VCD TO DVD

[videoman882]

this might be a stupid question but is there any way to convert a rather fair to good vcd movie i downloaded from internet into a dvd quality movie? do you need real professional editing eqip for that or do i have to suffer because nothing can be done with original?

[galadriann]

Sadly, there is no way to convert from poor quality VCD to the high quality DVD. The bitrate and the resolution are much more important on a DVD. You can convert a VCD to DVD but you will have same or worse quality than with your VCD.
There is no reason to do such a thing.
If you have DVD-R, the interest if you have VCDs is to put more than 1 film by DVD.
Another solution if you still have the original movie is to do what is described in another forum which is to convert to CVD format (basically half SVCD please read articles related for details) , This format can be burned directly to a DVD without having to reconvert again.
I am on the process to test this format, so I will let you know the results.

Enjoy

[SatStorm]

In the digital world, there is one generall rule: Garbage in, Garbage out...
That means that from a convertion, you can expect ONLY equal quality at the best!
A 5 - 10% quality loss is for many convertions a success!
So, if your source is a low bitrate/frame size (resolution), then VCD might be the best option.

[Mirror_Image]

Consider that if it were possible to "fix" a junky old film, that all of those old films made in the 20's and 30's (and earlier) would have already been done, and would all look sharp as a tack. Also, that History Channel combat footage from WWII would look like it just rolled out of Dreamworks, neat as a pin. Ask yourself where that extra info would come from to restore these beat-up videos to pristine condition?

[SatStorm]

It is possible to correct issues like contrast, colors, gamma, also clean analogue noise and blur/sharp a bit. That has nothing to do with quality. It just make something look better.
In the analogue world, you can do the same things with equipment and most modern VCRs do it with a press of a button. They get a source and make it look better.
The same you can do with audio: Hiss cut, boost/low specific frequencies, add a couple of filters....

About History channel (which sucks, because it shows history the English/US way only, most of the time is about US/England/France/Israel rules, all other countries sucks or not exist....), the proccess is made frame by frame in the original films with programs like photoshop. In a way is like repairing old photos. That way yes, you can restore frame by frame a analogue source.
Don't forget, the proccess is done on films and then goes to digital media.

That has nothing to do with the analogue grabbing we do and converting from a format to other.

[Mirror_Image]

(which sucks, because it shows history the English/US way only, most of the time is about US/England/France/Israel rules, all other countries sucks or not exist

Too bad someone pissed in your corn flakes this morning; have a better day.

[boss]

satstorm said:
"the proccess is made frame by frame in the original films with programs like photoshop. In a way is like repairing old photos. That way yes, you can restore frame by frame a analogue source."

hmm... restoring frame by frame! has anyone tried it? you could capture some old WWII footage from the history channel, and when you come accross a bad scratch you could grab the frame and paint it out using paint shop pro! but how could you put it back in... is there any program that can break up an avi file frame by frame and will allow you to insert new(remastered)frames?

[SatStorm]

I am not pissed off, it just happening to be a proud non american, which know history the way a mainstream american don't know it! And when I watching "channels" like the "History Channel", I laughing hard at best.

If you want to learn all the sides of history of the world war 2 ,then watch ZDF doku (to see what the Germans has to say), RaiSat Education/Culture (to see what the Italians has to say), TVRumania Cultura (what romania and polland have to say), Canal + (the Pathe french archives rules! Also, you gonna face here the true - non hollywood - history of modern france), TV Kultura (the Russian part of the story), Documania (a good channel on the spanish CSD service, what the spanish people know about the war), Ertu Culture (from Nilesat, Egypt, what they have to say) and Ethiopian TV (C band, 57East, how an african empire turned a country with no food, just because some western people plant radioenergy waste on the ground, just because they wanted to keep clean there country). The last channel shows the history any american NEVER wanna hear....

As you see, it just happens and I HATE the History channel and laugh with what is shows....

@boss: This is not a procedure we can do. You get the original film or the negatives (better), you scan it with special hardware and proccess them frame by frame. That is the way you can add color also to BW movies!

[boss]

mirror image, the reason why old 40's and 50's films are not all remastered is because remastering can be a time consuming and expensive process. that's why only the best films from this period like citizen kane, have been restored.
satstorm, films can be remastered from a digital source instead of the orginal negative.
on the region 1 "akira" dvd there is a restoration featurette consisting of a bunch of guys talking about how they remastered the film.
from what i can remember, they transferred an orginal print to a high resoultion digital source. then they went through the film with a special program, when they came accross a scratch they simply paused the film, put a selection box over the scratch and removed it!

[SatStorm]

Ehh, I meant OLD films
Before the 70s.

Akira is a late 80s animation film I think. Digital exist (one form or other) that time...
the remastering of earlier films ain't that way. The only way is the negatives or good prototype films! Remember how difficult for lucas was to remaster the star wars movie.. And it was a 1977 production I think, almost yesterday.... Even computers existed that time!