Struggling to complete high-quality VHS2DVD Family Movies

[iB.E.]

Over the past few months, in the midst of long hours at the office..., I have worked on this home project on a limited budget. As a newb, I am trying to complete the xfer of a home movie from a VHS tape to DVD to maximize quality of the picture, given the VHS source, & compatibility with standard standalone DVD players. I think I am getting close, but I'd welcome your opinions on (A) whether I should re-do any prior step and (B) what to do next, given my goals of high quality and player-compatibility.

My system is a Dell 866 with 512meg RAM and Win XP Pro. (Hope to get a new machine in a few months)

1. Used Vegas 4 and Canopus ADVC-100 to capture the 2-hour home movie from VHS to an AVI file. Captured to a different physical HD than the one on which Vegas was installed. (No audio sync problem when I used the computer for nothing else during the capture). Properties of the file show in Vegas 4 as NTSC DV (720x480, 29.970 fps).

2. Encoded to Mpeg2 using TMPGEnc 2.5 in 30-day trial period. (Took ~9 hours using the Dell 866 - ouch!) The file size went from ~26 gigs to ~4 gigs. I pretty much left the app's defaults alone: CBR Layer II Audio (MP2), Interlaced, 1:1 (VGA), 4:3 (NTSC 704x480), avg video bitrate 4400, 720x480 resolution, DVD-R 4.7GB(UDF). Encoded onto a different physical HD than the source file; during the encoding, did nothing else on the machine and unplugged it from the broadband connection.

- Could Vegas have done just as good a job encoding? In the future, do I need TMPGEnc?

[I did no "authoring" because, for this first DVD, I simply wanted the VHS on a DVD with good quality and compatibility. Is this OK or is "authoiring" required, given my goals?]

3. Using a Plextor 708A and Imation DVD+R/RW DVDs, I am now at the stage of trying to burn the DVD so that it can be played in our standard DVD player (Sony DVP-NC615), while also maximizing compatibility with whatever standalone DVD players other family members might have. I already have Nero 5.5.10.54 and saw that a lot of people seem to have success with it, so my first attempts have been with it. (Stick with it?) I used Nero's wizard the first time and it returned an error message that the 4+ gig file was too large for ISO and to use UDF. So, I tried UDF, which burned successfully, but, although that file will play on the PC, the standalone Sony DVD player does not recognize it. I then tried Nero's UDF/ISO option, selecting UDF 1.02, but rec'd the same file-too-large message. Suggestions plz on what I should do next, given my goals of quality and compatibility?

Thx for your patience.

[fmctm1sw]

1. Looks OK I guess. the only thing you could look into here is your 720x480 capture resolution. Some folks have varying opinions on that.

2. If you want a fully "DVD Compliant" DVD, you need to have at least one track of AC3 or PCM sound on the DVD in addition to your MP2.

Audio:
48000 Hz
32 - 1536 kbit/sec
Up to 8 audio tracks containing DD (Dolby Digital/AC3), DTS, PCM(uncompressed audio), MPEG-1 Layer2. One audio track must have DD or PCM Audio.

MP2 works on a lot of players though. I believe you will need to author if you plan on playing it on a standalone player.

3. I think your problems with the standalone may be due to the fact you skipped the authoring stage. I use Nero and I've never had a problem burning EXCEPT when I skipped the authoring stage as you did....

[bugster]

[I did no "authoring" because, for this first DVD, I simply wanted the VHS on a DVD with good quality and compatibility. Is this OK or is "authoiring" required, given my goals?]


Thx for your patience.

Thats why it won't play on your DVD player. Very few DVD players will play raw mpegs (DVD compliant or not), it must first be authored to DVD format (IFO, BUp and VOB files). If you just want to test, you can use IfoEdit for basic authoring and its free. Then use Nero to burn the files it produces as DVD-Video.

As for your other questions.

Quality is determined by many things. When it comes to the encoding stage the bitrate is very important. 4400 CBR is quite low for home video and VHS transfers which tend to be quite noisy and often include a lot of camera shake which eats up the bitrate. 2-pass VBR with 4400 average should give you a slight improvement and still fit on your disk, or split the movie over 2 disks (if this is an option for you) and encode at 8000 CBR. You could also consider using Tmpgencs noise reduction filter, though this is very slow. If you thought 9 hours was a long time, if you use 2-pass VBR and noise reduction on that machine, take a few days holiday while it runs! The results should be superb though. Try it on a small section to see if you want to go down that route.


I don't know which encoder engine Vegas uses so can't say if it will achieve as good a qaulity as TmpGenc, but TmpGenc, though pretty slow, does a pretty good job at encoding.

Hope this helps.

[iB.E.]

bugster & fmctm1sw, your posts were a huge help. Thx!

I authored the TmpGenc-encoded file with TmpGenc Author and was FINALLY able to see a product through the standalone dvd player. [Nice to finally see a product after the expenditures on the Canopus, Vegas, the Plextor, and the blank dvds.]

My next step will be to try to make a "best of" dvd by combining segments from several dvds into one. I assume Vegas will do this and that its best that I use the avi files to minimize loss of video quality.

[DaBarrister]

Do it all with Vegas 4. It's a terrific program and I've never had compatibility or stability problems with it (except when I did something very stupid - using a 2+ minute loop for animated thumbnails). There is no need to go outside the program for anything. Also, buy Douglas Spotted Eagle's book on Vegas. Best $35 bucks you'll ever spend. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1578202191/ref=pd_sim_art_elt/102-788545...64133?v=glance

[iB.E.]

Thx, DaBarrister, for the tip.

Given my next project, would Eagle's book cover the topic I describe in this post:

https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=787683#787683

Your thoughts on whether I can easily do this compilation in Vegas?