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  1. Ok, so I'm transferring my vhs-c home movies to dvd. I'm capturing with virtualdub 720x480 and huffyuv codec. These tapes are only 30 minutes and they,re getting split up into like 7 or 8 3 1/2 minute 1.93gb avi files. I'm afraid of there being a slight pause in between files. Plus it's filling up my hard drive really fast. Is this because of my codec? Would picvideo be better? I know my resolution is high, but most of the tutorials use this. Plus, I've tried around 320 or 352 or whatever vhs res is, but it didn't look nearly as good. I'm getting like 15gb for a half hour of video. Any advice would be appreciated.
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  2. Member hech54's Avatar
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    It sounds like you have an NTFS - FAT32 problem of your hard drive for starters.
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  3. my hard drive is formatted with ntfs.
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  4. Member turk690's Avatar
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    Your sort of red flag is the use of the HuffYUV codec, with its high capture bitrate. But this doesn't answer how or why capture seems to be in 2GB chunks, when you have NTFS.
    What capture system do you have?? What I'd do is pass the VHS-C deck outputs through a DV device (camcorder with AV in or DV capture h/w like those from Canopus) to a FireWire connector on the PC and use WinDV to capture with. DV *.avi files are about 25mb/s, in which a 1hr capture will result in a 13.5GB file.
    For the nth time, with the possible exception of certain Intel processors, I don't have/ever owned anything whose name starts with "i".
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  5. Member 2Bdecided's Avatar
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    That file size is normal for uncompressed video.

    It's a good starting point for further processing.


    VirtualDub shouldn't be introducing gaps when it splits the files - it's a fairly basic feature of VDub. IIRC it can be disabled (I'm surprised it's on by default on NTFS - it's not here).

    Cheers,
    David.
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  6. If this is a good starting point, what is my next step? Do I separate the audio file and then encode with tmpgenc? This won't make the files any smaller, will it? And how do I put all the files together without there being gaps?
    Last edited by adhawk76; 22nd Feb 2010 at 13:31.
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  7. Member 2Bdecided's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by adhawk76 View Post
    If this is a good starting point, what is my next step? Do I separate the audio file and then encode with tmpgenc? This won't make the files any smaller, will it?
    Yes, of course it will.

    No need to separate the audio - TMGPEnc will happily take both audio and video from the same file. (Unless you have some other purpose in mind).

    Beware of encoding interlaced content to x264 - not many players support it properly. You'll be fine with MPEG-2.

    Depends what you intend to do with your captures.

    Cheers,
    David.
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  8. I have version 1.9.8 of virtualdub. How do I get it to not split in 2gb files? My hard drive is ntfs, I checked. In vdub, if I click on 'capture' and scroll down to 'capture drives', where it says 'try not to create avi files larger than', the biggest it lets me enter is 2048mb. how do i disable this feature?

    So, should I use tmpgenc instead of x264. It seems easier and it encodes right to mpeg2. I want to burn these to dvd.
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  9. Member 2Bdecided's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by adhawk76 View Post
    So, should I use tmpgenc instead of x264.
    Yes.

    Pick one of the DVD profiles. Use a high bitrate.

    Many people would suggest doing some processing before encoding though. Capturing to lossless and then using TMPGEnc is kind of a waste otherwise - you might as well just use a stand-alone DVD recorder - far quicker! Comparable quality if the recorder is decent.

    Cheers,
    David.
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  10. What do you mean by processing? I'm also trying not to spend any money, so I'm not going to buy a standalone dvd recorder
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  11. Member 2Bdecided's Avatar
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    Processing = de noise, colour correcting, etc etc et in VirtualDub or AVIsynth.

    e.g. see this thread:
    https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/316521-Help-the-beginner-time-VHS-TBC-ADVC300-PC

    Cheers,
    David.
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    Originally Posted by adhawk76 View Post
    I have version 1.9.8 of virtualdub. How do I get it to not split in 2gb files? My hard drive is ntfs, I checked. In vdub, if I click on 'capture' and scroll down to 'capture drives', where it says 'try not to create avi files larger than', the biggest it lets me enter is 2048mb. how do i disable this feature?
    From capture menu see:

    Stop conditions

    Name:  Stop.png
Views: 985
Size:  7.0 KB

    Captures drives..

    Click image for larger version

Name:	Spill.png
Views:	622
Size:	8.3 KB
ID:	517
    Also see "Enable multisegment capture"
    Last edited by danno78; 24th Feb 2010 at 04:53.
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  13. ok, so i just unchecked "enable multisegment capture". It worked! So, now I have one file that is 12gb for 1/2 an hour. Thank goodness. I finally made some progress. I'm now going to encode with tmpgenc and hopefully it shrinks it to something i can work with. I'm going to use 9000 bitrate. Is this really going to bring it down to around 2gb? This is what I what I would need to put 1 hour on a dvd, right? Do I need to convert the audio to AC3 after encoding with tmpgenc?
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  14. Originally Posted by adhawk76 View Post
    I have one file that is 12gb for 1/2 an hour... encode with tmpgenc... 9000 bitrate. Is this really going to bring it down to around 2gb?
    Yes.

    Originally Posted by adhawk76 View Post
    This is what I what I would need to put 1 hour on a dvd, right?
    Yes.

    Originally Posted by adhawk76 View Post
    Do I need to convert the audio to AC3 after encoding with tmpgenc?
    Yes. Unless you have an AC3 plugin for tmpgenc.
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  15. Ok, so I have made a lot of progress. I got virtualdub to capture into to one file by unchecking 'enable multisegmenting'. I encoded with tmpgenc plus at 9000 bitrate with the picvideo codec and it shrunk it down to a little less than 2gb. I stripped the wav out of the avi with virtualdub. I authored with tmpgenc dvd author 1.6 and burned with nero.

    I only have a couple of complaints: My video quality isn't as good as the original vhs-c tapes on a vcr. It's slightly pixalated (blocky). I tried a second run with 'noise reduction' and 'soften block noise' on. It made it less blocky but a little more blurry(fuzzy). I also have huffyuv and lagarith codecs but haven't tried them yet. I actually tried capturing with huffyuv once and then used dvd flick but it wouldn't play on my dvd player at all, but I haven't tried it with the much longer process yet. I tried lagarith once, but 'vlc media player' wouldn't play it, but I haven't tried burning it. Should I try one of these other codecs? Should I encode with another program? Or, am I just expecting to much?

    My main complaint is with the audio. I let tmpgenc dvd author encode to ac3 with one file and another I left at pcm, although it said it that it still had to encode the audio, but I think it stayed pcm. Both of these when played on my dvd player have a very 'tinny', digitized sound. It's more annoying than the video not being perfect. Should I use a different program to convert the audio?

    I really appreciate all of the help you guys have been giving me. Thanks!
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    If you get a tinny digitised sound, that's sometimes due to the frequency being converted at some point along the line. Check what sample rate you are capturing at in virtualdub (should be 48KHz) and ensure that you set this as the sample rate in whatever prog you are using to convert to ac3.

    Nick
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  17. I was capturing with virtualdub from the vhs at 44100hz. When I was converting to ac3 with tmpgenc dvd author, I was using 48000hz. I will try capturing from the vhs with 48000hz and hopefully this will fix the tinny audio.

    Does anyone have any thoughts about the video codecs? I just tried capturing with lagarith and it wouldn't play the avi on 'vlc media player' and it was super slow on 'windows media player'. I will try encoding it with tmpgenc and see how the finished product turns out. I'm using an old version of 'tmpgenc plus'. Should I use 'tmpgenc express' or a different program altogether?
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  18. Lagarith, like other lossless codecs, isn't meant as a storage and playback format. It's more for intermediate files. It can be too CPU intensive for smooth playback. VLC doesn't include a lagarith decoder and it can't use system installed codecs.

    I would use HcEnc or HcEncGUI for MPEG encoding.
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  19. Ok, so I fixed the audio problem. I captured at 48000 and converted to ac3 at 48000 and the finished product sounds great!

    I also used lagarith and my finished dvd looks much better. These are old vhs-c home videos and when the camera was held still, the video looks exactly like the original vhs. When the camera is being moved around a lot, there are these horizontal lines through the images. I thought it was blocky at first, but I looked looked really close in vdub and they're actually lines through things and edges of things are jagged. Are there any filters in virtualdub that could help with this? Does deinterlacing help with this? I don't want it to blur the scenes that already look good(i.e. when the camera was held still. Just during motion).
    Last edited by adhawk76; 2nd Mar 2010 at 19:25.
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  20. Video Restorer lordsmurf's Avatar
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    DO NOT DEINTERLACE if you're making DVDs. You need to read this whole page: http://www.digitalfaq.com/guides/video/capture-understand-sources.htm -- interlacing about halfway down.
    Want my help? Ask here! (not via PM!)
    FAQs: Best Blank DiscsBest TBCsBest VCRs for captureRestore VHS
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  21. Member 2Bdecided's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by lordsmurf View Post
    DO NOT DEINTERLACE if you're making DVDs. You need to read this whole page: http://www.digitalfaq.com/guides/video/capture-understand-sources.htm -- interlacing about halfway down.
    While I absolutely agree that you shouldn't deinterlace genuine interlaced footage (such as home movies) for DVD, and agree that too many people mindlessly deinterlace their footage (usually to 25p or 30p, losing half the temporal resolution) I think the interlacing discussion on that page is poor. It misses the point that converting 50i to 50p for PC use is a very good idea - and there are plenty of good deinterlacers which are slower than real time, so can't be used during playback - the only way to use them is to convert your footage.

    Cheers,
    David.
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  22. OK, I'm not going to deinterlace. I tried using some filters on virtualdub and it wanted to turn my 12gb file into 56gb. Is this normal? I can't spare that much hard drive space. Should I not even bother these filters? Are they a bad idea? If they're not a bad idea, wouldn't my end file be way too big even after encoding?
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  23. Select a compression codec and configure it: Video -> Compression..., select codec, press the Configure button.
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  24. Video Restorer lordsmurf's Avatar
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    Pick HuffYUV or another lossless.
    Want my help? Ask here! (not via PM!)
    FAQs: Best Blank DiscsBest TBCsBest VCRs for captureRestore VHS
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  25. I'm talking about after already capturing with lagarith. I wanted to use a filter in virtualdub in non-capture mode before I encode.
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  26. You must compress again. The process of filtering involve first decompressing the video, filtering, and finally compression again. If you don't select a codec for outout you will get uncomrpessed RGB -- about 117 GB/hr.
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  27. OK, I will try that. Thanks.
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