VHS to DVD capture questions

[Yirkin]

Hi, I have a bunch of anime VHS tapes that I am converting to DVD just for a learning experience.

What I have been doing is capturing them at 640x480 29.976 fps in VirtualDub using the huffy codec and PCM audio. I then run them through TMPEnc Plus.

The guides have been really helpful, but I haven't found answers to all my questions in them.

1) Should I be capturing them in 720x480 instead of 640x480? I figured that 640x480 is a standard 4:3 resolution and that TMPEnc would stretch the 640 to 720 during conversion.

2) Since they are from a VHS source, they come through interlaced. Do I want to deinterlace them somehow in TMPEnc Plus when converting to DVD mpg2? How would that effect quality?

3) I want to try converting them to DivX so I can keep them on my PC but at a much smaller size then what I get with huffy and PCM audio. When people encode to DivX, is it normal to encode directly while capturing or is it best to capture to something like huffy then convert to DivX using VirtualDub later on? I tried encoding directly to DivX but the result did not look very good.

Thanks for the help. I'm making lots of progress and the answers to these questions will clear up quite a bit for me.

Howard

[housepig]

1) I capture at 720x480... comes out looking great.

2) I don't deinterlace... again, no problems.

3) compressing to divx is going to be more processor intensive than a lesser compressed codec during capture - you will probably find a better result if you capture in something like Huffyuv and compress after the capture.

[ImaWeTodd]

1) I capture at 720x480. Cartoons for DVD. This way I don't have to deinterlace or resize. Looks great on TV. I never figured out how to change the size and not deinterlace.

2) Why deinterlace if you don't have to? I'm no expert, but it takes time and can't make it 'better'.

3) Best to cap in huffy (or mjpeg) and then convert. If you want to produce quality stuff, there is no option. This is because you'll also want to clean it up.

I'm no expert, but here are some other things I've learned:
- I capture in virtualVcr. It lets me grab audio at 48k. I convert to ac3 (to save space), and starting with 48k is much cleaner for me.
- I clean clean clean in virtual dub. This is indispensible if you want your vhs stuff to look good. 2dcleaner + dynamic noise reduction does wounders. This also helps mpeg compression. More/Better episodes on 1 DVD.

[Yirkin]

Thanks for the responses. I'll try each of those things. I know I can figure out what works best through trial and error but I appriciate the suggestions as it takes such a long time to capture and then encode. I feel like I could do it all day for a week straight and still have a slew of options that I haven't tried yet.

Howard

[housepig]

one thing I would suggest - get a few different tools for each task (capturing, encoding and authoring) and try out different combinations of tools.

find a short clip (more than 2 but less than 10 minutes long) and capture it using a couple different capture apps.

once you find the capture app that gives you the results you like, and is comfortable to use for you, run that capture through a few different encoders.

Same thing - you'll find one encoder that you like more than the rest. Take the output of that file and move it to a few authoring apps. Repeat until you have the best balance of features and ease of use.

Yes, it's tedious. But if you keep your clips short (I used some music video from laserdicsc and VHS as my test clips) it shouldn't take more than a couple hours, and you will have found a good set of tools that you like. This will make life easier once you start to chug through the bulk of your VHS tapes.

[Yirkin]

Hi ImaWeTodd, I am interested in what you mentioned about cleaning up the captured VHS using VirtualDub. I looked through the list of video filters but I don't see 2dcleaner or dynamic noise reduction in the list.


I would love to read people's recommendations for cleaning up captured VHS so it looks its best on DVD.

Thanks for all the help,

Howard

[Tommyknocker]

Hi ImaWeTodd, I am interested in what you mentioned about cleaning up the captured VHS using VirtualDub. I looked through the list of video filters but I don't see 2dcleaner or dynamic noise reduction in the list.

2dcleaner


Dynamic Noise Reduction


What version do you have? I do not know if that really matters, as I seem to remember seeing these filters about as long as I have been using Virtual Dub.

[Yirkin]

Both of those filters seem to be extras as they have a name of a person next to them. The only filters I have in VirtualDub say "internal"

I have 4 versions of VirtualDub lol. Each for a different purpose.

One that opens ASFs, one that opens MPG, one that has an audio sync add in, and 1.5.4 which I think is the newest. None of them have those filters he mentioned.

Howard

EDIT: My Plugin folder is empty. That's probably why I am missing the extra filters.

EDIT EDIT: I did a search and found the filters so I'm going to give them a try now. thanks!

[ImaWeTodd]

Get the optimized versions of 2dcleaner (one for PIII one for ADM). It is a very slow process. I can only do about 14 fps on D1 source using those filters on my dual ADM 1900.

I used to use them from Avisynth but I kept producing bad frames (very strange looking). Then I got 19fps.

http://shelob.mordor.net/dgraft/2dcleaner.html