Captureing at 480X720 viewing it on a Big Screen TV!

[BuckMaster]

Just curious here. I just learned how to convert a VHS to DVD at 480X720.
Looks pretty sweet on most TVs viewing 27" or smaller. On a 50" or bigger TV viewing it takes alot of the quality from the picture or looks more grainy I guess you would say. Is there any way around this? When buring it to a DVD in the configuration you usallay have a option for letter box. Would it help to try and pick that option to cut the picture down maybe?

Thanks!

[David K]

I'm pointing out the obvious here, but the DVD copy is not going to look any better than the VHS original, and VHS resolution doesn't stand up well on a big screen TV.

[BuckMaster]

I know what your saying I guess its been awhile since I hooked up my cam to my 50" TV and played it stright from the tape. I could of swore it looked much better! I'll test it to make sure.
Thanks!

[David K]

If you're willing to throw enough bitrate at it (8 Megabites constant bitrate for example) I'm sure you can get your DVD copy pretty close to the original.

I've been encoding my VHS to half DVD resolution (352 x 480) and giving them about 3 Megabites variable bitrate, and it looks pretty good. Of course I'm watching them on a 27 inch set! The bigger the set the more unforgiving the lack of resolution.

[Vejita-sama]

First it's 720x480 (which I assume was a typo ) The real problem thou is the VHS source. GIGO. I've played commerical VHS tapes on my 36" tube, a 55" plasma, and my DAD's 120" projection. And the same tape looks like crap, pure crap, and *^*# on those screens.

Sorry it's just the natrure of things.

[BuckMaster]

Thanks everyone for the replys!

[doug1937@hotmail.com]

I think it might be your TV too. My VHS captures on DVD+R look great on my 50" Hitachi. They're just as good as the original. If you throw enough bitrate at it IMO you're bound to find a satisfactory setting.

[BuckMaster]

Can someone tell me how having a higher bitrate helps? Can someone tell me what the default bitrate usually is and what I should run the bitrate when captuing at 720x480 for a better picture?


updated...
I have a 50" Mitsubishi and I just tested it by hooking up the cam up to it and played a VHS tape and looked much better then the ones Ive been converting from VHC to DVD@ 720x480. I mean it still looks decent but not as good as the VHS tape going stright to the TV. Do you guys think upping the bitrate will help? Is so what should I try because I dont any ideal.

Thanks!

[housepig]

think of it in VCR terms - higher bitrate is like recording in SP mode, lower bitrate is like recording in EP.

It's a trade off - higher bit rate = bigger files per hour = less hours on a dvd. I've got some old movies that are only 1 hour, so I set a CBR of 8,000 and they look great - I wasn't going to put another movie on the disc anyway, so I devoted as much data to that one hour as I could.

[David K]

I assume you are encoding with TMPEnc. It is the best reasonably priced mpeg encoder software.

The Wizard setting in TMPEnc for DVD high quality is 8000 KBPS CBR as mentioned in the previous posting. You can get one hour at this setting on a DVD. Use this setting for encoding your mpeg file. You cannot really get any higher. Then you'll see the best resolution you can get for your VHS conversion.

[BuckMaster]

Well Ive been using Ulead VideoStudio 7 to capture with then using TMPGEnc DVD Author to encode with.

housepig, thanks that expains alot for me. I was just doing some testing when I choose DVD to capture it by default showed up as 8000 for the bitrate. So that should be correct. I could of swore thats what I used the first VHS tape I captured, maybe not. Im going to try another VHS tape and see how it turns out with those settings. It maybe just my card is cheap? Im using a Leadteck WinTV2000 Deluxe. Again though the picture looks great on smaller TVs around 27" but the bigger screen TVs not near as good. Would updateing my capture card drivers have any effect on the captureing part? Im sure there probably updated drivers for my card.

I just built a dedicated media machine and just used the drivers that came with the CD for the card.

Anyways thanks and I really appericate everyones help and patience!!