HD DVD - Start all over again - consumer home video question

[dvd-dude]

Anybody see this?

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=310577

Very cool news in one sense, but sort of a bummer since now we'll have to rebuy all of the DVD movies we currently own if we want them in HD. Anyone know the quality difference between DVD and HD DVD?

What about ripping... it may be a while before we have HD DVD burners and programs at home, but not too long before all new releases are HD.

Also, I was wondering about another thing. I have home movies on VHS that I've started backing up to DVD-R via a DVD/HDD recorder. As most know, the quality of the DVD doesn't match the quality of the VHS (you get artifacts, etc.). I would never be able to edit videos with the footage recorded to these DVD-Rs (it's not archival quality). However, I wonder if HD DVD will suffer from the same issue? I'm curious because I know DVD's made from film cells look incredible... best picture out there. However, DVDs recorded from an old VHS tape don't look so hot... certainly not identicle to the original (even though the same compression format it used). Will HD DVD allow for archival quality copies/backups of analog sources (VHS, 8mm, etc.), or will it too suffer from the same kind of compression issues the current DVD format suffers from when using these older sources?

-DVD-Dude

[yoda313]

Hello,

There have been numerous threads on hddvd already

And don't forget about Sony's push for Bluray.

There won't be a winner for awhile. (I'll stick with dvd until I get an hdtv then make a choice ).

Kevin

[babyboo]

It's not a limitation of the compression system but rather a limitation of the quality of the source. In other words, your DVD backups of your vhs tapes aren't suffering because of the limitations of DVD compression but the fact that vhs is a noisy, low resolution analog source (among other things). HD DVD conversions of vhs tapes would look the same as a DVD conversion because the same noisy, low resolution analog source is being used...IMHO

[dvd-dude]

Babyboo,

Thanks for the feedback! This is exactly what I wanted to hear.

I can go ahead and make my DVD-R backups of VHS knowing that I won't gain anything from waiting for HD DVD (except maybe more space on a disc). I will also continue to backup my VHS sources that I value immensely to digital 8 or mini-dv, which retain the picture quality without artifacts like the DVDs have when recording these older sources. This way I can use these tapes to edit later on.

I'll have to go read up on Bluray... I know nothing about what it actually is. Just another kind of DVD I guess, but information stored differently on it. I'll go check it out. Thanks!

-DVD-Dude

[babyboo]

I have just started archiving my vhs source avi files (each spanned across a few DVD-R's) for future editing...same as you seem to be doing but to digital-8 or mini DV tapes. The extra disc space available on an HD DVD would come in handy for storing these files so they may end up being handy for VHS after all!

[yoda313]

Hello,

I'll have to go read up on Bluray... I know nothing about what it actually is. Just another kind of DVD I guess, but information stored differently on it. I'll go check it out. Thanks!

It's Sony's competition to the Hd-dvd. I can't remember precisely but one holds 22gb and the other 30gb. Both use mpeg2 compression if I remember right.

Kevin

[babyboo]

I want to mention one other thing to consider. You say that you are backing up to a DVD HDD recorder. These record directly to MPEG2 rather than avi as a PC can. Perhaps part of the conversion artifacts that you mention seeing is related to using too low a bitrate when you record to your DVD recorder. I can honestly say that when I do a PC conversion from my home movie vhs source to avi (using the Huffy codec) and convert it to MPEG2 I use a rather high bit rate that allows for only about an hour per DVD. Doing this I don't really notice any artifacts due to the conversion process. I do notice lack of detail but then again as we talked about, that is due to the souce itself. Maybe you can try using a higher bitrate on your recorder to see if you still get the artifacts.

Also, I was wondering...you say that you archive your source files for future editing and that these source files do not suffer from these artifacts that you see when viewing the completed DVD. I would think that the MPEG files you are archiving to tape are the SAME files used to create the DVD. They therefore should be identical. I am having a hard time understanding why one set exhibits artifacts while the other set doesn't...unless your recorder is re-encoding your edited files before authoring the final DVD. Not having a DVD Recorder I don't even know if they do that.

[dvd-dude]

"Also, I was wondering...you say that you archive your source files for future editing and that these source files do not suffer from these artifacts that you see when viewing the completed DVD. I would think that the MPEG files you are archiving to tape are the SAME files used to create the DVD. They therefore should be identical. I am having a hard time understanding why one set exhibits artifacts while the other set doesn't...unless your recorder is re-encoding your edited files before authoring the final DVD. Not having a DVD Recorder I don't even know if they do that."

I have VHS sources/masters... I make one copy from the VHS to my DVD recorder. I then rewind it, and make a second copy from the VHS to the Digital 8 camcorder/recorder. The camcorder copy doesn't show any artifacts... it looks identical to the original. However, the DVD version does show them here and there.

My older stuff (TV shows, things like that) that I rarely ever watch I've just been backing up at 4 hrs per DVD. The quality isn't great... lots of artifacts. But I hardly ever watch these things and I probably don't even need to keep them - so I just do this to save money on DVD-Rs that I will probably never watch!

However, the sources that matter to me I record at 2 hrs per DVD. I tried one at 1 hr per DVD. I'm pretty sure it looked a little better, but not a huge difference from the 2 hr copy (I had to look really closely to notice the difference so I didn't feel it was worth the extra DVD-Rs it would require to do everything at this quality). Even the 1 hr wasn't identical in quality to the original VHS - I wouldn't want to use it to edit with later on. I have Panasonic which received great reviews for picture quality from analog sources. I record to the hard drive first in "DVD-Compatible" mode... basically MPEG2. This allows me to trim and insert chapters before burning it to a DVD-R.

Thanks for the feedback and discussion Babyboo!

-DVD-Dude

[sammie]

It's not a limitation of the compression system but rather a limitation of the quality of the source. In other words, your DVD backups of your vhs tapes aren't suffering because of the limitations of DVD compression but the fact that vhs is a noisy, low resolution analog source (among other things). HD DVD conversions of vhs tapes would look the same as a DVD conversion because the same noisy, low resolution analog source is being used...IMHO

Not quite true babyboo (although your overall point is correct), it is a limitation of the compressions system, albeit one that is made much much worse by the noisy, analog source. Compare your original .avi capture to even the highest quality/bitrate MPEG2 encode. There is always some level of degradation and that degradation is much worse for noisy captures as opposed to a clean digital transfer; Dig-8 home movie or DVD rip. The reason is that the noise ends up using up more and more of you bit rate. The original .avi would be the ideal archival format to keep your captured file, except that it is probably 10X larger than a current DVD.

Now it won't happen till HD/Blu disks are around a buck, but if you had an old VHS that you just had to have the absolute best quality archival copy based on current technology (except of course the HD/BLU disk :P ) you would directly burn a moderate-lossless compressed .avi file.

At a risk of hijacking the thread, it looks like the format of the future is some flavor of MPEG4/H.264. Most people have been using this to create ok quality encodes of movies designed to fit on a CD or two. Has anyone fooled around with the other end? The end that will support HD encodes or say in this case will the codecs make effective use of a higher bitrate to make a more accurate encode of a noisy souce?