Old b&W movies to DVD

[daznic]

I`ve succesfully converted many VHS tapes to DVD using my Canopus ADVC-50, CCE2.66 and Spruce up.
I have a collection of of Black and white movies on VHS ( old Laurel & Hardy Shorts ) and i want to backup these to DVD.
Since they have no colour, Mono sound & a bit grainy in places i guess i can get away with being not to fussy in my capture/conversion quality - So what is the best Format / Res / Bitrate to use to store as many as possible on a DVD still retaining quality close to the original VHS ?


I`ve thought about capturing Mpeg on the fly using the Ulead Mpeg2 capture plug-in to save HD space & encoding time, or using VCD format on a DVD. Whatever format, it must then be Compliant with an authoring program.

Any help much appreciated !

[dphirschler]

I would advise against mpeg on the fly. Instead, I recommend capturing to AVI (mjpeg or huffy). Then in VirtualDub, change the video to grayscale and tweak the levels. You can really improve the visual quality by making it true grayscale. And it may even compress better.


Darryl

[daznic]

Thanks for your reply
as i will be using my Canopus ADVC-50 to capture, it will be in DV format if i don`t use on the fly.
It`s regarding the processing to mpeg, i am trying to fit as many videos on one DVDR without losing too much quality. I would normally just encode using CCE with a bit rate to fit about 1hr 20 min on a DVD but since these are old B&W & not too brilliant quality anyway, i`m presuming i can get away with a good compromise of quality/filesize to fit much more on my DVDR.

[oldfart13]

I do old B&W movies off one of the satellite channels every week. I use my Panasonic E80 and don't edit until I get the files to my PC. These are straight Mpegs. I don't see the logic in trying to "clean up" VHS using filtering in Virtual Dub. The source quality is going to be limited anyway. The Panny does a great on-the-fly clean-up with it's hardware processing. I could use LP speed (under 5 MBps 352X480) but I have been using SP or FR modes (5 - 10 MBps 704X480) which give a much better picture. Aren't the Laurel and Hardy shorts out on DVD? It would be much better if they are out that way since they would come from remastered prints and should be great quality. If they are on cheapo labels though I'd steer clear of them...

[daznic]

Thanks for your reply,

A standalone dvd recorder would be very nice but at the moment i only have my ADVC-50 & pc.
I`ve bought a lot of the L&H movies on DVD which are good quality, but they have not all been released, some of the lesser known ones are not available but i am lucky enough to have them on VHS, these tapes are starting to degrade, i`ve had them for about 15 years & need to back up.

[kenmo]

I collect marx Bros, Three Stooges, The Honeymooners, WC Fields...and I swear by VirtualDubs grayscale...Makes a big difference to my eyes... Seems alot more pleasing to look at...

[daznic]

I understand what you are saying about the Vdub filters & i may give them a try, my main concern though is DV to Mpeg compression. I want to fit as much on one DVD as i can while still retaining quality, i presumed a B&W movie would suffer less with lowering bitrates & res than say a new DVD rip in colour. Am i right or wrong ? The compressed mpeg must of course be DVD compliant.

Guess i`ll just have to experiment.

cheers anyway !