Transfering laserdisc to DVD, 2 questions

[caernavon]

Last night I captured, edited, and burned a test disc, and everything seemed to go well enough. I captured the video through my ADS DVD Express and its bundled capture software, then edited, authored and burned the movie with TMPGEnc DVD Author (which I instantly loved; very easy to use). The resulting DVD looks pretty good on my 30" Sony widescreen (from what I've read here, the relatively low quality of my laserdisc player, a Pioneer CLD-S201, likely has a lot to do with that), no worse than the source ever did. So far so good.

The only blip, if you could call it that, is that the disc I made is not anamorphic. Now, the aspect ratio of the source is only 1.66:1, so I probably didn't pick the best disc to start with (it will get either cropped or pillarboxed if I do everything right), but the process will always be the same. First, am I right in thinking that to end up with an anamorphic DVD, I'll initially have to tell the capture software that the source itself either is or should be anamorphic?

If that's true, the second issue is that I don't think the bundled capture software (which is back home, so I can't even remember what it's called, unfortunately) can even do that. Is there other capture software out there able to use my capture box, or does it lock out all but its own software? Thanks.

[lordsmurf]

I don't know of any capture softwares that can do more than 4:3 or 16:9 (less common than 4:3).

[gshelley61]

All laserdiscs (with the exception of a few very special "squeeze" anamorphic LD's that were released only in Japan) are 4:3 aspect ratio. Widescreen content laserdiscs are letterboxed within a 4:3 frame size.

There are some software capturing and resizing methods that will result in a anamorphic LD transfer to DVD, but the finished quality of these efforts does not always look that great due to the inherent scaling artifacts that it creates.

[FulciLives]

You will have to capture then re-encode to go from 4:3 to 16x9

The ADS DVD Xpress is capable of doing 15,000kbps with "I" Frame only encoding. This should be done as CBR not VBR.

You can set CapWiz up to do CBR 15,000kbps but to do "I" Frame only you need to "hack" the registry settings. It is actually very simple to do and I wrote about how to do it on another forum. Here is that text:

Well I was playing around with "regedit" and I managed to figure it out myself.

I have WinXP SP2 and this is how I did it:

1.) Go to the START menu
2.) Go to RUN and enter REGEDIT which brings up the Registry Editor
3.) Click on (expand) HKEY_CURRENT_USER
4.) Under that now Click on (expand) SOFTWARE
5.) Under that now Click on (expand) CIRRUS LOGIC USB-DVR2
6.) Under that now Click on (expand) DSFILTERS
7.) Under that now Click on (do not expand) USB SOURCE

Now on the right hand side of the Registry Editor is a WINDOW with a bunch of "commands" that have values that you need to change.

Look for "GOPLength" and right down what it says now (mine said 15 because I had it set up for NTSC use but if you have it set up for PAL use it might be something other than 15). I changed this to read "1" instead of "15"

To change it just DOUBLE CLICK on "GOPLength" and change the value to "1" and be sure to select "Decimal" then CLICK on "OK" and it will be changed to "1" instead of whatever the default was (in my case it was "15")

Now that you changed "GOPLength" you only need to change one more thing and that is "IPDistance". Mine had a default of "3" but I changed it to "1". You do this the same way as you did to change "GOPLength".

Now exit the Registry Editor and FIRE up CapWiz (I'm using the 3.6.1.9 version). You can now do "I" frame only capture at 15,000kbps using the CUSTOM SETTINGS (which I already had set before I made the Registry changes not that I think it matters).

So for the best quality capture use 15,000kbps CBR (make sure VBR is unchecked) and use 384kbps MP2 audio.

You now have a most excellent source that you can manipulate by editing it and filtering it and then doing a SOFTWARE MPEG-2 encode where you can do a true multi-pass VBR encode.

The reasoning here is to get as high a quality source as you can ... as if you are doing a HuffyUV or PICVideo MJPEG capture with a PCI type card etc.

This way you can use AviSynth or VirtualDub filters and edit and blah blah blah

You will not want to do this ALL the time (some stuff you simply want to capture direct to the desired MPEG-2 DVD spec) but some sources (like VHS or LaserDisc etc.) can benefit from further filtering and true multi-pass VBR etc.

I just hope that the ADS Instant DVD 2.0 can keep up and not loose auido sync etc. using this method. I will have to try a 2 hour capture and see how the sync is etc. when done.

My sample captures are definately working though.

Hope this helps some

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

P.S.
When doing this Registry Editing I had the ADS Instant DVD 2.0 "on" (power connected) and it was connected to the computer with the USB cable. CapWiz was closed. I don't know if it shows up in the registry if it is not connected. Just wanted to point that out.

Also don't forget to change "GOPLength" and "IPDistance" back to "default" values if you intend to go back to using it the "standard" way.

The reason you want to do a 15,000kbps CBR "I" Frame only encoding is becaues that is the BEST quality capture you can get from the ADS DVD Xpress and that is what you want since you will need to re-encode to make it 16x9 anamorphic. You will have to use CCE or TMPGEnc etc.

Notice that I have the ADS Instant DVD 2.0 but vhelp (a user here at videohelp.com) has the ADS DVD Xpress and he also did the registry trick for "I" Frame only encoding and says it works.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[caernavon]

So, if I do manage to create a 16:9 enhanced DVD, it might actually look worse because of the anamorphic squeeze I would have to apply? Is that correct? (Worse than enlarging the image on my TV to fill the screen?)

If that's the case I might not bother; as is, the test disc I made is basically "good enough." DVD-quality I'm not looking for, obviously.

FulciLives, thanks for the tip, but I didn't even really understand it -- I mean any of it, not just using regedit. I frame? CBR? Heh, can you say "newbie"?

[vhelp]

@ caernavon

Given your "newbie" level, I would suggest to just stick with
what your original goal was, which I'm assuming is 4:3 AR for
your widescreen method.

fwiw mentioning here ...

I did a quick test a few weeks ago with my ADS Xpress and my
laserdisc movie "Showgirls" which is 4:3 widescreen. And after
capturing it at CBR 15MB (I used 20MB in my setup back then) I had
did a test conversion to 16:9 Anamorphic widescreen. In this
test re-encode project, I used my prefered method of CBR 9000
bitrate using TMPGenc. The results, IMHO, were very good. I was
pleased with the results of this conversion. Remember, this was
a quick test, just to see if I could do it. And I did. Anyways..

To 4:3 Widescreen or not, ..is the question (suggestion) ...

Deciding on which Aspect Ratio format to use in a given video transfer,
things can be a tricky one alright. But, for such sources as
laserdisc (even VHS) you can reproduce good quality Anamorphic
widescreen Aspect Ratio's, but only if your are skilled at such
things. And, I disagree w/ the comment about anamorphic not being
of good quality from laserdisc. You just have to keep at it and
learn to get better results, hehe.. then you'll come to the same
conclusions. But fwiw, I will say, that going Anamorphic from a
laserdisc *can* produce a *slightely* softer video. So, filtering
should not be applied in your Editing/Encoding stage. IMO, if
you have to resort to Filtering steps, then you have something
wrong in your process. Could be your capture device or laserdisc
player or connections or whatever. Anyways..

But, the bottom line w/ good quality Anamorphic processes is the
source. It has to be as clean as possible. Here is the order
of clean to cleaner.. vhs; laserdisc; cable/satellite; dvd;

Why I dramatise on "clean". Because the less noise in one's video
source, the better the MPEG encode quality, hence the better the
Anamorphic reproduction. If the MPEG produces unusually more
macroblocks (pixelations) then the obvsious area directly noticed
is the Anamorphic reproduction. It will look too blurry or soft..
couple that with the macroblocks (pixelation) and last but not least,
too low a bitrate and this 4:3 -> 16:9 Anamorphic conversion will
add less to the detail of the final MPEG, ..now you see why most
agree, that converting a 4:3 widescreen -> 16:9 Anamorphic is not
always a good idea.. unless you know what you are doing.. and that
means from:

Source -> Technique/Skills/Knowledge -> Hardware -> Editing -> Encoding

But in your case, specially your "newbie" stage, it is generally
best to stay with 4:3 widescreen processes for the tiem being.. and
leave the 16:9 Anamorphic to those that have mastered enought knowledge
to take on the challenge.

-vhelp 3554