VHS live videos to DVD method

[relux]

Greetings,

I know this has been discussed over and over but I want to make sure I am doing this correct. I read through tons of posts and this is what I have come up with.

I was an avid collector of live concert videos. I have hundreds on NTSC VHS tapes. I would like to get these converted to DVD. Some of these because they are not all first or second generation area already in rough shape. Keeping them in the best quality is my primary concern. I know there are two ways to do this. One is to get a VHS-DVD recorder. I have a JVC DR-MV5 deck. I can record directly to DVD from a VHS tape. My only problem with this is I am unable to do any editing or filters such as sharpen or cropping. I crop to get the bottom few pixels removed..the squigly tracking lines. My other option is to go through computer to do editing, etc. This takes substantially longer of course.

My hardware is a Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-USB2 and I also have a ATI TV Wonder Pro PCI tuner card. I decided to go with the Hauppauge because of the onboard MPEG2 decoding. The way I have been doing it is to use Hauppauge's WinTV software to capture with 15000 CBR at resolution of 352x480 with audio MPEG1 Layer 2 48khz with 384 audio bitrate. I then am taking the mpg file and using MPEG Video Wizard to do cropping and run filters. I then export it to same mpeg file at same resolution of 352x480 with CBR of 9000 and audio at AC3 with 384 bitrate. Then using either the MPEG Video Wizard dvd author tool or Nero putting it on DVD.

Is there anything feedback you guys could give as to if I am doing this correctly? If there is anything I can do to speed up this method? It seems to take a very very very long time to run any filters through with MPEG Video Wizard. Am I using overkill in my settings?

Thanks for any feedback!

[harley2ride]

Any particular reason why you are capturing at 15000 as mpeg1. If were me, I would capture as lossless avi, or mpeg2 at no more than 8000 (as your source isn't any better than that anyway). I would look at a better encoding software as well. Use TMPGENC, Mainconcept, or Canopus encoders. I'm not sure what you have for filters with your editing software, but you might want to take a look at avisynth. If you capture as avi, and use avisynth to do your cleanup, then only encode once to mpeg2 (for dvd), you would end up with about the best quality you could hope for from using a source of vhs tape. Encoding twice isn't really helping your process, and editing in avi is much better than mpeg editing.

[Scorpion King]

Faster?

Capture with your ATI card and MMC to the finished product. 720x480 @ 9.8Mbps CBR, 256Kbps audio will give you a 1 hour dvd. If you want 2 hours then use VBR with the average a little lower than that until your test shows it'll fit.

Adjust VideoSoap for the best filtering like Combo #1 = 35% and Sharpen = 10% (depending on source - use preview to adjust), and enable "Crop Video". Crop will put narrow black bars around your video hiding those nasty looking edges. And use MPEG2-DVD under 'format' so the crop feature won't output a non-standard framesize.

Use your authorizing program or one like Ulead VideoStudio and edit out the portions you don't want to include in your project without reencoding (either burn from your authorizing program or use smart-render in Ulead).

My 2 cents worth:

Using 352x480 is going to lower the detail since bitrate seems to not be a problem here. I would use 720x480 when the bitrates are in the 9's like these. I think it will give better quality in the end.

Capturing to mpeg2 then reencoding is going to loose quality IMO. I don't like to do it. Either capture in AVI (uncompressed or Huffyuv) then encode 1 time is better.

Capturing in MPEG2 then running filters isn't as good as capturing in AVI (either uncompressed or Huffyuv codec) then filtering or filter during the mpeg2 capture (like MMC can do). It's probably faster too. MPEG2 is ment to be a finished product, not a working format. lol

For AVI capture myself I'd use my ATI card and VirtualVCR. I have gotten excellent results with that combination.

Good luck.

[bendixG15]

...............I then export it to same mpeg file at same resolution of 352x480 with CBR of 9000 and audio at AC3 with 384 bitrate. Then using either the MPEG Video Wizard dvd author tool or Nero putting it on DVD...............

I used to burn with Nero 6.xx but could not find a way to increase the default AC3 bitrate from 192. I even emailed Nero support and I was told that 192 is it. So either you have found a way to kick up the AC3 bitrate to 384 or you are burning at 192. Try Gspot to check the audio.
So ..... how are you able to get it to 384 ???

(I no longer use Nero for burning ... IMGBurn is my hero now)

[thecoalman]

I crop to get the bottom few pixels removed.

Removing or replacing? If you're cropping then scaling the video I would suggest instead to mask the area, or in other words add a black border.

[dphirschler]

If you are going through the trouble of doing it on a PC, then capture 720x480 huffyuv. Then make your edits and encode VBR to fit your DVD. Otherwise, do it on a standalone. Maybe use the standalone for most of them and use the PC for those special ones.

But if you think there is a better source "out there" then don't even bother. You don't want to trade out a low quality, high-gen recording on DVD and start spreading it around. Instead, search for a lower gen. But if you think yours is the best there is, then go ahead and transfer it to DVD.

But it wouldn't hurt to go ahead and get the audio even from the bad ones. Sometimes it is still in great shape even a few generations down.


Darryl

[FulciLives]

My hardware is a Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-USB2 and I also have a ATI TV Wonder Pro PCI tuner card. I decided to go with the Hauppauge because of the onboard MPEG2 decoding. The way I have been doing it is to use Hauppauge's WinTV software to capture with 15000 CBR at resolution of 352x480 with audio MPEG1 Layer 2 48khz with 384 audio bitrate. I then am taking the mpg file and using MPEG Video Wizard to do cropping and run filters. I then export it to same mpeg file at same resolution of 352x480 with CBR of 9000 and audio at AC3 with 384 bitrate. Then using either the MPEG Video Wizard dvd author tool or Nero putting it on DVD.

This is a perfectly fine if not "optimal" procedure ... almost.

My one grip is that you should capture 720x480 for NTSC or 720x576 for PAL. Since you seem to want to maximize quality and put only 60 minutes or so per DVD you might as well use Full D1 resolution (that's 720x480/576).

My other suggestion ... 385kbps AC-3 is overkill and based on a few things I have read it may also be out-of-spec (but still playable). From what I've read 2 channel AC-3 should be no higher than 320kbps and 256kbps is considered the "sweet spot" for 2 channel AC-3 encoding.

However ... having said all that ... if you are willing to only put 60 minutes per DVD then you might find that the 1 hour or 60 minute mode on a stand alone DVD recorder to offer the same level of quality and be MUCH faster. Granted you don't get the benefit of any A/V filtering but at that high-level of bitrate the video is going to look as good as the VHS video ... not worse.

I don't know if you are doing any "tweaking" of the audio (you didn't mention it) but if you use a stand alone DVD recorder you can use DVD-RW or DVD+RW then RIP it to the computer and demux to a separate video and audio file. This allows you to filter the audio and then match it up with the video so that the video does not have to be re-done ... just the audio.

However if you really want to tweak the video by masking out objectable stuff (like the VHS line noise at the bottom) and filter to tweak the image then the Hauppauge route is a good one.

Oh and one more thing ... I don't know what kind of video filtering ability that MPEG Video Wizard offers but most people would use VirtualDubMod or AviSynth for video filtering.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[dphirschler]

Not sure if John meant to say it, but he reminded me of another benefit of mastering it on the PC. Oftentimes with live music videos, the audio is out of sync with the video (the further back it was shot from, the worse the sync is). Mastering it on the PC allows you to sync up the audio perfectly with the video.


Darryl