DV transfer Vs Capture for DVD of home video

[wgkenney]

Hi all,

I've been doing a lot of reading in this forum over the last day or two on the different ways to capture (including the guides on various sites). I want to try to ask a question that has been discussed here quite a bit in a little different format.

First, Video is a hobby for me and I really enjoy it (if my day job wasn't so good i'd consider doing this for a living!!). For the last year I have been working on taking my old family VHS home video, editing it, encoding an putting it onto DVDs. My main goal was to learn the tools involved so I've been learning Vegas 4, TMPGEnc plus, DVD A, etc and have really been having fun. It is amazing how you can take a boring video of the kids at the beach and turn it into something worth the time to watch.

I have been using the passthrough on my DV camcorder to get the VHS to DV to AVI on my computer. I have, however, been reading here about seperate video capture cards that seem to do a better job of gettting a quality AVI onto my computer.

So what I am trying to decide is if I am going to get significantly better quality (given that I am starting with home VHS) by using a capture card vs the pass through on my DV camcorder. For my new stuff I'm using the DV camcorder to record so I think (if I'm reading right) that I'm stuck just transferring the new DV video via firewire to the computer (so that a capture card would not do me any real good for my new videos).

I know most people have different opions on this, but I'd like to see what people think.

[wwjd]

My advice would be to stick with the DV camcorder pass through. A capture card will not improve the quality. Actually, if the video is fairly clean, nothing will. One of the things that can make or break the quality is the mpeg encoder you use. I use CCE Basic, VS8 and or TMPGEnc.

I am pretty much in the same place you are except I do not have a DV camcorder yet. I ended up buying a Canopus ADVC-100 Analog to digital converter which is pretty much the same as your pass through. For my family VHS tapes I use a JVC VCR hooked to the ADVC that has S video out. In fact I also capture TV shows using the ADVC.

I have two capture cards, AIW7500 and WinTV PVR 150. Neither of them comes even close in terms of video quality preservation when compared to the ADVC.

wwjd

[BSR]

I've been back and forth with this same question many of times. I tested and tried both ways even more times.

But I still use the DV passthrough for my VHS camcorder tapes. It's just so simple and easy, my results appear better and I never have audio sync issues with long captures.

Many people say that DV cams don't have a TBC, maybe this is true, but when I use my passthrough on some tapes that had noise on the top and bottom, the DV cam cleaned them up somehow, where the Capture card kept the noise.

I'm even considering a DVD recorder maybe, but I'll see. Sister came home for xmass and has 30 or so vhs camcorder footage she wants converted

[upshot]

uh oh... *sound of can opening*

Given that VHS is a 'low quality' starting point, the issues that are important to it's 'restoration' (up to DVD quality) seem to be:

-Quality scaling (lo-res to medium-res)
-Video stability (TBC's, quality media, good players)
-Color accuracy (ability to convert color space)
-filters (to remove noise, VHS artifacts)
-Codecs (to maintain data integrity)

The big difference I have found is "color accuracy". DV tends to be overly cool (blueish), slightly bright (gamma), and can have overpowering reds. This can be worked out during encoding with some slight adjustments.

I'm sure the debate will rage on... People tend to defend what they are comfortable with but, It's good to remember that 99% of us are just like you: consumer or 'prosumer'

[wgkenney]

What is TBC?

[BrainStorm69]

TBC = TIme Base Corrector

[ZAPPER]

Some things you might consider,
The cost of any new devices
The learning curve effort and time
How much use it will get
Do you intend to go Pro or offer your services out pro bono to freinds and family
How satisfied you are with the setup that you now use
How much CPU will your new device use up and can your setup support it
I am sure that these are just the very basic points to ponder.

My thoughts are like this. To avoid taxing my weak PC I think that the analog to DV conversion is best done outside of the box.(cam passthru is what I use) I don't have an external box like Canopus to compare things with, but it could be that they are better. I do tend to believe that a tool designed to do only one thing is usually better than the swiss knife approach.(but I do like versitilty)

If you could sample, or try before you buy, it sure would make the deceision easier as what to finally buy. If you know someone that has something different than your setup and would let you test it out that would be great. Reveiws and suggestions always clutter my deceisions. I have never been one to buy it try it and return it just for my own testing, but alot of people do this, and if you can do it and it doesn't seem wrong to you or the store that you buy from, it may be your best option

[vhelp]

I was just doing something similar. I found a home VHS tape in box I had
stored away. It had many vhs commercial movies, but some home movies as
well. I didn't know/relaize that I had these tapes. Anyways.
.
When I picked up one (out of curiosity) it had a yellow sticky on it, labeld
"??? party" on it in pencil. (I had a habbit of using those tiny stickies
to label things cause I always feared I would not be permanant when I write
in ink or something) Anyways.
.
So, I was shocked. Because I remembered this one. I had took home footage
from my OLD 8mm cam and recorded the tape to a VHS tape.
.
When I first played it, first, I was happy that I had footage somewheres
other than on 8mm (cause I can't play them just yet in my 8mm cam) and this
one in particular was one that I was looking for. Anyways. So I then watched
it for a quicky, and noticed that the quality wasn't soo good. But still,
it was on VHS tape, and from my point of view, it was my "original". And as
such, I treat such, as GOLD. Anyways.
.
But to my surprise, I had recorded it to VHS in EP mode Oh no, I said.
I wasn't thinking. Actually, this was footage taken back in 1998 and to me,
that is a very long time. So I decided to give it a test run, and let my
ADVC-100 capture the whole thing. I wash't sure it was the full hour or
so that I taped it. Turns out, it was. To my surprise, the final capture
was in great shape. (The video blanked out several times, as if I turned off
the unit or something, and other times, the video did really crazy things
way off the scale. But to my surprise, the ADVC-100 did not drop a single
frame)

After all this, I did some test encodes. (Remember, home footage is Interlaced)
I was quite satisifed that the quality was very good. these were short bursts
of encodes for testing only. I did not capture the audio, but only because I
didn't realize the cable woren't connected So, I have to redo the whole
thing again. Now I know what to look for.

This tape was recorded in EP mode, (the slowest and noisest of all) and it was
a second generation copy (that I was treating as GOLD) and I
was very happy with the results. Now all I have to do is first, get my 8mm
cam fixed, and second, find *THE* original tape

Luckily, I use a tripod even back then. But, did manage to manuver a little
jerky in some scenes. But that I can deal with.

In this cercumstance I choose the DV route becuase from experince, I knew that
I could get the best results from this format. And I did. I also used a few
techniques to squeeze or tweak some UMPF out of the final encode to get the
maximum out of it for TV viewing.
.
Mind you, you don't want to de-interlace home footage. Never. No matter how
bad it is, (hand footage taking in most cases) you must encode w/ Interlace
settings turned on. (there are "tricks of trade" that I used, mostly home-brew
that I concocked, based on eye) in my situation and skills/knowledge, etc.

The chances of you getting a non-problematic capture (w/ an Analog capture card)
is almost 60% in most cases.

Most (if not all) DV cams w/ pass-through features, incorporate a pre-filter
phase in their video to DV capture. I found that my TRV22 has this feature.
That exaplains the reason why my ADVC-100 is so much more sharper and therefore
captures *everything* detail'wise. That was another reason why I choose the
ADVC-100 for this project. This is a timeless project. I want every detail
that I can get. No filtering of the detail.

It takes time to develop an eye for detail and technique in the video world.
(I just wanted to say that) There's no short cuts to final quality. You simply
must develop such skills over time.

Cheers,
-vhelp