Which Capture Card For My VHS --> DVD Needs?

[EViS]

I've just purchased the following two pieces of hardware to transfer my home family VHS tapes over to DVD.

JVC HR-S8600E
AVToolbox AVT-8710 (CTB100)

1. What capture card would be most ideal for me?
2. What video format should I capture in? (The video's may be authored slightly/filtered in TMPGENC & backed up on a spare HDD)

[steveryan]

If you want to do a lot of editing then one of the Canopus models or the Datavideo DAC-200 would suit. If you prefer to capture to MPEG have a look at the Hauppauge PVR-250 or PVR-350.

[EViS]

What has alot of editing to do with it steveryan?

[steveryan]

The Canopus and Datavideo models capture to DV-AVI which is ideal for editing purposes. The downside is you would need software to convert to MPEG so it's an extra step compared to the Hauppauge approach.

[thecoalman]

Basically MPEG is the fast route, the video is already DVD compliant so no encoding is necessary. If you're only going to do minor edits such as trimming the edges using a editing/authoring software that only reencodes the video you have changed you can maintain the original capture quality and have a disc quite quickly.


DV-AVI or a uncompressed AVI is more editor friendly and will give you better results in the end for extensive editing if you're adding filters across the entire clip such as adjusting the brightness or for noise reduction. It's also preferable if you wish to make multiple formats such as one for the web and one for DVD. Basically you are leaving your options open but it takes longer because the AVI has to be converted to MPEG and the file sizes are much larger than MPEG. Note that these are intermediate files. On the other hand any of those examples would require you to reencode the MPEG anyway so the biggest benefit of capturing to MPEG which is speed has been negated.

Lastly if you own a DV cam you may have what you need already. Many DV cams have a pass through feature that will accomplish about the same thing as a Canopus.

[winifreid]

Are these home movies that you will want to edit (filter, transitions, add audio and titles...)? Or just movies that you want on DVD? Avi is a much better format if you will do significant editing, but as mentioned, you will add a step.
I use the leadtek expert to capture to either avi or mpeg2. It does fine and is very cheap. If yo get a hardware mpeg card, you will not be able to capture to avi.

[EViS]

These are home videos indeed. I may like to do the following to the videos depending on their quality;

Adjust Brightness
Add Film Tint (blue is quite modern and refreshing)
Add Titles
Author a DVD with Menu's, etc.

1. Will there be a problem doing the above in MPEG?
2. If so, why is DV-AVI a better format to work with.
3. What sort of file size will I be working with for 1 hour of DVD PAL footage captured from VHS in MPEG2 and in DV-AVI?

[thecoalman]

1. Will there be a problem doing the above in MPEG?

As I mentioned anything that changes the video such as adjusting the brightness across the entire lenght would require that it be reencoded negating the benefit of using MPEG capture in the first place. If you want to get creative and leave your options open stay away from MPEG capture.

2. If so, why is DV-AVI a better format to work with.

Each frame is single frame unto itself , it's also less compressed. Mpeg uses data from one frame to generate other frames which is one of the reasons it compresses so well.

3. What sort of file size will I be working with for 1 hour of DVD PAL footage captured from VHS in MPEG2 and in DV-AVI?

1 hour of MPEG using the basic high quality DVD compliant settings is about 4GB's , the same DV-AVI is about 14GB's

[EViS]

Again thanks for the quick reply! Just looked at the Datavideo 200, it's way beyond my price limit @ £150... Is there anything that would capture in .avi at the price range of a Hauppauge?

You say that MPEG capture is pointless if it's to be re-econded again... however is it damaging to re-encode an MPEG capture? Will I notice this damage if it so exists?

[thecoalman]

Again thanks for the quick reply! Just looked at the Datavideo 200, it's way beyond my price limit @ £150... Is there anything that would capture in .avi at the price range of a Hauppauge?

Try pricing the Adstech Pyro , as I mentioned above you can also do this with a DV cam if you have one with that feature.

however is it damaging to re-encode an MPEG capture? Will I notice this damage if it so exists?

Yes and Depends.... :P

[EViS]

I'd probably go for the Ads tech Pyro A/V external box which also meets my price category very well indeed . How inferior is the Ads tech box to the Datavideo 200? There must be something 'worse' with it being so much cheaper...?

Also, does the audio (phono cable) and video (s-video) from the VCR both pass down the Firewire cable?

[pinetop]

You say that MPEG capture is pointless if it's to be re-econded again... however is it damaging to re-encode an MPEG capture? Will I notice this damage if it so exists?

Yes you will notice. AVI to MPEG encodes looks bad imo. You will lose picture quality, not what you want when saving old VHS tapes.
If your goal is VHS to DVD, a Hauppauge PVR-USB2 is the way to go.
I have this model and TMPGENC. It is very easy to create a great looking DVD.
Have you considered a good DVD recorder?

[thecoalman]

Yes you will notice. AVI to MPEG encodes looks bad imo.

Then you are doing something wrong. A DV-AVI>8000kbps MPEG compared side by side to 8000kbps MPEG encoded directly by a card like the Hauppage will look quite similar.

Apply the right filters and you leave the MPEG in the dust.

[EViS]

What do you mean by leave it in the dust?

[thecoalman]

Well first you have to understand what MPEG is. MPEG is compressed format, during the compression process you introduce MPEG artifacting regardless of your source whether it's DV-AVI, uncompressed AVI or a direct encode to MPEG. This is a given. MPEG is not made up of full frames but uses data from other frames to construct new ones. When you have a noisy source such as VHS this plays havoc with the encoder exacerbating the artifacting. If you encode directly to MPEG the damage is already done it can't be repaired.

DV-AVI is compressed too but it's not anywhere near as compressed as MPEG, here's a blow up example from a high quality DV-AVI source. The DV on the left is from a Canon GL2, certainly not top of the line but it's not far off from the best you can expect from the DV-AVI format, the 8000kbps MPEG on the right was encoded using Uleads version of Maincocepts encoder in CBR mode, again certainly not the best but pretty close to to the most you can expect from the MPEG fomat:



As you can see the MPEG compression introduces significant artifacting in this example, it's expected. Artifacts such as these are not introduced or not as much with a less compressed format such as DV-AVI. Each frame of a DV-AVI is a single image it does not reuse information from other frames. By applying different filters such as the ones available for virtual dub and other applications you can clean up a significant amount of the noise inherent to VHS before you encode it to MPEG.

Once you have encoded to MPEG you have pretty much locked yourself into a box as far as filtering and repair is concerned. you can still filter it but you'll never get the same results as you would if you're starting from a lightly to uncompressed format.

[TheFamilyMan]

Edit: Oops...beat me to the punch...

Apply the right filters and you leave the MPEG in the dust.

I assume your referring to the hardware encoded MPEG2. I totally agree, especially for older VHS tape of home shot footage. I use hardware MPEG2 for capturing TV shows directly off the air, but I use AVI for all VHS/8mm captures so I can filter the video noise using vdub with filters. This usually greatly enhances the resulting MPEG2 quality compared to a direct MPEG2 capture of the same footage.