Hi all,
1st off let me say you people are the best at this stuff and I enjoy "lurking" around. So thanks to you all for the professional advice and opinions!
Now to my question. I have many sports tapes (About 2 1/2 to 3 hrs in length) that I want to put onto DVD for posterity. Due to the length, capturing into an AVI file results in HUMONGOUS files. I have plenty of disk space but I am wondering if there is a better way. Would capturing to MPEG-2 from the get-go be a totally wrong thing? Would I be losing that much quality? Also, I have a DV camcorder with passthrough capability. Should I use that to capture, then encode? If you were in my shoes, what would you do?
To me it seems like an extra step (capturing to AVI or DV-AVI, then encoding) when all I could do is capture in MPEG-2 in the first place, author then burn. I have done it this way with pretty good (inrelation to the source) results. I am just curious if this is how you pros would handle it to get the most out of these precious VHS gems.
PS - I have read just about every article and guide there is to be read on this site. The knowledge here is staggering to say the least.I have learned all I know about video from this site! Kudos and thanks again.
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i may be wrong, but i have read a fair bit here also, and from the general gist of things, capturing to avi and then converting to mpg/dvd produces better quality than capturing straight to mpg. you could also try using MJPEG codec set at 19 that will cut down the capture size a bit.
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I do not see much difference between AVI and MPG captures from VHS. It is a bad source anyway. Just read some guides here:
www.lordsmurf.com
The guy knows a lot about this stuff. Some of his articles were very helpful for me.
Greetings -
Countryboy -
If you want quality, you have to do it the avi way...
If you need speed, you can do it mpeg 2.
Differences:
The avi way is about 4 hours per DVD with "as in the source" quality. You need about 15 hours for each tape (including capture, filtering, encoding, authoring and burning) but IMHO it is worth it. You can even make the results look like how the source would look in a very - very expencive hardware entertainmanet system. Plus, you can filter some noise from the aerial transmission (ghost noise, tape noise, etc). You can't do all these hardware way (TBC, Colour adjustemt, luminance corrections etc are not filtering stuff, there are corrections of the signal. Filtering means the clean of source from stuff like ghost effects, tape noise, aerial noise, etc)
The mpeg 2 way, is about 1 - 1.30 hours per DVD with "as in the source" quality. Much less time that way, less filespace on HD, and overall an "easier" method for home made DVDs, if problems not occur (lipsynch probs, etc). That way you have exactly what the tape shows, including the aerial noise etc.
I personally use only the avi capture/filter encode to mpeg 2 method. Most advance users with quality in mind use this method. Others, believe that mpeg 2 direct is just fine. Well it isn't, but you can't change their mind... After some time, they gonna understand their mistake, but meanwhile, they are happy with the results. Lucky them!
Since you can use DV, I suggest to learn how to use it. -
I think that if you capture to MPEG using a high bitrate, like 8Mbps, you should get good results. Depending on the length of your DVD (and the bitrate you'll end up using), you won't see any difference if you use MPEG or AVI, IMO. If you're planning on putting a few hours on DVD, you'll probably only get between 3.5-4 Mbps anyway.
I capture everything in MPEG (between 6-8Mbps) and get great results after I re-encode and author. -
Yeah, AVi versus MPEG2!
it is all a matter of taste (and mainly, hardware!!!). Most guys here has only the option to go with AVI then encode to MPEG2.
They don't have a decent MPEG2 realtime device or card (ATI AIW, MATROX, CANOPUS and so) or any taste for it and think the AVI way is the best of two words...
Actually, it isn't. the claim is: if you are going to edit a lot, OK, go to AVI first, but knowing that there are many ways (softwares) for doing MPEG-2 editing and filtering...
But, if you have a good enough capture device that make really good caps, go MPEG-2 all the way!!!
Depending on your settings, you get a great quality, even better than AVI!!
The thing is: MPEG-2 is a up-to-date technology over AVI....AVI is a raw format and very old (15 years..??). Since windows 3.1 AVI is around...
And many serious companies spend $$$$$$ on MPEG-2 research and improvement...Why?? because it is worth!!! All the way!!!
Get a MPEG-2 cap device, go CQ or CBR with 6000~9000 bitrate, 256k audio, IP frames and you are done with best quality. -
I think that the best solution would be to use your DV camcorder that has the DV passthrough capability. This will result in a very good quality editable file that can be of a manageable size.
Connect the VHS tape player to the camcorder, the camcorder to the PC, capture to DV AVI, edit out any parts you don't want (e.g. commercials), produce a final video and then encode to MPEG-2 and author it to DVD.
Capturing with an external device (e.g. Canopus) is exactly the same thing. You just happen to have the equivalent of a Canopus capture system in your Camera.
Capturing from Analog Capture cards on a PC and saving to AVI (or MPEG-2) is something that requires fast disks and lot's of CPU power otherwise you will be dropping frames. And capture applications aren't so simple to configure for optimum performance.The more I learn, the more I come to realize how little it is I know. -
Thanks guys for the replies. I do appreciate it.
I do know how to use my DV camera as a passthrough. I was wondering if I would see any quality increase/decrease by using it.
My cap card is ok, certainly not top of the line. It's the Winfast 2000xp Deluxe. My machine is pretty fast and capable. P4 2.6c, 1 GB 3200 RAM and 300 GB Disk space.
It seems I got answers from each choice. AVI, MPEG-2 and DV-AVI. I will try them all and see what I like.
Last question, at what point do I apply the noise filter and what is a good filter to use for noise? (VHS Source remember)
Thanks again peeps. -
VDUB gives you a good GUI for a LOT of filters. AVISynth has filters also, but no preview in realtime options.
AVI only for both, no filtering MPEG captures (what's the point, now you have to re-encode a captured MPEG2, which defeats the whole purpose of capturing in MPEG2 in the first place).To Be, Or, Not To Be, That, Is The Gazorgan Plan -
@SatStorm,
I am not wrong at all. You see, I work at a Cable TV Network Company, and I am used to work with DVD's authoring, replication and broadcasting and all sort of technical stuff.
One of my jobs is editing movies, copy to tapes, DVD and etc...of course at work I use all professional devices (mainly Sony's and JVC's) and all sorts of digital video related machines. I wish I could use all those devices to make my own DVD's, but it is quite impossible...a Cable TV company is a demanding job, and there is no idle time for video equipment. Lots of MPEG-2 stuffs...
Do you know that cable TV delivers MPEG-2 format????
So, this homemade DVD stuff is kind of a different story. There is no "professional way" of doing it! even if you go for a standalone DVD recorder, it wouldn't be professional quality anyway...
So trying to achive as much quality as possible, you only can go as close as possible to a real professional world. And that is what I was talking about, even if it does not work as we all expect or wish it so.
When I state that MPEG-2 realtime is BETTER than all AVI stuff, I'm true. It all relies on one's budget to get a real decent hardware set up. AVI is time consuming and resource wasting, if you have a choice for a MPEG-2 device.
Otherwise, AVI is the ONLY choice. -
Interesting....I wish MPEG-2 was easy to edit. Everytime I try I get sync issues.
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Actually it is easy to edit.
Of course, AVI being a raw format (think of it as a sequence of bmp images....) is much easier to edit.
Have you tried Premiere 6.5 (with mainconcept mpeg engine)? I do all MPEG-2 editing inside Premiere without no problems.
Of course for better editing a mpeg-2 stream, it is easy if it was created with I and P frames only (or only I frames). No B frames!!! -
Originally Posted by macm
I typed very fast... -
joecav,
My suggestion would be to get a standalone DVD recorder with an onboard hard drive. Like you, I am in the process of converting years of sports (college football) tapes, and finally decided to go this route. I was initially using my Sony MiniDV A/D passthrough feature, editing out commercials with Premiere, frameserving to TMPGEnc and encoding for 9 or more hours per game. Using this method, it will take you a lifetime to convert your collection, unless you have a room full of PCs and no life to speak of.
Regarding quality, sure, AVI capture is the way to go, followed by editing and encoding. If you are doing extensive editing for home video or for weddings, etc, by all means, go this route. That's what I do. However, the tradeoff in time is simply not worth it when you are just trying to simply convert formats on a large amount of input material.
Unless you are doing something unusual, you will probably only be editing out commercials on your sports tapes. My Panasonic DMR-E80H does a great job on this. Also, the Panasonics can edit their recorded MPEGs without loss of audio/video sync. This is another reason I gave up on doing PC conversions - over half the time, the resulting MPEG file would drift out of sync. This is not such a big deal, until you see the after-game interviews 2 h 20 min into your video and the audio is ahead/behind. This is a common problem with no easy solution. Just search these forums and see how many problems people run into.
The Panasonic's quality is not quite as good as the PC method, but you'll never have audio/video sync issues, which is easily the most annoying problem in this hobby. The quality is very close, however. For your longer tapes, you're most likely going to have to use 2 discs per game/event to be satisfied with the quality anyway. Even using a PC encoder, quality suffers sometimes even at moderate bitrates (4000 kbps) due to the great amount of high motion scenes present in sporting events. Using two discs when the event runs over about 2 hr 10 min GREATLY increases quality, no matter what method you're using. Many people on here will probably say this is a waste of discs, but I haven't seen that many that are converting the type of material we are.
This is all just my $.02. This is all based on my personal experience, and your experience and/or opinions may lead you to a different conclusion, but I hope it helps you. -
Wow, thanks Roll Tide.(and everyone else) I have Premiere and will try editing with it and check the results. Thanks Macm.
I am more interested in just getting the tapes to digital. they don't have to be perfect. I would shoot myself if my AFC championship game (Steelers/Colts) ever got eaten by the vcr. So having it on DVD, albeit a little fuzzy, is ok with me. They actually are turning out better than I expected given my limited knowledge in this field. I owe that "success" to you guys.
I was just making sure I wansn't missing something here. Most of the captures you guys talk about are relatively short in comparison to these games.
Again, you guys (and gals, I guess)are great and a heartily appreciate all the quality feedback. I will post my results as I get time to capture all these games. Thanks again! -
Hi all
@ Roll Tide,
Unless you are doing something unusual, you will probably only be editing out commercials on your sports tapes. My Panasonic DMR-E80H does a great job on this. Also, the Panasonics can edit their recorded MPEGs without loss of audio/video sync. This is another reason I gave up on doing PC conversions - over half the time, the resulting MPEG file would drift out of sync. This is not such a big deal, until you see the after-game interviews 2 h 20 min into your video and the audio is ahead/behind. This is a common problem with no easy solution. Just search these forums and see how many problems people run into.
audio sync issues and VHS projects.
.
.
Why capture ALL 1h:30m or 2h's or 3 hours in one golp, and only to end
up w/ audio sync ?? ..when you could split your VHS captures in 1/2 hour
increments and have no audio sync issues ??
.
.
Too many peoples are drilled w/ the idea that THEY MUST capture the
whole VHS source. That's just plain wrong. If you are one of those that
suffer from audio sync issues, then your next alternative (which is not
a bad one at that) is to capture in small increments. It's just plain
simpleNow, you can capture to .AVI and w/ GREAT quality
Hi macm,
But, if you have a good enough capture device that make really good caps, go MPEG-2 all the way!!!
Depending on your settings, you get a great quality, even better than AVI!!
The thing is: MPEG-2 is a up-to-date technology over AVI....AVI is a raw format and very old (15 years..??). Since windows 3.1 AVI is around...
And many serious companies spend $$$$$$ on MPEG-2 research and improvement...Why?? because it is worth!!! All the way!!!
Get a MPEG-2 cap device, go CQ or CBR with 6000~9000 bitrate, 256k audio, IP frames and you are done with best quality.
and equipment (and source)
.
.
You're talking about using equipment that is broadcaster quality, vs.
JOECAV's cheap capture card. And, you're also taling about (comparing)
your cable company's source (of which I'll assume is THE source) and is
not full of noise (like when WE customers receive via cable or whatever)
and no user-level MPEG card is gonna give you crisp quality from a capture
from his/her cable source. You may end up w/ such, becuase your's is more
"direct" at the source level, while we all here in "pesants" land have to
first wait till it filters through miles and miles of cable and wire and
then feed through our receivers etc and then capture it. The feel that
the ultimite quality would have to be from an .AVI capture (from JOECAV's
position) vs. a straight hardware MPEG's. Don't forget too, that not every
one has perfect cable signal. I have (in my previous experience w/ cable,
before I got satellite) had my share of cable noise. And, that has some
issues w/ a final MPEG encode.. thus, requiring some software (SW) filtering
out for a final MPEG encode.
.
.
So, unfortunately, your comparison is unfaire
Hardware MPEG devices are great for those who's time is limited, or brain
is such, and has no care about quality or is "satisfied" w/ quality for a
given source encode. That's a user decision, and of which is not wrong or
right about it.
One more thing to consider, in JOECAV's situation here, is that his/her
skill level is probably at a 1 - (1min to 5max) No sense on burning him/her
out w/ top notch or even higher, in devices for instance that he/she will
never be able to obtain (nor I, for that matter)
But, my recommendation (given JOECAV's limitations) would be to go
the hardware route, unless he/she is willing to learn the whole process of
video processing from a home-owners availability and go the Analog capture
route to .AVI (un-compressed for MAXimum quality) route. If this is the
ultimate route JOECAV wants to take, then .AVI is the way to go, but other
wise, I would recommend that hardware route (skip the DV pass-through non
ense) and encode to MPEG-2 directly. But, even this has it's skills too,
but not as faint-at-heart to learn as the .AVI way
Some more stuff to think about.
From the Video Workstation of,
-vhelp 2065 -
www.lordsmurf.com but if you have ATI AIW card get the Macrovision patch at www.doom9.org and a "SIMA VIDEO COPY MASTER" and all will be fine. Any capture card is buggy if you have any problem read this site. ihave two capture card Dazzle 2 adn ATI AIW both are good but there are little wacky at time's
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Originally Posted by SatStorm
I'm not saying macm doesn't have some good info/experience. However, commenting outside of your domain of knowledge, without making it clear, is not a good thing.
Joecav:
Any advice depends upon your goals. If you did all of that reading, i'd guess your goal is to learn. Your tapes are a 1st project. It takes a while and a few trys to find what works with your hardware, time limits, and quality requirements. You have to try some things to figure it out.
You can reduce the file size of an avi by using a compression codec. Mjpeg is considered a good compression for analog capture.
I believe the following are true for VHS captures for the following reasons:
- Analog capture cards and post processing are the hardest to use but produce the best results. They keep the most color info. They allow you to process the source to your hearts content. You can smooth out noise. You can adjust colors. You can cut, add transitions, play it backwards.. etc.
- Analog capture to mpeg (software or hardware) may be easier. I'd expect Hardware to be easier. Software may not be. Consumer grade hardware will not encode mpeg as well as stand alone (post processing software). Realtime software capture / encode is not as good as non-realtime (post processing encode). Doing a direct mpeg capture will not allow you to clean the source. If you have good source (and playback deck), direct mpeg may work for you.
- DV capture will record less color information than analog mjpeg. It may also provide more detail than your capture card. This of course depends upon your camera. I think your card is BT8x based. I've done some measurements on my similar card. I only get ~ 360 lines of resolution where I would expect more. A DV cam would probably do better. For VHS source, this may not matter.
For a final comment: Playing the tapes from a good svhs deck and using an s-video connection to your capture device would probably make the biggest improvement in quality you could make. I believe the color and luma are stored seperately on a vhs tape. Combining them thru an RCA connection is not a good thing. -
I'm a HE, for those wondering...I didn't expect to get such lengthy, detailed responses, so thanks everyone.
Like I said, I am going to try each way and see what works best for me. Time is an issue, but so is getting a good transfer. I'll see if doing it the AVI way is going to be "worth" it. if not, it'll still be good to learn a new way of accomplishing something.
All this will ever be for me is a hobby, and I definitely want to learn as much as I can. That's why i read all the articles, guides and forum posts. Maybe someday I'll even be a 2 or 3 on vhelp's skill chart. -
The more this hobby became popular, the more people start stating things they find "OK" as "This is the way".
It is a waste of time to try explaining to those users some things they don't want to know and learn. There are "king of the castle" already, why to fight them?
The "punishment" to all those enthusiasts of this hobby scene, come 2 - 5 years later. For example, someone convert his wedding to a DVD disc and looks OK on a typical TV and he believes "that's it, I made it". Later, when he gonna see the same disc on a better TV, he gonna say: What the ****, this is shit! But now, he can do nothing about it. He gonna keep watching this "shit" for his rest of his life.
A good alternative is to marry again, so to have a better source again to play with, but this is of topic now
The only thing I can do to prevent this without wasting time, is to point other opinions in a form of alternatives. Not for him, he is already a follower, for the others reading this topic. Those who are interest to learn or to research for this hobby, they gonna do it, if you point them alternatives or other opinions.
I don't want to start again the same old story. Do a forum search and you gonna find lots of infos for the subject.
@macm: I didn't ask for your biography.
And, I know more about those subjects than you think I do. Anyway...
@joecav: DV is the best choice for you if you want quality. -
Originally Posted by SatStorm
As anybody else here, or almost, I try do give opinions and advices based on experience (and on experiments as well).
I've been learning a lot from the guys here...Tanks to Lordsmurf, vhelp, the guys at doom9 etc.
I am not the "king of the hill". When I mention a bit about my work, what I do to pay my bills, I was trying to give some sort of "reliable" or "confidence" to fellows...not a final word. As you know, and stated, this hobby has no "road to raimbow"...
But thuth is, if you have budget, get a really GOOD hard/soft setup and just leave the hard and long way behind...AVI! this is almost close to pro you can get.
And I don't capture at work. I do all my private video jobs at home, with a setup very close to anyone here...(see my profile).
And that's why I am a member of this comunity. If I rather see myself an expert, I wouldn't be here, right???
And, again, I know exactly what an AVI and MPEG-2 is all about. I've been working with digital video and multimedia since the old times of win 3.1. As I said, AVI is a raw format, BMP's one after another, and MPEG-2 is not "only" a compression algorithm, it IS also a video format...that uses
a compression schema to store digital video data. It really is a (compressed) video format. Get youself a copy of the ISO or MPEG group specification on MPEG-1 or MPEG-2....it is worth studying some theory too! You can get a deeper knowledge of what YOU talk about. Lots of maths and formulas, but you can get the feeling all off it. -
Originally Posted by SatStorm
As anybody else here, or almost, I try do give opinions and advices based on experience (and on experiments as well).
I've been learning a lot from the guys here...Tanks to Lordsmurf, vhelp, the guys at doom9 etc.
I am not the "king of the hill". When I mention a bit about my work, what I do to pay my bills, I was trying to give some sort of "reliable" or "confidence" to fellows...not a final word. As you know, and stated, this hobby has no "road to raimbow"...
But thuth is, if you have budget, get a really GOOD hard/soft setup and just leave the hard and long way behind...AVI! this is almost close to pro you can get.
And I don't capture at work. I do all my private video jobs at home, with a setup very close to anyone here...(see my profile).
And that's why I am a member of this comunity. If I rather see myself an expert, I wouldn't be here, right???
And, again, I know exactly what an AVI and MPEG-2 is all about. I've been working with digital video and multimedia since the old times of win 3.1. As I said, AVI is a raw format, BMP's one after another, and MPEG-2 is not "only" a compression algorithm, it IS also a video format...that uses
a compression schema to store digital video data. It really is a (compressed) video format. Get youself a copy of the ISO or MPEG group specification on MPEG-1 or MPEG-2....it is worth studying some theory too! You can get a deeper knowledge of what YOU talk about. Lots of maths and formulas, but you can get the feeling all off it. -
vhelp,
You are absolutely right. Capture in small chunks and the audio sync problems should be kept to a minimum.
To say I don't "get it" is ridiculous. I have a life other than this hobby. For the amount of tapes I have (and joecav has, I suspect), it is impractical to make the PC conversion process even more time consuming by babysitting the capture process.
I stand by my opinion, that standalone recorders are the absolute best solution when it comes to archiving a large number of source tapes. The only disadvantage I have noted about the standalones is that it takes about 15 minutes longer per game to edit out commercials through the remote control. Obviously editing an .avi on Premiere is more accurate, also, but it is of little consequence when removing commercials.
joecav, we're all just throwing out ideas at you. You'll ultimately have to decide what's best for you and your budget. I realize you probably weren't out to spend $500 on a new piece of equipment, but keep the standalones in mind just in case.
joecav, another suggestion: No matter what method you use, I'd split your AFC Championship across two discs if the game means that much to you. It shouldn't be fuzzy - should look as good as your original! It's well worth the extra $.90. -
Roll Tide,
I agree with you.
But joecav, just another choice:
if you decide on capping to MPEG-2, then cut off commercial or anything else, in TMPGEnc DVD Author. It is easy and very reliable. then burn it also from TMPGEnc DVD Author.
that is the fastest way, besides standalone DVD recorders. -
Originally Posted by macm
As far as mpeg goes, I didn't mean my few word def to be a complete explination of mpeg. By the way, how does one get a copy of the specs? You can get the ITU -601, 470, etc. specs for free download. Can you do the same for mpeg?
@statstorm
I disagree on the DV thing (with regard to NTSC). One would have to test to know. Maybe I should run some test pattern tests of my own? NTSC dv clearly has less color info. It samples 1/2 of the color from the analog source. I am however, not a professional. I believe any professional who knew their stuff would say "It depends". Depends on your source, depends on you hardware, depends on how you watch it in the end. -
Originally Posted by trevlac
I think you missed something here...
You are wrong.
Basically and essencially, AVI and MPEG-2 are both digital media formats.
Both are formed by pixels. Whether compressed somehow or not.
The main purpose of the MPEG-2 (or MPEG-1 or MPEG-4) specification is to take a digital raw chunck of pixels (like AVI file format) and according to a complex compression algorithm, turn it into a manageable, small, chunck of compresssed digital chunck of pixels.
AVI file specification is based on video ,audio (optional) and some other info. But it is basically a sequence of BITMAP images (the video part).
Don't miss with file formats and codecs. Every digital file format must have a "codec" for reading/wrinting. call it wharever you want, but codecs are pieces of software, based on specific algorithms for recognition and treatment. How do you think a Word document is written or read? It has it's own "codec" to process it. So is with multimedia files. Yes, AVI has it's own codec...but it is a raw digital file format. AVI is supported by the RIFF specification. But AVI RIFF is a format that uses a codec for processing it's information. -
I'm going to have to side with macm here. He's the closest, at least.
Raw uncompressed AVI is like driving your father's Oldsmobile. It's old and clunky, but it's still out on the road because it works.
The Huffman YUV and MJPEG and other codecs are attempts to make it less of a pain in the butt.
MPEG-2 and indeed something newer (based off of MPEG-4, WMV or XVID) are the wave of the future. That's why MPEG hardware is more costly, while AVI-only boards are cheap.
Even DV has it limits.
If you have the newer better cards, use it. You bought it. No need to continue running the 10-to-15-year-old AVI route. Unless you just like it that way.
And again, most "AVI vs MPEG differences" I see as complaints are more psychological than real, given that you have good hardware and software that can support it.
And cable source isn't "the source" either. They get a lot of the same garbage the rest of us can buy (tapes, etc, though on S-VHS, broadcast VHS or Betacam SP).
Macm hit on something else. Codecs. And I'll throw in compression. Everything.... EVERYTHING... has some sort of parser that decodes the binary into readable information, call it codec, compression or what-have-you. Nothing is "codec-free" or "compression-free" on a computer. Even analog can be compressed. Just look at EP/SLP mode tapes.
TO joecav... look into a DVD recorder or a better card that cooperates with your system. It's no secret that I prefer ATI AIW cards with MPEG-2 capture.Want my help? Ask here! (not via PM!)
FAQs: Best Blank Discs • Best TBCs • Best VCRs for capture • Restore VHS -
Lordsmurf,
that's it!
thanks.
The bottomline (or deadline) is:
do wharever is suitable for you. What is really best is a matter of one's resources (hard/soft/budget) and taste!!
over.
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