Quality of captures

[nyijedi]

I just recently got into all of this, but I am a little confused. I see people making posts saying their quality when capturing things like vhs is just as good as the original. I am using the ADVC-100 and Adobe Premiere to capture. After capturing to an avi file, I then encoded the file with TMPGEnc and burnt it to a dvdrw to test it. The quality is nowhere near the original vhs. Even when I watch the file on my pc before burning it the video is grainy and not even close to the original vhs tape. Can someone give me some advice on capturing? I used the NTSC DV preset in Premiere--is there any way to get a better quality capture?

[CogoSWSDS]

Nyijedi,
You say you would like to have better quality captures but you only describe the finished product. There are several steps that go into creating a dvd, any of which can affect the quality of the final output.

I am not familiar with the Canopus ADVC100 but I see you are capturing digital video. According to the folks that have the Canopus product that I have seen on this forum, almost everyone that has one likes it. I would suggest taking a look at your AVI that you have captured. It should look very good. If so, then you know your loss of quality is in the encoding.

I see you are using TMPGEnc. This is one of the best encoders out there. Since you are creating a DVD, you can use all the tricks TMPGEnc has for getting good quality encodes. These tricks include 2-pass VBR or CQ modes for encoding, and specifying the bit rate. I believe the compliant bitrates for DVD, which in most cases is MPEG-2, are 2000-8000 or 2000-9000 kbps (not completely sure as I am usually burning VCDs and here lately I've been doing XVCDs as well - a much lower bitrate most of the time than DVD).

Here's what I would do if I were you.
1. Use CQ or 2-pass VBR. If you're doing 2-pass VBR be sure your minimum bitrate is less than the average bitrate by about the same amount as the maximum bitrate is above the average bitrate. eg if you specify a minimum bitrate of 2900 and an average bitrate of 3000, your maximum bitrate should be about 3100 (yes I know this is a rather contrived example but you get the idea).
2. Use the high or highest quality setting for precision motion search. Yes it will take longer to encode but your quality will be better for it.

Others may have additional suggestions. I've heard that Kwag's TMPGEnc templates are very good but I've also heard that his templates are incompatible with my DVD player so I haven't had the nerve to try them out yet.

Hope this helps,
CogoSWSDS

[nyijedi]

Thanks so much for the response. I am going to try TMPGEnc with those options that you mentioned. The only thing that troubles me is that the original AVI capture does not look that good. I mean, it's not crystal clear like a divx file. Is that normal, or should my AVI be really crisp?

[nyijedi]

One more thing-where can I find Kwag's templates that you are talking about? I don't mind taking the time to figure some of that stuff out myself, but having some templates already set definitely couldn't hurt. Thanks again.

[txpharoah]

Guide in my signature is for converting VHS to DVD. Made for ATI card, but may help you with encoding in TMPGenc.

[ochsfamily]

Do you think it would matter what is used as a pass through for analog to digital into the computer.

In other words. If I have a VCR hooked to my dv camcorder then into the computer VS either canapus100 or videoh as the pass through to the computer?

[kwag]

One more thing-where can I find Kwag's templates that you are talking about?

www.kvcd.net

-kwag

[nyijedi]

Thanks to everyone for their help. When I have some time and won't be forced to rush I will try your suggestions and let you know how they worked out. Thanks again.