input on my vcr -> dvd process please

[jt1583]

I'm trying to convert some older family vhs's to dvd's, so I bought a capture card and have hooked up a VCR to my computer.


Capture
Using VirtualVCR I'm able to capture the footage in sync with audio at about 10mb/min which is good enough for me as a 4 hour video can fit onto a DVD. Settings here are Mpeg2 compression, 720*480 (dvd?) and 29.97 FPS. Audio is at 16 kHz stereo. I'm pretty sure everything in the capture part is good, input welcome though.


Edit
Been using trial Vegas but may try Premiere. This is the part I'm am new to and having trouble with. The main reason I want the video editing program is to cut out blue parts and scracthy parts from the vhs, I'm not trying to correct it and make it look better, just cut and crop basically. Adding a title and fades may be nice too. To the best of my understanding, even if i only add a title to the video I have to render the entire thing again which seems like a very long process. The 1.5gb movie I had I put into vegas, cut out about 20 minutes of junk making it 1hr 30 min total and added a title in the beginning, took about 3 hours to render and came out to 4gig! This is the part I need the most help with. Should I be trying to keep the movie as an mpeg2 since it will be going to DVD? If editing this adds so much more size and time to the project I might as well sit by the vcr and computer while recording and fast forward through the junk and just burn the raw file, not editing or cutting, which I don't want to do as that would be sloppy. Input much appreciated, I'm lost at this part.

Burning
Have been used to burning DVD's with VIDEO_TS folders. If I have just an mpeg2 file I want to be able to play on most DVD players, whats the best way to go about this with nero?

Thanks all very much[/b]

[whitejremiah]

what type of video capture card is it? if it's an mpeg based one with a hardware encoder, such as a hauppage or something like that, then the settings look like they may be alright, if the video card is something non mpeg based, such as an ATI all in wonder......you may consider capturing to huffyuv or mjpg instead of mpeg then converting later, because basically if your not using an mpeg based capture card and capture directly to mpeg, your throwing out a good chunk of quality by doing so.........as for the editing, a lot of this sounds like it could probably be done with much simpler programs.....if you capture to avi, you can probably just use virtualdub for this type of editing then convert the output to mpeg with tmpgenc, quenc, or any other number of conversion programs and create your menus and such with either TDA or dvd lab pro.....your output should never be an outright mpeg 2 file after this, then just burn in nero as a new dvd movie.

[harley2ride]

If I'm not mistaken, Vegas, Premiere, and other softwares will allow you to only re-encode edits/changes, and not re-edit the remaining data as long as it is dvd compliant.

[dphirschler]

Audio is at 16 kHz stereo.

I am sure you mean 48 KHz and 16bit stereo.


Darryl

[mikiem]

"I'm able to capture the footage in sync with audio at about 10mb/min which is good enough for me as a 4 hour video can fit onto a DVD"

2 schools of thought -- one is to capture close to what will go on DVD, the other is to capture highest bitrate you can, edit, encode. Generally to fit anything more then 2 hours on DVD, even at VHS quality, should consider smaller frame sizes. In your case since cropping anyway, you're already re-sizing so no additional loss & smaller amounts of compression needed. It would be much simpler for you if you could record mjpeg or HUFFYUV avi files.

"I'm not trying to correct it and make it look better, just cut and crop basically. ...took about 3 hours to render and came out to 4gig! This is the part "

You could do this magnitudes faster in V/Dub, & from other posts, 2 - 3 times faster then V/dub if you use Avisynth for the crop/resize. If you're open to Avisynth, might want to check out something like cropping/resizing in Avisynth and frameserving the results to maybe Wax for titles, cutting & encoding. You don't mention a mpg2 encoder outside of the Vegas trial -- you'll need to get one if you don't have already, and that will influence your workflow.

If you have a video file with X bitrate, & then re-encode it at 2X bitrate, file will be a lot bigger, but no increase in quality because you've still got the same original video.

"If I have just an mpeg2 file I want to be able to play on most DVD players, whats the best way to go about this with nero?"

Use a DVD authoring program to create a DVD layout (the VIDEO_TS folder) you're used to burning.

[jt1583]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16815100120

thats the card I got. In the details is says "Capture Video as MPEG 4/2/1" so im guessing I should try to capture as an mpeg vs an avi. If I do capture as mpeg, can I still use avisynth? basically I'm trying to convert/crop vhs -> dvd as quickly and efficient as possible. After reducing sound to 16khz from 48khz it drastically reduced file size, which is a plus. Is 16khz that much worse than 48khz to avoid doing this? Any recomendation for turning mpeg2 into VIDEO_TS folder?

thanks

[yoda313]

After reducing sound to 16khz from 48khz it drastically reduced file size, which is a plus. Is 16khz that much worse than 48khz to avoid doing this?

Nope that won't help at all. To make a compatible dvd it MUST be in 48khz. You can decrease the bitrate of the audio. 256 should be sufficient for home video dubs.

[mikiem]

"thats the card I got. In the details is says "Capture Video as MPEG 4/2/1" so im guessing I should try to capture as an mpeg vs an avi."

Not sure what others have tried or use with this card, but if you can capture avi (mjpeg or HUFFYUV), it'd probably be worth it to you if for no other reason than it's going to be easier & faster. Best way to find out IMO would be to install HUFFYUV and give it a try.

"If I do capture as mpeg, can I still use avisynth?"

You can do just about anything you can with a mjpeg video, but you might lose a bit of quality, it's a little harder (more filters involved), it'll take longer to process.

[jt1583]

the HUFFYUV file was 50gigs for a 2hr video so I dont think thats a good move. when using a 300mb mpeg4 in DVDit (mpeg-dvd format(video_ts)) it said the dvd would be 5.5 gigs and wouldnt fit, why did it jump up like this? also what is a good program to quickly crop video hopefully without rendering? just want to cut sections out basically.