Best Quality for VHS to DVD: iDVD, CaptyDVD or Toast?

[Surfmaster]

I'm in the process of converting movie and tv shows on VHS to DVDs with chapter markers. I have an ADS Instant DVD for Mac converter box and software, PixeDV and CaptyDVD. I have nearly given up on using the Instant DVD box because many of my tapes have slight imperfections that simply throw off the Instant DVD box and PixeDV software. When an imperfection occurs, the video image is plastered with green streaks that render the ensuing video to be nearly unviewable--despite the remainer of the tape after the slight imperfection to be just fine. Anyway, I prefer to connect a VCR using composite cables to a digital camcorder that is then connected to my Mac using a firewire cable. I use iMovie to capture and edit the VHS footage in DV format to my hard drive. At this point, I have three choices to create a final DVD:

1) Export the edited iMovie footage to iDVD to create a DVD. However, I'm limited to two hours or less, which will not work for longer shows like football and basketball games.
2) Export the edited iMovie footage and import it to CaptyDVD to create a DVD.
3) Export the edited iMovie footage to Toast and burn a DVD.

My question is which of the following three formats produces the best image and sound quality for a final DVD. I like option no. 2 because CaptyDVD is not limited to two hours and is quite easy to create chapter menus with multiple layers/pages. I also like the ability to create just a VIDEO_TS folder using CaptyDVD: I would then use Toast to create a final DVD. Please advise. Thanks.

[pixeljammedia]

If you want best quality, you need a good encoder with variable bit rate (vbr) and good scene/motion detection. Toast and iDVD will give you similar output as I believe both use Quicktime and are only constant bitrate encoders. BitVice and Compressor are both good vbr encoders and while I lean more towards Bitvice for its control and Digital Noise Cancelling, opinions vary.Simply stated you can save megabytes on scenes which don't have a lot of change and motion and use them on scenes that do. This will give you a better overall mpeg.
If you cannot afford these, I would suggest FFMpeg X, which will give you greater control over bitrate, etc. MPEG2 Works (I believe) uses the same open source engine so pick your poison. MMT EZ is also a good/free way to go and since you are coming from a VCR with limited resolution, the other solutions are probably overkill. So go the ffmpeg/mpeg2 works/mmt ez route and you should get acceptable results.

[terryj]

I'm in the process of converting movie and tv shows on VHS to DVDs with chapter markers.

My question is which of the following three formats produces the best image and sound quality for a final DVD. I like option no. 2 because CaptyDVD is not limited to two hours and is quite easy to create chapter menus with multiple layers/pages. I also like the ability to create just a VIDEO_TS folder using CaptyDVD: I would then use Toast to create a final DVD. Please advise. Thanks.

Congratulations on joining an ever increasing hobby among
current video enthuiasts! And congrats to finding out early,
that like anything worth anything, it has its headaches, too.

While your options are sound, Your best bet unfortuantely
to what you are trying to do is none of the following you
suggested. Like Pixel stated, part of your problem is you are using
Constant Bitrate encoders ( CBR) which will limit you to
the amount of data you can put on DVD-Rs.
The reason that say, Warners can put six 30 min episodes
of Batman the Animated series on a DVD is because
they use Variable Bit Rate encoders ( VBR) that allow
you to control the compression on the image in various stages
of non motion (higher compression) and and fast motion
(lower compression) using a one pass or two pass encoding
scheme.

For the mac, the best option would be to ditch iDVD and move to
DVDSP3 ( DVD Studio Pro). With the addition of Compressor,
a high end app that allows you to do one pass or two pass VBR,
as well as A.Pack, which allows you to compress your audio
into Dolby Digtial ( AC3) comapatible files,
and the ability to set and multiplex up to 99 tracks,
its well worth the price of admission, as you'll find out once
you completed your first "season" set of your favorite TV show.

Also, it seems you are having to go through two many hoops
to get your tapes digitized. I myself use a very simple setup:
A 4 head HQ GE VCR with 19 Micron heads, ran through
S-VHS output to a Canopus ADVC-100 analog to digital
recorder ( with locked sync audio), directly in via FW to my
Dual G4.
I use iMovie for capture in of shows ( not FCP or FCE, because
iMovie is better in this regard), and the footage comes in a good
VHS quality. Considering many of my tapes are several years
old (i have been taping since 1987), I am surprised that they look
as good as they do. I have never seen the issues you describe with
my setup ( green streaks that render the ensuing video to be
nearly unviewable).

[chikanakan]

Toast has always used VBR. You can not manually adjust the max VBR, but it is a true VBR encoder (unlike iDVD which is VBR, but has an upper and lower limit). Toast does not use QT for encoding or decoding MPEG. Neither does iDVD. They all have encoders/decoders built in and only use QT for decoding and encoding DV and other QT formats.

If you are burning less then 1 hour, Toast will encode at Max 8Mbps. I've seen the VBR in Toast go from 1.5Mbps for text and titles to 8Mbps for video with lost of motion.

If you burn over 1 hour, Toast will lower the max bitrate has need to get the best quality and fill the disc. At 90 minutes you will give a bitrate of around 4.5Mbps.

BitVice are Compressor are good, but expensive, and for most video one will not notice the difference. The Toast encoder is a little better the the iDVD encoder.

The advantages of BitVice and Compressor are the filtering option. You can also try MainConcept which is fact, good quality and lets you adjust everything down to the quantization matrix manual.

It also depends on the type of material being used. For example, I've encoded Divx files to MPEG-2 with Toast, Compressor and BitVice, and Toast was the fast and had the best quality. Other content worked better in Compressor, while other work best in BitVice.

[terryj]

If you are burning less then 1 hour, Toast will encode at Max 8Mbps. I've seen the VBR in Toast go from 1.5Mbps for text and titles to 8Mbps for video with lost of motion.

If you burn over 1 hour, Toast will lower the max bitrate has need to get the best quality and fill the disc. At 90 minutes you will give a bitrate of around 4.5Mbps.

My only problem with this statement is that you create the argument,
that if you push for longer content than 90 mins, you are
saying that Toast will cut the bitrate to around 2Mbps

( less than hour = 8Mbps, 1.5 hours equals 4.5Mbps,
which equates to every additional 1/2 hour = /1.75,
thus 3 hours of video = 8Mpbs per hour / 1.75 per 1/2hr<1 hr
would equal 2 Mbps)

which if you were to move up to compressor and A.pack for audio,
you could encode three hours of video to fit to a DVD-5
at an average bitrate of 3.3Mbps, which would sustain better
quality an VHS analog to Digital import than Toast.

I have currently done a six epsiode per DVD of Justice League,
from VHS ANALOG2DV conversion input, using compressor
and A.pack, and have gotten each show to fit with menus
on a DVD-5 with an average bitrate of 3.3 to 3.6Mbps.

Expensive sure, but you get what you pay for.

[chikanakan]

Well, Toast averages 4.5Mbps for 90 minutes but you can't do over 90 minutes unless Jam is installed. If you have Jam you can use AC3 also and get over 2 hours at the same 4.5Mbps. If the bitrate did drop down to 1.75 for example, it because only text is on the screen. DVDSP will behave the same.

A.Pack is bad. The AC3 streams have major problems and Apple has not been fixed it in over 2 years. The streams fail most of the Dobly certification. Toast is much better for 2 channel AC3.

Capty DVD encoder quality is very, very bad I wouldn't ways my time with it.

If you really want good quality, buy something like EyeTV 200. You will get much better video then if you use Compressor.

Compressor is fine if you have $500 and lots of time to waste. BitVice is $300. Toast with Jam about $150. FFMPEG is free. It's all about the money. You could by EyeTV and Toast with Jam for less then DVDSP and get better MPEG quality in my opinion.

[Frobozz]

Good information, folks.

A totally different approach is to get the standalone Pioneer DVR-520HS (or equivalent) and use it to make DVDs from VHS or other analog sources. The cost is about the same as purchasing DVDSP. It has VBR, AC3 and 32 settings to encode from 1 hour to 6 hours of video to a DVD. It also imports and exports DV Video.

I also use Toast with Jam (and sometimes iDVD or CaptyDVD) for authoring DVDs. Each has its strengths. For encoding quality I lean toward iDVD 4 but I prefer Toast because of the AC3 encoding. CaptyDVD is good with existing MPEG2s. I've used Cinematize to extract an MPEG2 with AC3 sound from a Toast-authored DVD and put it in CaptyDVD so I could create chapter menus. Worked great.

[Surfmaster]

Hi Everyone: Thanks for your replies and the excellent information presented. I'm sure everyone who views this post will gain more insight into the challenges of VHS-to-DVD conversion. Terryj, you're right about this project being anything but easy. There's always a learning curve, but it's worth it to transfer bulky VHS tapes to DVDs with working chapter menus.

Frobozz, is it possible to tranfer VHS footage to the stand-alone DVD recorder and create a DVD-R and then use Cinematize to extract and EDIT footage in CaptyDVD--without having to first author the DVD with Toast? Also, with the method you've already described, is there any loss in sound/video quality when you use Cinematize to extract an mpeg2 file from a Toast-authored DVD and place it in CaptyDVD? Please advise.

I like the ADS Instant DVD box because it captures VHS and converts it to DV and MPEG2 in one step. It stops working when there's even a minor glitch on the VHS tape. I think I'll either purchase a time base corrector or get a VCR with a built-in time base corrector.

[Frobozz]

Frobozz, is it possible to tranfer VHS footage to the stand-alone DVD recorder and create a DVD-R and then use Cinematize to extract and EDIT footage in CaptyDVD--without having to first author the DVD with Toast? Also, with the method you've already described, is there any loss in sound/video quality when you use Cinematize to extract an mpeg2 file from a Toast-authored DVD and place it in CaptyDVD? Please advise.

Yeah, I like to think this is my cool CaptyDVD discovery. Stop the presses!

I can author a "finalized" DVD with the Pioneer standalone recorder to DVD-RW media (so I can erase it later), put the disc in my Mac, extract the Titles to muxed MPEG2 (with AC3 audio) using Cinematize and drag that file into CaptyDVD for formatting the menus and chapters. No re-encoding of video or audio is done at any stage of this process. All CaptyDVD does is add its menu structure and artwork. I was surprised to find that it created the timeline for marking chapters. Everything worked. I then used Toast 6 to burn the VIDEO_TS folder created by CaptyDVD.

The reason I bothered doing all this is I have some concert videos that I want to see the chapter titles in a menu rather than just skipping ahead to find out what's next. Someone else might do this because they like the formatting flexibility of CaptyDVD's menus compared to the nine fixed options offered by the Pioneer standalone recorder.

[Surfmaster]

Thanks to everyone for your advice. This is what I plan to do: I'll order a Tvone AVT 8710 time base corrector to place between my VCR and ADS Instant DVD box. This should take care of the problem of dropped frames, allowing PixeDV to work properly.

If so, using the Instant DVD box is a fast route from VHS to a DVD with chapter menus--with pretty good quality considering VHS is the source material. The Instant DVD box also converts VHS footage directly to MPEG2 so I don't have to deal with DV in iMovie or iDVD, which is limited to 90 minutes. I can set the capture bit rate to process a two-hour plus movie in CaptyDVD while still getting good quality. Thanks again!

[decay]

i don't own one, but i plan to buy a Datavideo DAC-100 analog-to-digital converter when funds are available. it does hardware MPEG2 encoding, is functionally identical to the more expensive Canopus ADVC-100, and locks audio & video over long imports. currently around $180 at ecost.com:

http://www.ecost.com/ecost/shop/detail.asp?dpno=763755
http://www.datavideo-tek.com/products/dac_100_main_page.htm

this unit got favorable reviews in a recent issue of Macworld.
article here:
http://www.macworld.com/2004/07/reviews/firewiredigitalvideoconverters/

the DAC-100 also has a way to defeat Macrovision, which involves holding a button or something similar. the Canopus also has/had this feature.

thanks for the informative posts on this subject, folks. i'm learning as much as i can, and thought i'd toss in some of what i've picked up so far.

would you say CaptyDVD is better, equal, or worse than Sizzle for creating menus and markers for re-authoring a DVD? i, too, have a component DVD recorder (Pana E30) which does a nice job of capturing from VHS.

lastly, TBCs are pretty expensive, huh? too bad.

dk

[chikanakan]

would you say CaptyDVD is better, equal, or worse than Sizzle for creating menus and markers for re-authoring a DVD?

Capty DVD is much better then sizzle for authoring DVD. It costs much more also.

[stavrosh]

A comment on the information provided by Decay. The Canopus units (both the 100 and 300 models) do not bypass "officially" the macrovision issue. We have verified this problem while testing VHS tape digitization of private and commercial material.

By the way if someone knows of a "Canopus" macrovision remedy .. please inform the Forum !!!!

[ella]

To remove macrovision and capture protected VHS and sometimes DVD to Canopus you can use this one
http://www.dimax.com.ua/English/dvd_recorder.htm
works just fine

[decay]

from another part of this site, a good comparison thread:
https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=996653

dk

[brett]

No re-encoding of video or audio is done at any stage of this process. All CaptyDVD does is add its menu structure and artwork.

i do believe that capty reencodes the audio when it creates a video_ts -- even if your source is the same format and bitrate you have selected for output

[Frobozz]

i do believe that capty reencodes the audio when it creates a video_ts -- even if your source is the same format and bitrate you have selected for output

This is true if the audio is MP2 or PCM. However, if the audio is AC3 then CaptyDVD does not touch it. The version I have of CaptyDVD does not have the ability to encode AC3 audio.