Best Resolution for VHS - DVD via ADVC-100

[Bondiablo]

What's the best resolution to use when encoding an AVI to MPEG2 for a DVD when the source is VHS captured through an analog to digital converter? I've seen lots of people suggest 352x480(576) and say that's the best you can expect for quality from VHS but does that apply when you're capturing in DV format or is it just for analog captures. For DV you don't have the choice of capturing at anything but 720x480(576) do you?

[ItsMe]

352x480(576 for PAL) is the nearest to VHS resolution and is therefore the best format to use for DVD's when capturing from VHS. Because its half the DVD resolution you can use lower bitrate. I usually put 2 films on 1 DVD when using this resolution, depending on the length of the films.

DV is indeed fixed at 720x480(576 for PAL), its designed for DV camcorders and the like.

[Bondiablo]

but when using an analog to digital converter the resulting file is going to be a DV AVI even when the source is VHS so is 352x480(576) still the best resolution to use when encoding the file to MPEG2?

[ItsMe]

Using an analog the digital converter to capture your video will not improve the quality or increase the resolution so yes, 352x480(576) is the best resolution when transcoding your DV (from VHS) capture to MPEG2.

If you were capturing from a DV camcorder then 720x480(576) would be the best resolution for the MPEG2.

If you are still in doubt, try capturing a short clip and transcode it twice, once to 352x480(576), and once to 720x480(576). Then compare the two resulting files.

[Bondiablo]

I realize it won't give better quality than an analog capture at the lower resolution. What I'm saying is the analog signal (which technically doesn't really have a resolution) is already being converted to DV at 720x480 so wouldn't encoding that AVI file to a lower resolution MPEG hurt the quality in this case?

[ItsMe]

I see your point. I don't think that transcoding to a lower resoultion will hurt the quality. I frequently record films to 720x576 MPEG and then transcode them to 352x576 so I can get 2 films one DVD+R.

As I said earlier, capture a short clip to DV and transcode the clip twice, once to each of the above mentioned resolutions, and compare the two. You may see a differnce where others may not.