VHS to DVD Capture Wisdom

[GregK]

I've read many, many posts here and on other boards. My questions aren't about the mechanical process but more just some opinions. I have a dozen or so VHS tapes of my kids and probably 30 Hi-8 tapes. These are personal videos nothing from TV or the such. Particularly with the VHS tapes they're getting older and already are fading and/or have dropouts. I'd like to capture these tapes and store them on DVD where the digital copy won't degrade. The issue is in the capture and getting the best possible image. I have a Sony DV camcorder. It allows me to bring the input from my VCR or to directly play my Hi-8 tapes and to send these to my computer as DV. I also have an ATI All-in-Wonder 8500DV. I typically use Pinnacle Studio 8 for capture, via the Firewire, not the ATI AIW capture capabilities. I captured in DV which I thought was the best possible quality, no compression, simply 30 frames of 640x480 JPG's (or is it 480x480) per second. It's amazing with actual DV tapes but looks horrible with my VHS capture. Another option with Studio 8 is to capture in MPEG. It seems to actually capture in DV or something but then does a sort of on-the-fly conversion to MPEG. Looks far better. I created a DVD of one of the DV captures from VHS and it didn't look horrible but it wasn't as good as the MPEG capture. I haven't played much with the ATI AIW MPEG capture.

So, my question is simple. What advice or suggestions might someone have for the best capture quality? As it stands I'll probably stick with the Studio 8 ---> MPEG capture, but I'd be interested to hear if I'm missing something. This capture method has my VCR connected to my Sony DV camcorder which then outputs to the computer (presumably in DV) through the firewire port. Am I better off with capture through the ATI AIW with some other program. I know all of this is about what someone 'feels' is best but I'd love to hear the opinions of some that have gone before me. The videos are pretty precious to me and I'd like to do this right.

Thank you,

[mastersmurfie]

I use an ATI AIW 128 PRO (MUCH MUCH older card than the one you have) to capture VHS tapes to DVD quality MPEG2. I use ATI MMC 7.6, with standard DVD quality settings, with my VCR hooked through either the RCA inputs or the cable connector. My experience has been so far with only pre-recorded movies, but the quality is somewhat equal to or better than the original VHS. Capturing this way, there is no need to reencode to DVD quality, as you should be able to use your DVD authoring software to create the DVD files directly from the MPEG2. If the movie (or whatever) turns out to be too long to fit onto one DVD, after authoring, I shrink it with InstantCopy. Doesn't lose too much quality, and makes it fit onto one DVD-R to be played in my standalone DVD player. The ATI MMC captures in real-time, and converting to DVD files takes a while, but so far, I have put several of my old VHS movies onto DVD and experienced few problems. Just my opinion. Try capturing through the ATI and see what you think. I think you'll be pleased with the end results.

[MrKGB]

If the videos are precious to you, don't hurry !
Try to make just one tape with highest quality.

Capturing directly into mpeg is not a great idea.
It is better to capture into avi with huffy or mipeg codec, edit it using VDUB, then encode using tmpgenc or CCE or mainconcept.

[housepig]

I agree with Mr. KGB.

Unless you have some serious dedicated MPEG encoding on your card, you will probably have better results capturing to a low-loss format (like Huffyuv .avi) and then encoding your mpeg.

I notice a significant difference in captures direct to mpeg vs. huffyuv reencodes. My card just doesn't have the juice, and the direct mpegs are kinda soft looking and lacking sharpness and definition.

By contrast, the VHS captures done as huffyuv .avi and reencoded with TMPGenc look gorgeous.

[Bob W]

If the videos are precious to you, don't hurry !
Try to make just one tape with highest quality.

Capturing directly into mpeg is not a great idea.
It is better to capture into avi with huffy or mipeg codec, edit it using VDUB, then encode using tmpgenc or CCE or mainconcept.

Well I agree that may be the best possible method for the best quality. However I have very good results just capturing as DVD compatible mpeg2 directly through my AVer capture card using NeoDVD plus software plus. Then NeoDVD is lightning fast to convert the captured file into DVD files. The resulting sound and picture quality on my JVC 48 inch is every bit as good as the source VHS tape IMO.