Quality/Length problems going from VHS to DVD-R

[skypine27]

I use a Canopus ADVC-100 and a Sony DRU500A drive in an attempt to copy my VHS movies onto DVD-Rs.

I use Pinnacle Studio 8.3 at it' max quality setting MPEG-2 @8000, and after I burn it, the quality doesn't seem to be as good as the orignal VHS tape. Also, it will only fit 59 minutes of video onto a DVD-R at this setting. Is all this normal? At this rate, I can only put 1 hour of video onto each DVD. There are lower quality settings than 8000, but I shudder to think what those look like!

The reason I use Pinnacle, is it does all the steps for you. I just capture the video, click burn, and it converts the file and burns it. Do you get better results doing the individual steps yourself?

Do cables matter? I just have regular radio shack 3 plug audio/video cables.

Any help is appreciated!!!

[Baldrick]

One topic is enough. If you want to change your topic just click on EDIT on your post.

[Tiribulus]

I'm still definitely learning about this myself, but have spent a ton of time in recent weeks plodding away on vhs to mpeg2 captures. I'm using a Happauge Wintv-pvr-250 though. When you say the "quality" isn't as good. Describe what you mean. Graininess, blockiness, blur or what? My captures done at 3000/4000 vbr look about the same as the vhs original. I can get 4-5 or more hours on a single DVD-R. Plain files though, meaning no menus or anthing else, just the plain material. Also what player are you using? WinDVD, PowerDVD etc.
Tiribulus

[Luis Neves]

Your problem is probably the encoder. Try to encode your films with TMPGEnc or CCE, which are far better than any "bundle" you got.

[esanchez]

I have tried the same.... one thing some of you might be able to shine some light on is. When I play my videos on the TV or Camcorder the colors look great....but when I capture the color on whatever caputre program I use look off from the original signal. whites look like bone color...reds look maroon...eve after playing around with tint,brightness,contrast. I can't get my capture to look as good as the original material. Is there a program that will capture just exactly what comes out of the VCR or Camcorder....without changing the colors??????

[skypine27]

By quality, I just mean it the video looks a little 'worse' after I burn and play it. I dont know how to define worse, I mean it just looks a little "softer". Im not using my computer to play them, Im using my TV dvd player.

When I play the original VHS movie side by side to the DVD I captured and burned, the original VHS movie always looks slightly better. For all I know, if may be my imagination.

I'll try capturing it, then using a different program to encode and burn them and see if it looks any better than using Pinnacle Studio for the whole process. What programs do you use generally use to capture ,then encode, and then burn?

Thanks!

[Luis Neves]

Try TMPGEnc (go to the tools section of this site). I am shure that the final result will look better than with Pinnacle.

[montythedog]

Firstly, if encoding VHS material, use a frame size of 352X576 (PAL) - this is 1/2 D. This translates as being more efficient use of your chosen bitrate and therefore better picture quality.

[EricB]

skypine27,

The encoder in Studio8 is not very good. I wish it was because the rest of the package is really nice. If you look at any of the mpegs you create (either mpeg1 or mpeg2) at full screen on the computer, you'll see a lot of "mosquito" noise around edges. They give you the option of "Filtering Video" in the encode choices but that really just blurs the whole thing. With such a great user interface, I can't understand why Pinnacle doesn't just license a decent encoder.

Anyway, take the same short sample and encode in Pinnacle and then TMPGENc using the default DVD template. Look at both full screen on the computer and I think you'll agree that TMPGENc is much better. To get more space, use the 1/2 D suggested above with a lower bitrate. Run some samples and check the results.

[skypine27]

Whats a decent program for capturing VHS anyway? I only have Pinnacle. And after I took a sample with Pinnacle, and tried to use TMPEG, tmpeg said the file format was supported. (Pinnacle records as a .mpg file)

Any suggest for another program to capture using my ADVC-100?

Thanks!

[EricB]

You want to use the "DV Full Quality Capture" setting not the mpeg setting in Studio8. The Canopus unit converts analog video to DV video. Capture that, edit in Studio8 if you want to, then export as AVI in the original DV format. Have TMPGENc encode that AVI file to DVD mpeg2.

[skypine27]

Eric: When I try to use the DV setting in Studio 8, the program limits me to a maximum capture of 18 minutes (which it says is 4 gigs) at once. The movies I want to capture are roughly 60 minutes long, and there is plenty of space on my harddrive (80 gigs)

Thanks again

[q1aqza]

You need NTFS file system to capture files larger than 4GB.

You haven't posted any computer specs in your profile but I'm guessing that you are not running NT, W2K or XP Pro, which you need for NTFS. If you are running one of these then you need to change the drive or partition that you capture to to NTFS

[donpedro]

Here is more info about Pinnacle Studio8

Pinnacle Studio 8 and DV home video editing

And generaly I think that Studio8 mpeg encoder have softer look. Didi you check any options like "Filter Video" or "Draft Mode" ?