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  1. I have a new iMac 27" Core i5 that I purchased mainly to start digitizing and editing videos, including the old 80s VHS family movies. I have one of those S-Video to USB cables so my VCR is connected directly to my Mac. The software that came with it is called "Empia Capture" - the instructions suggest capturing with Empia then importing the capture into iMovie for editing (and indeed, I can't find a way of doing it directly into iMovie, so that's what I've done)

    The capture options in Empia seem to be very good - A large number of compression options and a "No compression" option - which is what I've been using because my aim is for the highest quality captures - computing power and storage aren't a big issue for me.

    However I'm having some serious interlacing issues with the capture. I've read somewhere that this is because it's being displayed on an LCD screen and that problem isn't likely to still be there once it's on a DVD being played on a TV. Is that true? And what about if the TV displaying it is also a flat panel LCD/plasma?

    iMovie has a "Export using Quicktime" option that allows you to deinterlace the source video but all that seems to have done is zoomed in the video (outer edges have been cut off) and very minimal deinterlacing. It still looks bad. And I don't really want it exported to a Quicktime format to begin with.

    Basically, my aim with these videos is to have a highest-quality/no compression capture to be kept in archival storage, then convert these captures to DVDs and possibly high-quality streamed video (for family overseas). From the bit of research I've done, it seems like I'll need different captures/compressions for each of these.

    Can anyone talk me through how to capture these videos in the highest possible quality, then how to get these into high quality DVDs/streams?

    Thanks in advance.
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  2. Originally Posted by genkiness View Post
    I'm having some serious interlacing issues with the capture. I've read somewhere that this is because it's being displayed on an LCD screen and that problem isn't likely to still be there once it's on a DVD being played on a TV. Is that true?
    Yes, if you make the DVD correctly TVs will display it without any interlace comb artifacts.

    Originally Posted by genkiness View Post
    And what about if the TV displaying it is also a flat panel LCD/plasma?
    No problem, all TVs are designed to handle interlaced video.

    Originally Posted by genkiness View Post
    Basically, my aim with these videos is to have a highest-quality/no compression capture to be kept in archival storage
    I don't know your capture application but the files you get from the camcorder should run about 13 GB/hr. That will be an exact copy of the digital data that's stored on the tape. If you're not getting that size something is wrong.

    Originally Posted by genkiness View Post
    then convert these captures to DVDs and possibly high-quality streamed video (for family overseas).
    You'll want a proper deinterlace for streamed video.
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  3. Member edDV's Avatar
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    Some observations.

    1. Capture - I'm unaware of the Empia Capture software. Normally iMac uses DV format settings for SD video.

    2. Interlace - VHS video will show interlace split lines in iMovie. The Mac can output interlace timeline preview on the Firewire port. You can connect this to a DV camcorder or transcoder, then feed S-Video from the camcorder to a normal TV for proper preview.

    3. Output - Best archive option from iMovie would be DV format. I suggest you consider Roxio Toast for authoring a DVD. iDVD is very limited.
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