I know all this is in here but it's so spread out and I've read it all. I just need to bring it together and ask about my particular situation. I am in the US. I have a bunch of vhs home (very sentimental) movies...no commercial tapes. My goal is to put them on dvd's and leave saved to an external drive. I want them as good as I can get (don't we all?) and have learned a lot but nowhere (understatement) near you guys and my head hurts from just the terminology. I want simple, which doesn't mean no equipment, just a nice clean setup that I don't have to mess with a lot, once I get it set up. I want very good video but it won't be viewed often, more for keepsake, but I do want to be able to enjoy watching it. That being said, here's where I am.
I ordered a jcv 7800, have a AVI tbc, have a USB Wonder thing, and I have an old LG dvd recorder. I also have a Canopus 110 which I purchased when I first started looking into this. I want to record (terms?) to pc or recorder. Not sure which is best. I do not want to spend much time editing video itself, but I do want to add title/location/time, nothing fancy. So, if I record to dvd recorder, would I be able to load that into pc and do that editing and then, burn. Or should I capture to pc? I know there's the issue of capturing as dv, avi or mpg. So, good but simple there. I'm thinking mpeg but I know the Canopus is dv.
Then, once it's in the pc......authoring and editing? I'm not sure I understand the difference. I used to do a lot of video work with Pinnacle and I edited, rendered and burned. I'm thinking I'll get Adobe Premier or Sony Vegas or something similar. I know I can capture with Virtual Dub. And then what? Import into software and do editing, render and burn? I have read about so very many options, and it's very confusing. At this point, I need to boil this all down to a plan, finish getting equipment and get started. So, even though you guys have explained so much of this over and over, please just help me narrow the focus down to the equipment I have and help me create a workflow that I can handle. I do thank you all very much!
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Generally, saving them to your PC with your Canopus would likely be the best for quality and editing. You don't seem to need much editing, but I've always needed to do some, no matter what the original subject is.
Or you could directly record them to MPEG2/DVD format with your DVD recorder. If you wanted to do any editing, you would generally have to demux that, then edit it, then convert it back to MPEG2, then author it to DVD. This would be easy for the DVD recording part. Editing and authoring it back to DVD may cause some quality loss, depending on how you do it.
Not sure what you mean by a 'AVI tbc', they are usually on the output of a DVD player and for analog video that is to be converted to digital formats.
Just to make it clear, a DVD is normally a MPEG2 format. Then you need to 'Author' that to the DVD specification. That creates the DVD structure that every player should recognize. It does have some fairly exact specifications. Look to the top left of this page for 'WHAT IS' DVD.
How many tapes do you have? If a lot, then maybe you would want to streamline this whole process at bit. If just a handful, I would use the ADVC unit. If a lot, maybe the recorder would be faster and/or easier.
Virtual Dub is a good editor for DV format, and has a lot of filters available, but I do add the Cedocida DV Codec if I need to transcribe back to DV. VD filters: http://www.infognition.com/VirtualDubFilters/
Sorry, somewhat rambling, but others here should be able to give more information.
Good luck.Last edited by redwudz; 7th Oct 2014 at 19:23.
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Yep, most people jump in unawares and say that, but it's usually followed by:
In other words you don't want to do much or learn much, but you want a lot in return.
Nope. Can't have both.
Do you mean you have an AVT 8710 frame-level external tbc? I thought you said your videos weren't copy protected, which is what something like the AVT is used for. Might want to clarify why you're using it.
Rather than just waste the ATI TV Wonder, which is one of the better devices nowadays that's optimized for stuff like analog capture, why not put it up for sale? We see posts all the time from people who are desperate for it, if you're talking about the '600 USB' model. If it's a different model, never mind. You can keep the Canopus -- diehard VHS capture fans wouldn't care for it.
Depends on how you record to PC. Recording to a DVD recorder as MPEG or to a PC as MPEG amounts to pretty much the same thing, but neither is all that great for home made vhs especially at the stingy bitrates average consumers use for that kind of recording. Understand, DVD and other lossy encoded structures such as h264 (BluRay/AVCHD) are known as "delivery formats" -- meaning that they are designed for final output, not for lots of intermediate processing and other mods. If you used your TV Wonder USB to capture to lossless AVI to a PC, you'd have your best capture. But I feel certain you won't go there and wouldn't know what to do if you did. You can hook up the Canopus to capture to DV on the PC -- it's not lossless, but many seem satisfied with losing only 10 or 20% of the original data to DV compression and only losing 50% of the color resolution. DV can be edited easier -- a decent budget NLE like SONY Movie Studio Platinum can do it without causing further damage, and can handle lossless captures as well. Either way, you'll have to encode to MPEG, then author the results for disc or standard DVD output. DV is PC playback only, not for disc or external players or the web.
If you record VHS directly to your DVD recorder, you can transfer it to a PC only by burning the results to DVD disc (which means the DVD recorder that does it will also "author" or organize the video into files suitable for DVD). You can copy that disc directly to your PC, but sadly the video will be organized as one or more VOB files rather than a single MPG -- and, besides, recording to MPEG at typical bitrates is a rather inferior way of getting VHS onto your PC. Remember, MPEG is a final delivery format, not play putty. Every change to MPEG means re-encoding, in part if not entirely, which means lossy encoding. Lossy means that what you get out of it is less than what you start with. So, while not-too-lossy and rather noisy DV isn't really the optimum for the color system that VHS uses or for VHS noise and defects, it's better than gradual degradation through a lot of processing with lossy final delivery formats that aren't designed for editing..
You don't. This article might get you started: https://www.videohelp.com/glossary?A#Author
You still have a long way to go, and you don't seem to want to go very far anyway, so don't get into a sweat. Capture to DV with the Canopus, which will take off some of the workload. Stay away from Pinnacle's junkware. Movie Studio Platinum is likely your best bet for working with DV, or even with lossles. You won't have patience for VirtualDub, even though capturing with it to lossless AVI is still the "best way".Last edited by LMotlow; 7th Oct 2014 at 23:36.
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To: Redwuz. First, Thank you very much. As to TBC, I have read over and over that you should use a tbc with your player so that's why I bought one. I thought it was to improve the signal coming out of the vcr. I bought a Panasonic 1980 about a year ago from a local guy, no clue how good it is. I just order from ebay a JVC 7800. That's what I hope to use. As to "authoring" I will look it up and read more. But, just to clarify (I have in the past. used Pinnacle for some video work) is that the equivalent of "rendering" in their lingo? If, so I understand it. I've just heard "authoring" and "editing" and could not tell for sure the exact functions. I do understand editing, just wasn't sure how they worked together. Thank you very much for your response and for not talking down to me!
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To LMotlow: Again, thanks for responding. I guess I didn't express myself very well. I don't need perfection or a ton of tweaking. I am very willing to learn and read which I have spent many, many hours doing. It's just a lot to take in. What I mean by simple, was just to come to a final workflow and get it nicely set up. I will never reach your level as you would never reach my level in my world. But, I'm simply asking for help to get far enough to save some precious memories. The reason I bought the TBC is that I had read over and over in these threads that it was needed to improve the signal. I do have the USB 600 and am happy to use that. I was just looking for some advice on which way to go. I bought the Canopus early on, then the USB later so I just need to decide which path would be better. Thanks for your response
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There is some confusion above about using a Time Base Corrector (TBC) when transferring VHS or 8mm or Beta tapes to digital format (including transfer to DVD).
Yes, a similar circuit is used in the equipment that you used to be able to buy which would defeat the Macrovision copy protection that was included on some commercial VHS videotapes. Macrovision "protected" the tape from copying by reducing the strength of the timing signals which are included between each frame (and each scan line) of video, and which help line up the video with what the original camera generated. A TBC regenerates those signals using the residual timing information that is found over several frames of video, and produces a very stable video result.
With VHS tapes, Macrovision almost isn't needed because the timing signals are not all that great to begin with, and you often get lousy playback even with your own tapes. When you play back your own tapes, that you recorded yourself, you will often see "flagging" (a bend in the video to the right or left, usually at the top of the screen) or herring bone patterns where each scan line does not properly align with the previous line. There is also sometimes jitter from one frame to the next.
These problems can be eliminated with a good time base corrector.
Notice that I said "good:" TBCs are definitely not generic, and some work, and some don't. A good one is generally pretty expensive (hundreds, or even thousands of dollars) when purchased separately, and when included inside of something else, like a piece of capture hardware, it adds quite a bit to the cost of the unit.
The difference in the quality of the capture when using a TBC can sometimes be quite substantial, and the improvement cannot be done instead by using software after the capture, although some have tried:
New Script: Software TBC 0.6 & Sample (was Fast Line Shifter 0.53)
Finally, some of the time base problems can be corrected by properly adjusting the tracking control on the VCR. The "auto" tracking usually works, but often it does not, especially on EP (6-hour mode) tapes, and you have to adjust the tracking manually, often changing that adjustment during playback. I have even had to capture some tapes two or three times, with the tracking adjusted differently each time, then later combining them together in my editing program to take the best result from each capture.
Proper tracking control is not a substitute for TBC, and the two are different things. TBC cannot correct tracking errors. I brought it up simply because bad tracking can also screw up the timing, and in addition to the horizontal bands of complete garbage that you will get when the tracking is off, you will also get some timing errors as well.
If your tape is in really good condition, and you have a good VCR, the TBC sometimes doesn't make much improvement and therefore may seem to not be needed. However, if you have more than a handful of tapes to transfer, you will be very happy to have the TBC. -
Thanks. I bought this based on reading lots of posts that recommended it. IT's the AVT 8710. I'm not deal with any copyright issues. These are movies I recorded, mostly. My daughter was a performer, so some of them are copies from local theatres but no copyrights. They are just home movies, basically. All of my movies that I have taken are going to be the shortest play. I always did what I could to make them the best when shooting and they have been well cared for. Some were purchased (as a copy of the original) from shows where a good professional did the recording. But most of my other copies are, I'm sure, dubbed from just a regular video camera. Then, as I said, all of my personal tapes were created under the best circumstances I had, good tapes, good cameras, short play, etc. I do have quite a few, maybe 50 or so. Thanks, again.
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Thanks for the clarifications. Just to make it simple,
I would suggest using the Canopus, probably the TBC and using the computer to do the transfer and editing.
I'm not that familiar with the Canopus 110, but I used WinDV for transferring DV to my computer with my ADVC-100
I always liked to edit DV using VirtualDub Mod with the Cedocida DV Codec to output the temporary edited DV files.
If you need audio cleanup, save out the audio file in WAV format from VD Mod and open in Audacity, then after audio editing, mux back into VD Mod.
I would suggest re-encoding the audio to a more compact format like AC3. Audacity can do that. Audio editing is done before video editing.
From there, you just need to convert the files to MPEG2, author them to the DVD specification and burn to disc with Imgburn.
Generally you want to encode two hours or less for a DVD to get good quality.
You might try AVStoDVD for the encoding and authoring as it can simplify some of this.
I've done quite a few VHS>DVD conversion years ago with a ADVC-100, no TBC, and the other listed software and they came out very well.
But most of the tapes were made on the same VHS deck that I used for output to the ADVC. When you use a different deck than the source one,
then a TBC really helps to clean up the video most times.
I used QuEnc encoder then and authored with TMPGEnc DVD Author. The last is payware, but there are freeware authoring programs available.
Authoring can get involved if you want fancy title pages, etc., but the basics are easy enough.
Anyway, try out a few of the programs suggested in this thread and you should be able to find the system that works for you.
Some programs have a bit of a steep learning curve, but just take your time and ask more questions if needed. -
Your TBC model looks like it should do the trick.
When I looked at reviews for your TBC, it is clear that most people who buy it still don't really know what it is supposed to do, and which video problems it is going to fix. There are 1,000 ways for your video to be screwed up, and the TBC is only going to improve about five of these. You can do your own search, but a quick search turned up the following page, showing some of the corrections one person was able to make to his videos. About halfway down the page he provides some really excellent "before/after" snapshots showing the most obvious improvements that a TBC can make. Look carefully at those two examples, and if any of your video looks like that, you can expect to see a big improvement.
Remember, you have to scroll halfway down the page to see the Time Base Correction examples:
Video Time Base Correction -
Just found a really good YouTube video that perfectly demonstrates what a TBC can, and cannot, do. The before is on the right, which is not the usual way to do it. Note the "flagging" at the top of the screen in some of the examples. This is one of the two classic TBC problems.
Last edited by johnmeyer; 8th Oct 2014 at 13:22. Reason: Added sentence about the "before" being on the right side.
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Yes, I see exactly what you mean. Thanks so much for researching this and helping me. I'm looking forward to my player coming in so I can set everything up and give it a try.
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Unfortunately not. The AVT-8710 is a full frame TBC - fundamentally a frame sync with a proc amp. It does not perform the kind of correction you have explained - that is instead performed by a line TBC as found in high end VCRs (and many other devices). Like the exact ones he already has:
Those VCRs are both fully capable of line correction, in other words stabilising the picture (via their TBC switch). On the other hand, they can't regenerate the signal as a full frame TBC like AVT-8710 can, but depending on your capture device, full frame correction can be done without.
Now read this part carefully, as I do not want to add any more confusion, but it's important that you know this. As I explained, your VCRs already have line TBCs in them that will straighten out your picture. The AVT-8710 does not do that, and the reason most people use it is to bypass copy protection - which you also don't need. On top of that, it is a failure of a product and has many documented problems; the recommendations you read are likely from years back when it had an older chip. Anybody still recommending it today is wasting people's time and money. Want my advice? Return it or sell it.
I do have more advice to offer but will give you time to digest that info first.