Best and or Fastest Encoder for Cropping

[classfour]

In some of my VHS transfers, I am seeing an area near the bottom of the video that is distorted and or has occasional flashes of white. It covers an area typically less than 8 lines.

I have been using TMPGenc DVD source creator and cropping the edges (matching crop on both top and bottom of the video) to eliminate this.

It does encroach into the playable area of a standard 4:3 TV during playback.

I suspect it's an error of sorts in the video stream, but I have noticed it in virtually all VHS sourced video that I have done - irregardless of VCR being used, or other equipment (i.e. stabilizers, TBC, proc amp, detailer, etc.) and DVD recorder in use (Panasonic, Toshiba).

It's more of an annoyance, but mars an otherwise excellent recording.

If there is something that I've missed in the recording process, any input is appreciated.

The current process chain (of which only the equipment needed to clean the video up is used - all others are bypassed) is Panasonic AG7300 VCR> Sony BVT810 TBC> Vidicraft Detailer IV> Vidicraft Proc. Amp> Toshiba DR4 DVD Recorder + Panasonic 13 in Broadcast monitor.

Yes, I know that most of it is obsolete; but I've had good results with both the order and equipment used in terms of finals quality (no plastic people, colors bleeding, etc.) with the exception of the annoying distortion at the bottom of the video.

The connections are BNC between the VCR & TBC, then to composite (RCA) through the remaining equipment.

I plan to go SVideo in the future, after I locate a TBC that I like and can afford.

These are transfers of personal and friends videos - not a business - so I'm doing it on a shoestring.

Thanks in advance!

[redwudz]

The noise you see is probably 'head switching noise' which is pretty much standard with VHS tapes. It's unusual that it shows up on a TV screen. The overscan area of a TV usually hides about 5% or so of the total picture at the screen edges and keeps that area from showing on most TV's. But if you are using a commercial broadcast monitor to view, it may display the normally hidden overscan area.

The 'best' and 'fastest' software encoder may not be the same one. But you might look into Procoder or CCE, which are both faster than TMPGEnc encoder.

[classfour]

Thanks,

Will probably go with ProCoder - I just have to find the right settings to balance the quality and speed.

[guns1inger]

Create an avisynth script to do the masking (crop/add borders) then load this script into procoder to encode