VHS to DVD conversion - Am I expecting too much?

JeremyIrons · Member Joined: 14 Nov 2004 Location: Ottawa

Super info. I have been researching a lot of this stuff and have experimented ad nauseum. Its great to know there is a common interest.

For all the widgets and tools out there to create DVD's from scratch check out a tool called DVD Author. It's tuned for software developers, but give it a look anyway. It's a whole new way to look at DVD content creation and authoring.
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Convert VHS to DVD

the wordsmith · Member Joined: 06 Jan 2004 Location: Toronto

I am getting the hang of TDA quite nicely. I do have one question if anyone knows the answer. I did a capture using UMF 2 and the file got split in two as it was just over 90 minutes. How do I join the two pieces back together in TDA once I have removed the commercials and so forth?

So far, the program accepted the two clips, and I have done all the editing. The chapter summary now shows six chapters totalling about 80 minutes, but the program is still telling me that it is too large for a standard disc. The original MPEGs were pulled down at the UMF 90 minute template, so even though the original file was oversized, the edited content should not need to be re-rendered, should it?

More to the point, I would have liked to rejoin the two clips before I started editing, since the split took place at a critical moment in the content.

ZippyP. · Member Joined: 14 Nov 2002 Location: Lotus Land

If you put each clip into the same track in TDA then they will play one after the other. If the DVD is just a little oversize then you can go ahead and create an oversize DVD on your hard drive and then use DVDShrink to get it to fit.

Oh, and you would have been better off starting your own thread for your question. It's not polite to threadjack.
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the wordsmith · Member Joined: 06 Jan 2004 Location: Toronto

OH · Member Joined: 28 Sep 2000

This is what i tested today with my son`s vhs cartoon:

AVI file captered true my JVC DV cam:

mpeg2 file after encoded with tmpgenc, and playing with some of the filters.

lordsmurf · Posted: Feb 26, 2005 10:11

You over-filtered. Common mistake. Pull back a bit there. 20-1-20 would have been fine in TMPG. This image is also full of what appears to be deinterlace jaggies.
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digitalFAQ.com Guides for video capturing, restoring, authoring, burning. ATI AIW help.
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OH · Member Joined: 28 Sep 2000

The soure is interlaced, and I haven`t used the de-interlacing filter since this was for my PAL TV.

This is with 20 -1 - 20 setting.

lordsmurf · Posted: Feb 28, 2005 02:44

That looks quite decent. I'd not filter any more. Maybe 40-1-40 or 40-2-40 at most. You don't want to overdo it, not at all. You get "plastic" artifacts otherwise.
_________________
digitalFAQ.com Guides for video capturing, restoring, authoring, burning. ATI AIW help.
NoMoreCoasters.com How to avoid burning bad discs. Blank media FAQ.

burdell1 · Member Joined: 18 Dec 2002 Location: Minnesota

I know it technically is not supposed to matter, but would it make a difference when transferring VHS to DVD if I use a VCR that has S-Video output? The videos are standard VHS, but I was thinking that might make it look a little bit more like the original if I use a VCR with S-Video output. However, I don't want to buy one unless that is true.

winifreid · Member Joined: 20 Sep 2003 Location: United States

Don't all VCRs have S-video, now? There is some difference Between each connector: cable<RCA<S-video<component, but not night and day.

Cole · Posted: Apr 07, 2005 12:04

spectroelectro · Member Joined: 17 Jul 2003

Once again gshelley and smurf hit the nail on the head, not to mention vhelp. I also use a JVC DRm10, a proc amp, a Vidicraft Detailer, and a TBC. If you add to the mix a high-quality VCR that does digital noise reduction you can not only duplicate the video quality of a VHS source, you can significantly improve on it. Noise reduction takes place all along the chain -- in the VCR if you use a good one, like the JVC W808 or the earlier M784/785 series or the JVC 2911 or earlier 9800 series; and noise reduction also takes place courtesy of the proc amp by cutting down on the sharpness control a little; and the JVC DRm10 itself does some noise reduction courtesy of its LSI chip. When you throw in a Vidicraft Detailer, the net result is a DVD that lacks much of the chroma noise in the original VHS tape but has enhanced fine detail present but not visible in the original VHS master. The best of both worlds.

Personally, I like the depth and richness of a good VHS-to-DVD conversion. There's something about the rich range of grays and, with a BVP-4 or adjustment to black level in a cap card like the AIW, the dark blacks in a high-quality processed VHs-to-DVD conversion done correctly, that reminds me of analog film...as opposed to the icy digital clarity of a straight DVD capture from digital cable. The slight blurring you get in a high-quality VHS-to-DVD conversion can often improve B&W material IMHO, especially old B&W movies. Digital cable tends to occupy pretty high hands in the cable range and sad to say, these all-digital channels often get oversaturated so that you get some slight visible macroblocking on some digital cable channels. In my area, for example, Turner Classic Movies shows visible moving pixelation and slight gray-level zoning like a poor-quality 16-bit video codec and this is particularly noticeable with old B&W noir films. I much prefer my own VHS-to-DVD conversions of old B&W noir films rather than the JVC DRM10-capped straight-from-digital-cable versions.

stillmars321 · Member Joined: 20 Mar 2003 Location: california

I have been using the new Sony DVD-Direct stand-alone unit.

I plug my camcorder or VCR to it and the images have come out superb. It encodes and burns to DVD on the fly. No pixels with capturing problems.

Mz_Nextel · Member Joined: 27 Jul 2004 Location: NYC

I have a dazzle converter, I turn one of my tapes to dvd, But I didn't save it to my HD, I tried to make a copy of the same dvd that I made using the pennicle software that it came with, but I keep getting the disc has an error, do anyone know why I am having this problem or should I have saved it to my hard drive and then burn it to dvd from there using another program

JeremyIrons · Member Joined: 14 Nov 2004 Location: Ottawa

jah2 · Member Joined: 20 Jan 2004

I am also trying to capture some VHS tapes to DVD. The problem I'm having is a very noticeable horizonal comb affect caused by the interlaced source, noticeable when there is lots of movement. Other than this show stopping problem, the capture looks pretty good.

I'm using an ATI Theater pro 550 TV/capture card (the Saphire clone). I've tried several capture programs starting with Nerovision Express but I've also tried AMCap, VirtualVCR and the new version of Virtualdub. The interlace jaggies were present no matter which capture program I used. The tapes are commercial pre-recorded VHS tapes and the VCR is a JVC HR-S9911U. At first I used the s-video output from the VCR to the capture card but then tried it with composite. I had read on techreport.com that the Theater Pro "comb filter can only be used for composite and coaxial video input, not S-Video". After doing a little reading on here it looks like s-video output is the way to go but regardless, the interlace jaggies are present with either output. I'm doing the capture on my spare computer which is actually a little faster than my primary. It's an Athlon XP +3200 being captured to a Maxtor Onetouch USB drive. I shut down everything but the capture and bump the capture program's priority up to "high". Nerovision Express wasn't showing me dropped frames but Virtualdub was reporting an occasional dropped frame although not many. That Maxtor drive is 300 gigs so I was capturing to an uncompressed AVI. I'm capturing at 720x480. Even if I wanted to capture at a lower resolution I can't seem to get any of the capture programs to let me set it lower than 704x480. I think that the card may not support lower resolutions. To create the DVD-ready mpeg I'm using Premier Pro 1.0 which includes the Mainconcept mpeg encoder. I also have the Dolby Digital audio encoder plugin. I do a two-pass vbr encode with an average bitrate of 6000. It takes around 24 hours for 90 minutes of video. The mpeg encoding info is really irrelevant to the problem though, I have it before doing the mpeg encoding and naturally it's still present afterwards. I'm watching the final product on a Toshiba SD-6200 DVD player and a Hitachi 53" rear projection HDTV. The horizonal comb effect is worse on this big HDTV, granted, but only because the TV is showing more detail than a smaller, regular TV.

Anybody have any advice on how to get rid of the interlace jaggies? Like I said before, if it weren't for this the capture would look pretty decent. The jaggies definitely make the quality of the capture unacceptable though. How can I get rid of it? The pic below is an example of how it looks. This is not one of my VHS captures, it's just some video I grabbed off digital cable when running some test captures. Regardless though, this is exactly how it looks when I do my VHS captures. I am NOT trying to deinterlace my captures at any stage of the process, by the way...

offline · incognito Joined: 05 Jun 2002 Location: Mondo Caine

jah2 · Member Joined: 20 Jan 2004

2prfm.com · Member Joined: 07 Jul 2005 Location: Sydney, Australia

very helpful article above, thanks.... Always wondered why my vhs dubs looked so blotchy, (colour override) (firey faces and yellowish trees, that actually should be green). The only bit rate that works for me is 9000kps at 720x576 through Sony Vegas 4. One hour of video per disc )-: )-: Looks like i'll be waiting for HD-DVD, before I'll transfer my vhs's to dvd!!!!! I'm in australia and I haven't seen them yet on the shelf, are HD-DVD burners popping up in shops up there in the states yet?? I believe these have about 50 GIG of storage per disc. You should then get at least five hours of high quality video per disc.

xenon1nonex1 · Member Joined: 19 Sep 2002 Location: australia

after a long battle with different capture cards getting the same old result , poor transfers
I tried these ADS Pyroa/link with a Sima SCC corrector Adobe premier software
encode MPG and go for the best quality dont worry about the time.
then usingTMPGenc 3xp this makes dvd into Pal or ntsc.
menu and set up with DVDlabpro
if it still to long record to the hard drive
Now the test burn the first part on top quality 1 rewritable disc.
then use DVD shrink to a second rewritable and then watch both on the TV .
IT is hard to pick the difference

But the best way is to get a sony hi end recorder and the does a much finer job without all the work.

Now for my good words , I need a bit of help
after a crash I cant get the sound to record
its recording in the small windows record program , but not the capture porgrams.
. line is activated and the sound volume is contrable strange

rwlbowl · Member Joined: 26 Feb 2006 Location: United States

I bought a HP Movie Maker hp3000 external DVD/CD burner and used HP software and the drive will hook up directly to your VHS player and will do all what you want it to do along with editing. It is a older drive and the newer one is HP4000. It uses the red, white , yellow and s-video cable to hook up to it and a usb to hook up to your computer and the software will do the rest of captureing and burining. Used to to put parts of 5 different VHS tapes togather into one DVD. Hope this works for you. Just an idea.

SingSing · Member Joined: 30 Apr 2001 Location: U.S.A.

SingSing · Member Joined: 30 Apr 2001 Location: U.S.A.

Jasper-e · Member Joined: 23 Apr 2006 Location: Netherlands

I'm using this method to convert my Hi8 tapes to DVD
http://dvdguide.ennik.com

I think the same method should work fine for VHS