.01 ?
i downloaded 6.02 last time and installed it
this is what gave me the grief! if i need the 6.01 patch how do i get it? on the web site it only looks like you can download the
6.02 patch
also what is the UV6 Effect ENG EXE 75MB download do i need this?



getting frustrated but will not give up !

best regards COBBY

[Swan]

what pacth do i need 6.02 or 6.01 ?
6.01. But only if you have the Ligos filters. What is the version of your copy? Installed from the CD?

if i need the 6.01 patch how do i get it?
ftp://ftp.ulead.com/pub/Updates/VideoStudio6/UVS6PatchEng.exe

also what is the UV6 Effect ENG EXE 75MB download do i need this
I don't know. Probably transition effects or somehing. I doubt you need it.

/Swan

[Belgabor]

Originally posted by RoopeT

How come people have so much different bitrates using huffuv? I capture at 720x576 and get about 30-35 Gb/h (from a VHS source). Even capturing @ 480x576 from television broadcast took about 20 gb/h.

(I just realised I need a 4th HD)

Sounds almost like you're (aka your capturing app) feeds RGB to HuffYUV, what I was referring to is YUV2 source (RGB raw = 2* YUV2 raw, sizewise).

Cheers
Belgabor

[Mac Sidewinder]

Sounds almost like you're (aka your capturing app) feeds RGB to HuffYUV, what I was referring to is YUV2 source (RGB raw = 2* YUV2 raw, sizewise).

Well the difference between vdub and media studio pro is around 25% in filesize using the same settings. Ensuring that I am using YUV2. Do different programs have a different overhead on the files they create?

Mac