vhs to dvd or (s)vcd picture quality

[vrdvd]

Hello.

I have some questions concerning the quality of picture that can be authored to dvd recordable media. I'm considering purchasing a phillips dvd+r/rw drive to begin authoring my own dvds and shifting some old vhs shows to disc media. As i still have much to read on this subject, my first question is whether the picture quality from a vhs tape (1st gen tv cable recording) would be better suited to recording to a vcd or even svcd disc?

My concern is preserving the picture quality as best as possible. Would authoring to dvd be overkill? What i mean is that I know vhs cannot come close to dvd quality, rather i would be able to fit an enitre season of a show on 1 dvd. But would this type of conversion be more economically served by cd-r? Can the best vhs recording be reproduced by svcd or even vcd?

Thanks for any insight.

[EddyH]

According to the resolution faq i accidentally happened across a few minutes ago (no, really), it may be worth your while seeing if your player can handle "CVD"... it should do...

It's SVCD/miniDVD using the same "half" horizontal resolution as VCD - i.e. 352 pixels across, but full SVCD/DVD vertical resolution (480, 576 pixels). It's pretty much exactly the same as the native S/VHS resolution laid down in the standards for the players, recorders, media, etc, so you'll get the best possible picture without wasting any bits. After all, you should be able to use half the bitrate you otherwise might with DVD

(which equates to ~45-50 minutes on a CDR, or maybe 5 hours of good quality video on a DVD)