Quick Capture Q: 640x480 From VHS w/Huffy..now what!?

[HeadRusch]

I captured a bunch of stuff from VHS using HUFFY at 640x480, resulting in obviously huge AVI's.

Now, what I want to do is MPEG these things so I can archive the MPEGS to DVDR...note, I dont want to turn them into VCD's or finished DVD's yet, I just want to shrink down the files to managable sizes and archive them to DVDR. Someday maybe I'll play and re-encode the mpegs to put on DVDR's.

To start, the quality on these is abyssmal...I'm using TMPGENC to do the conversions, which includes applying some filters to remove the noise from the VHS AVI.

So, for these VHS captures at 640x480, whats the smart way to archive?
I've been tinkering all night long and I swear I see macroblocking no matter what choice I choose. MPEG I at 352x480 @1850 constant quality, MPEG 2 at 2-pass VBR at 6000 KPBS Average bitrate. I'm stumped.
One file is 2.5 megs, the other is 10 megs, and to me they look identical because the source is crap.

Whats the smart way to keep these as mpegs.


Also, just as an aside, I'm also capturing some stuff from cable that is higher quality, also at 640x480 to Huffy or MJPEG (Pinnacle DC10 card).

What should I do with those files that are of a higher quality, or even for better quality VHS sources?

Many Thanks...

[Soopafresh]

AviSynth, bro... AviSynth...

Amazing quality deblockers and video denoisers. This will be worth your time if the material you're converting is important to you. I'll even help you write your first script.

Do me a favor, and post a few (10) seconds of your video up here (2MB limit). You'll probably have to convert a bit to XVID. Or, you can post up to 30MB on http://rapidshare.de . I'll take a look and get the script ready.

[HeadRusch]

Wooooh that is looking WAAAY too complicated for what I'm after.

Scripts? Yikes!

I dont even want to pretty these raw captures up, just archive them...and pretty them up *someday* Can't TMPGENC and its batch processing be used? I'm talking about picking the right size and bitrate. I mean, if I take a clip that is 100 megs and shrink it down to 2 megs (VCD) or 10 megs (high bitrate Mpeg II), either is fine with me...I was just looking for advice on which one to use.

Uh, AVISynth looks pretty....complex for such a purpose.......??

[Soopafresh]

Sure. You can do some decent filtering with Tmpgenc. There's that option to reduce macroblocking as well.

Another option is to just Archive your material by converting from Huffy to Lagarith, which is a lossless codec, but reduces file size a good deal more than Huffy. You'd just have to install lagarith, and choose it as your compressor in VirtualDub.

Or, you could get a DVD player which supports Xvid/Divx playback and archive your stuff to Xvid. You can find a Divx DVD player for $50

Just for fun, have a look at this little example of Original vs AviSynthed footage. It is in Divx/Xvid format. Only 1MB in size.

example.avi

[lordsmurf]

VirtualDub filters may go farther. Save a new AVI. Then encode it in TMPGENC.

[Richard_G]

Why are you capturing a DVD non-compliant resolution. If you eventually want to put them on DVDR (for TV viewing), you'd be better to start with a compliant size (720 x 480 or 352 x 480).

[thecoalman]

I dont even want to pretty these raw captures up, just archive them...and pretty them up *someday*

Best to do it now, at least to the point where your not going to be applying filters to the entire video.

My suggestion would be this, capture @ 720x480 convert to 720x480 6000kbps mpeg2. I'd even suggest higher since you want to use them for archives. Personally I use DV-AVI for archiving but that requires a lot of space. Note: Do not capture @ 640x480 and scale the video up, scale it down if you stick with 640x480 want to make them DVD compliant. You could even encode @ 640x480 if your only going to use them for archiving.

That may be a little bit of overkill for some but if those videos are to be used as permanent archives 10 years from now you'll glad you did.

[junkmalle]

Since you don't need files of a specific size I recommend 352x480 with TMPGEnc's Plus's MPEG 2, single pass, constant quality mode. Set the quality you want (probably in the 80 to 90 range) and encode. The default min and max bitrate settings of 1000, 8000 are usually ok. The results will have very little macroblocking and will be DVD ready.

For even better resizing (TMPGEnc's resizing filter isn't the best) you could use VirtualDub or AVISynth and frameserve to TMPGEnc. But it sounds like you don't want to deal with that.

[HeadRusch]

I actually have another thread that comments on why I'm capturing at 640x480, its all my capture card will grab. Besides...720x480 is a 16:9 ratio, even if I could cap at that rez, if my source is 4:3....I'm destroying the AR no?

Originally I was using an inexpensive TVcard with svideo in to do my capturing, only its quality is terrible and I get noticible picture noise when using it. The advantage is I could capture using any program I wanted, and then I could manipulate the files as they were AVI in whatever codec I wanted.

So I stopped using that and switched to my old Pinnacle Studio DC10+. The advantage is that is captures at 640x480 with excellent quality. The DISadvantage is that I can't find any software besides Studio that actually recognizes it. Another problem is that the raw AVI files it saves are NOT able to beopened by me with TMPGENC.

Virtua dub can play them Mediaplayer classic can play them, but TMPGENC wont open those files. SO I have to then SAVE those avi files as DV-AVI files, and then TMPGENC can open and manipulate them to save as MPEGS.

I could just save them as MPEGS using Studio 7 as well but I haven't really fooled around with that feature, and I dont know if the quality blows or what.

I think out of everything I've read, a smart move might be to save as one poster above suggested: 352x480 at the settings recommended above.
That seems like a viable solution......

Guys this stuff is like....old TV commercials from the 80's and junk like that, the source quality is horrible.

But for some stuff the quality is really good, and its really those I am concerned with...like if I snatch some old Music Videos off VH1 Classic, grabbing at 640x480.....etc.

[lordsmurf]

Some software just plain works better with 640x480 4:3 (1:1 pixels). You convert it to DVD compliance later anyway.

[thecoalman]

Besides...720x480 is a 16:9 ratio, even if I could cap at that rez, if my source is 4:3....I'm destroying the AR no?

Ratio is determined by the header flag (or ifo file on DVD) not the resolution. 720x480 or any DVD resolution for that matter can be either 16:9 or 4:3. The DVD player of software adjusts the aspect.

If your stuck with 640x480 then do as Junkmalle suggested since that would be the next resolution down, that or encode to 640x480 if they are strictly for archiving.

Your not going to see much difference between 720x480 or 352x480 with a low quality source if any. The only reason I suggest the higher resolutions is because I like to overcompensate, discs are cheap. Memories are not if it's personal footage your capturing.

[HeadRusch]

How about 640x480 Mpeg II Constant Quality 1000min bitrate, 8000max bitrate, audio at 192khz.

Files are still large, but nowhere near as large as raw AVI....

[Soopafresh]

640x480 Mpeg2 is fine if you don't plan on playing this stuff on a DVD player. That resolution isn't standard.

Like I mentioned, I'll (we'll) write your AviSynth Script for you. All you'll need to do is to install the app and a few plugins. After you convert the first AVI file, all you'll need to do is change the file name in the script to the name of the next AVI you want to convert.

[HeadRusch]

Yeah, I dont plan on playing this stuff on a DVD Player.

If I do in the future, I'll just reencode and reformat again from the 640x480 MPEG II files. Loss of quality I'm sure but I'm not too concerned because these clips are definately crap-o-vision quality to begin with.

I even felt funny capturing at 640x480!! They clips dont even look watchable on a PC monitor until I conver them to 352x240 and apply a heavy dose of noise-removal filtering in TMPGENC!

So right now I'm getting files that are 1/10th the original size. So a 300meg file is 30 megs. A 1.7 gigabyte capture is like 200 megs....all of this is fine by me. size wize...so long as thats an ok setting for bitrates (1000 minimum, 8000 maximum MPEG II at 640x480).

[junkmalle]

If I do in the future, I'll just reencode and reformat again from the 640x480 MPEG II files. Loss of quality I'm sure but I'm not too concerned because these clips are definately crap-o-vision quality to begin with.

Many DVD players will play MPG files (of pretty much any dimensions) on ISO data disks. So you may not even have to re-encode them.

[thecoalman]

They clips dont even look watchable on a PC monitor until I conver them to 352x240 and apply a heavy dose of noise-removal filtering in TMPGENC!

Compare them on a TV not a PC monitor.