Anybody out there?

[joeljoel]

Maybe im asking for the holy grail, but it seems to me that since everyone is doing the same thing (ie. converting say VHS to VCD), the process would be super-simple. VHS has standards, VCD has standards, so why is it so difficult?

Meaning, why isnt there a simple "recipe" to consistently go from point A to point B for all As and Bs for EVERYONE!!?

again, my 1st attempts are converting home VHS recording to VCD or SVCD --- so far, quality is bad and im hearing mostly from users / friends that "youve just got to play with the settings" -- basically, i dont completely buy it... i still think there's some fairly straight forward "recipe" using std tools to get this done w/o spending a lifetime learning the details behind HOW compress and video works...

[Dave B]

Sure... mastering basic capturing, encoding and burning is pretty simple.

Unfortunately once you've done a couple then you get the digital video bug and it slowly takes over your life... Creating S/VCDs is a hobby to almost everyone here and one in which we attempt to get the best quality or compression possible.

If you're after some good newbie guides to get you going then these are pretty good. (Read in order)

http://www.vcdhelp.com/forum/userguides/94288.php
http://www.vcdhelp.com/mjpeg.htm
http://www.vcdhelp.com/tmpgenc.htm
http://www.vcdhelp.com/nero.htm

[presto]

I completely agree with the basic sentiment of this thread. I feel like I have been completely bamboozled by someone. Buy a good computer and a good card and you still can't do something as simple as copy a vhs movie to a CD. No it is not acceptable for the video to freeze every once in while or for the sound to be a little off etc. Have you seen the commercials where someone gets married in Hawaii and click-click makes a wedding CD for the family? Right! I'm grateful for the helpful attitude in this forum but I don't want to spend hundreds of hours on this. After months of trying to learn and trying to get my card to work on my computer I still haven't produced one really good CD!

My case may be extreme. Perhaps a lot of people are able to make basic video CD's that suit their purposes. I don't know if my computer is a lemon or if I'm missing some vital bit of information or if my card is a piece of crap.

[drdy111956]

Ditto..I agree. Let's see, Ive tried capture to MPG1/2 with Win TV PVR pci. I can conveniently produce VCD's for standalone player use that are grainy and inferior to a VHS tape. I can capture to SVCD standard, but again get poor quality video. I can capture at 12 MB/s and encode to SVCD std, burn onto a CDR and get acceptable video quality, with only a few glitches, and sometimes the sound is even in sync. So now I am giving up on direct MPG cap since I still have all the conversion required above. Am moving on with hopes to VirtualDub Avi as in the tutorials with the compression codecs recommended so that I can cap an hour TV show in 2 4GB files and encode with TMPEG to SVCD's!!!!

[macleod]

I just did a post on another thread echoing all of your sentiments. I, like you and probably everyone else out there have had this idea for several years that I will be able to convert all of my home movies that are on on VHS to VCD/SVCD. I've read all of the guides, bought a fast computer (1.2 gig) bought a capture card (OK, a cheap one - the ATI AIW TV tuner) that is like all the rest of the them and have spent MANY a sleepless night with the idea that one day I'll be able to make the conversions and the quality will be THE SAME as my VHS tapes. That my son's first attempts to walk will be presevered on SVCD and not a degrading VHS tape, etc.

I don't know about everyone else, but I don't want DVD quality, I just want VHS quality. I just recently purchased a DVD player and don't really see a difference between a commercial VHS tape and DVD (might be an old age thing, who knows).

Has ANYONE been able to capture VHS tapes (home movies or commerical) and been able to convert to SVCD/VCD successfully and have it look like the original tape. Not "almost", nearly perfect, barely see pixelation, sync not as bad a chinese kung fu movie, or anything like that, but when the disc is put and and the tape is put in and you do that change to channel X for your DVD player and channel X for your VCR, you can't tell the difference?????

I'm sorry if I am moaning and groaning here, but I think that I speak for a larger number of people that are trying to preserve their home movies.

[joeljoel]

well, im not alone... that part i know

i for one have FINALLY gotten a VCD to play on DVD that looks about 85% of original VHS... not acceptable since home-movie-made VHS is marginal at best anyway

just and FYI: im a pc guy... a friend is a mac'er and he uses toast w/about the same results as the rest of us

there are already some stand-alone DVD burners coming out that i am personally interested in reviews on... makes life MUCH easier

of course then you have the DV problem ... thats entirely another issue, though related

[Timelord]

Maybe im asking for the holy grail, but it seems to me that since everyone is doing the same thing (ie. converting say VHS to VCD), the process would be super-simple. VHS has standards, VCD has standards, so why is it so difficult?

Meaning, why isnt there a simple "recipe" to consistently go from point A to point B for all As and Bs for EVERYONE!!?

again, my 1st attempts are converting home VHS recording to VCD or SVCD --- so far, quality is bad and im hearing mostly from users / friends that "youve just got to play with the settings" -- basically, i dont completely buy it... i still think there's some fairly straight forward "recipe" using std tools to get this done w/o spending a lifetime learning the details behind HOW compress and video works...

its got alot to do with the settings ie filters you use noise reduction etc etc
in my opinion its the software you use thats more important
For me the process is to
I MAKE SVCD AS VCD IS CRAP(ACtually C(Chinese)V(Video)D(Disk))I THINK ITS JUST as compatible as svcd
Cap Video with AVI_IO 480x360 RGB24
Use AVIUTL to Edit commercials etc find halway point (as i encode 1 movie in 2 parts instaed of 1 long encode) add filters
noise reduction 180,2,32
sharpen (default)
Edge enhancement (default)
Deinterlace(blend)
then with aviutl frameserver into TMPGenc 2.52+
standard dvd template(pal)except sound i change to 160 44khz
Resolution 352x576
bitrate 2520max 2320min CQ 85
Motion search precision high quality(slow)
I also use 16:9 input 4:3 output using clip feature to add boarders on top and bottom (360+108+108=576)
The output svcd viewed on tv is through dvd player and original tape viewed through vhs player on identical 51cm tv at same time is actually better than the tape in most instances

[jackhyde]

macleod said:

I don't know about everyone else, but I don't want DVD quality, I just want VHS quality. I just recently purchased a DVD player and don't really see a difference between a commercial VHS tape and DVD (might be an old age thing, who knows).


I'm 53 years old so I don't see as well anymore but when I play a DVD I definitely see a much clearer crisper picture on my TV. This has to do with how you connect from your DVD player to your TV. If you are using the composite connector (on an older TV that may be the only way) you will not see any difference from VHS tapes because you are using the same display resolution. But if you can use the S-video OUT of the DVD into the S-video IN of the TV, you are going to see a higher resolution picture which will make you only rent DVDs. Now if you really want to see a difference you will need a new TV with COMPONENT VIDEO IN. This will give you the highest resolution.
I only have S-video capabilities but the image on my 27 inch TV is just marvelous even in letter box format. I discovered this quality difference when I first got my Hi8 camcorder.

[James_T_Kirk]

The reason I bought a DVD player was for the widescreen - I always hated VHS cause it was a pain in the ass trying to find widescreen versions of my favorite movies so, DVD was a godsend - I guess the better quality is a good thing, but since its not master quality anyways its of no consequence to me -

As for the VCD making - i started doing it by downloading divx files from kazaa and then encoding them to play in my DVD player, i didn it all on a 200mhz pc and it worked fine - took awhile but worked fine - now a year and a half later I have a 1ghz pc and a capture card and im playing with captureing and my caps look pretty good to me - they dont look great on my computer screen when im sitting in front of it, but they do on my tv screen, when im sitting in my easy chair. (personally I hate commercials so I like to edit them out )- even running through and S-video cable. i dont really play with the filters all that much so I dont really understand why your having problems.

Soon i might mess around with the tivo thing as I have found lots of info on networking tivos to the computer - capture with the tivo transfer the file to my computer and burn it on DVD -

[AntnyMD]

Oh, but there is a simple way to get your VHS content (using standards) onto VCDs (using standards). It's called a Terapin VDR.

Ah! You say Terapins are crap? You want the best picture quality ... Well, I ask Do you want to make standard VCDs easily, or do you want to make standard VCDs and try to get better than VHS quality?

[Nelson37]

JoelJoel, Presto - Yes, it CAN be done. There are, unfortunately, a lot of variables.
1. Original film quality & resolution, degree of "shakiness" ,
(TRIPOD!), Digital or Analog.
2. Analog capture (ATI) introduces more problems
a. AVI - possibly best quality, need BIG, FAST hard drive, frame
drops a problem
b. MPG - possibly equal qaulity, complicates encoding, need FAST
processor, real-time possible but not optimum
3. Filter selection - ideally, none will be needed but CAREFUL and
LIGHT use of noise filter can make huge difference
4. Encoding methodology - TMPGenc or Panasonic for MPG1,
TMPGenc or CCE for MPG2, multi-pass VBR. Bitrate depends on
time desired on disk and DVD Player capability. Compatibility
issues.
5. Target type - SVCD or XSVCD for my kids video, I'm just not
happy with VCD quality, but that means I get 25 to 60 minutes
on a disk, not 80

VHS copied from film introduces additional issues, quality player helps, you may need a TimeBase Corrector for audio synch. This is a VHS problem.

No one method works for all because there are too many variables, in order to deal with these you need to know what they are, and to do that you need to experiment with them. Start browsing the various forums, do a LOT of reading. Every problem you have (which weren't very well described, BTW, neither your encoding and capture methods) has been had before, and solved, and answers written here.

[presto]

Nelson 37 and others,
I haven't really seen anyone who seems to have the same problem I have. My problem is that MMC doesn't make even ok quality captures even with a computer that is way over the listed requirements. When I say this I think people think I must have an unrealistic expectation. I don't.

I seem to have found the answer to my problem though. I decided to try Power VCR II. It did not work (it gave me an error message when I tried to record). Suprisingly when I then went back to ATI Multimedia Center I was able to get good captures for the first time! Something that Power DVD II had done to my computer had fixed ATI MMC.

Unfortunately I had incredibly bad luck and my computer died. I seem to have a dead motherboard. No idea what happened. I think it is covered under warranty.

Someone up there doesn't want me to tape Batman on my computer.

[Nelson37]

I would bet money that a complete un- and re-install of MMC would have fixed it. What probably happened is that some program "updated" one of the DLL's or codecs that ATI requires. It is also possible that the original version was not properly installed, or had a bad file or a bug, in which case getting the latest version (MMC 7.6 has given me significant improvements) would probably solve it.