VHS to digital - help

[freee]

I used to have VHS-C camcorder many years ago and before it died I recorded all VHS-C tapes to standard VHS tapes. Then about 10 years ago, I purchased Panasonic NV-DS50 DV (PAL) camcorder and recorded all these VHS tapes to mini DV tapes (by connecting a VHS player to DV camera directly). I am planning to edit these videos in Sony Vegas Pro 12 and I was wondering if I can achieve a good quality outcome at all given the fact that I used quite inferior method to transfer VHS to digital format.
Can anybody suggest a good template (or method) to complete this process in Sony Vegas? I am afraid that the video will have to be cropped to eliminate the bar at the bottom that now appears as a result of VHS to DV conversion. I still have all my VHS tapes but no device that can play them so re-digitalising or capturing directly to PC is not an option.

[newpball]

I used to have VHS-C camcorder many years ago and before it died I recorded all VHS-C tapes to standard VHS tapes. Then about 10 years ago, I purchased Panasonic NV-DS50 DV (PAL) camcorder and recorded all these VHS tapes to mini DV tapes (by connecting a VHS player to DV camera directly).

Do you still have the VHS-C tapes?
Because obviously a copy of a copy of a copy is not a good thing to start with.

I am planning to edit these videos in Sony Vegas Pro 12 and I was wondering if I can achieve a good quality outcome at all given the fact that I used quite inferior method to transfer VHS to digital format.

If you do not have the VHS-C tapes anymore the quality is obviously going to be pretty bad.

I still have all my VHS tapes but no device that can play them so re-digitalising or capturing directly to PC is not an option.

On the contrary, I think that is the only sane option especially if you still have the original VHS-C tapes.

[freee]

I used to have VHS-C camcorder many years ago and before it died I recorded all VHS-C tapes to standard VHS tapes. Then about 10 years ago, I purchased Panasonic NV-DS50 DV (PAL) camcorder and recorded all these VHS tapes to mini DV tapes (by connecting a VHS player to DV camera directly).

Do you still have the VHS-C tapes?
Because obviously a copy of a copy of a copy is not a good thing to start with.

I am planning to edit these videos in Sony Vegas Pro 12 and I was wondering if I can achieve a good quality outcome at all given the fact that I used quite inferior method to transfer VHS to digital format.

If you do not have the VHS-C tapes anymore the quality is obviously going to be pretty bad.

I still have all my VHS tapes but no device that can play them so re-digitalising or capturing directly to PC is not an option.

On the contrary, I think that is the only sane option especially if you still have the original VHS-C tapes.

I should correct one thing. I don't think they are copy of a copy of a copy but copy of a copy beacuse there should not be loss of quality in the last step (analog to miniDV correct me if I am wrong). I don't have all original VHS-C tapes only VHS copies and as I said miniDV tapes. I have also captured these miniDV tapes as avi's.

[newpball]

I should correct one thing. I don't think they are copy of a copy of a copy but copy of a copy beacuse there should not be loss of quality in the last step (analog to miniDV correct me if I am wrong).

Definitely a loss of quality but not as dramatic. Also it depends how it was captured.

I don't have all original VHS-C tapes only VHS copies and as I said miniDV tapes. I have also captured these miniDV tapes as avi's.

Avi is a just a container, it does not say anything about the CODEC used and with what settings.

[freee]

Definitely a loss of quality but not as dramatic. Also it depends how it was captured.Avi is a just a container, it does not say anything about the CODEC used and with what settings.


I don't think I had an option to select a codec or any other settings when I was doing analog to dv recording (VHS player to miniDV camera). The only option, as I recall, was the speed of the tape LP/SP and audio quality.

[jman98]

Whether you can get what you define as "good quality" is so subjective that we can't really answer. I've seen people rave about video things that most here would consider to be unacceptable. Despite what one long time member here insists he can personally do, you can't really expect DVD quality from this kind of thing. If you're not expecting crystal clear DVD or better results then you can probably come up with something you can live with. A few unlucky individuals are picky to an extreme extent. Such people NEVER are satisfied with anything. Hopefully you're not one of those. We had one infamous guy here who spent over a year trying to record old VHS tapes of some stupid anime show and he never ended up recording anything because the second he saw one tiny flaw, and in video tape work there will always be a flaw, he gave up and started over. If you just do the best you can with what you've got and can live with the output, just do it and get on with your life. Spending months working on a videotape that nobody other than you is ever going to watch and you're only going to watch it once probably doesn't make a lot of sense, for example, if you could get something 90% as good in only a few hours of work. And trying to save old TV shows you really should just buy on DVD or BluRay is also a big waste of time and effort. If you've honestly got something like over 100 tapes to "save" (we get people in this situation post here, insisting that EVERY tape is precious and they will just die if they all aren't saved) you should really think hard about this and the effort it's going to take. I'd advise prioritizing and doing the truly important ones first because VCRs break and getting replacements is not fun. It's better to start this project now than 5+ years from now, but the golden age of doing this is LONG LONG gone and at this point I advise people to just get it done as quickly and as reasonably well as they can because every day you wait, it gets a little harder to find replacement VCRs, the tapes are that much closer to degrading, etc.

[freee]

Thank you for your assistance so far.

Would it be possible to suggest a good way to capture these miniDV tapes with my VHS PAL video (that was directly recorded from VHS to DV camera) and render them as MPEG2 files? I only have several hours worth of family videos and I can put extra time to complete this job.

The videos look reasonably good when played directly from my old DV camera but (as you would expect) there is this annoying bar at the bottom of the screen that needs to be somehow removed (cropping, painting etc). There is also a bit of jitter.

I use Sony Vegas Pro 12 but I am also familiar to an extent with Avisynth and Virtualdub.

[jman98]

Is your computer a laptop or a desktop? Almost everybody wants a laptop, but laptops severely limit your choices of capture hardware.

Do you want to save the videos in the best format and quality available now? Or do you just want everything to be in DVD format?

[freee]

Is your computer a laptop or a desktop? Almost everybody wants a laptop, but laptops severely limit your choices of capture hardware.

Do you want to save the videos in the best format and quality available now? Or do you just want everything to be in DVD format?

I have a good desktop PC but no analog capture capability apart from using "Analog pass-through" function through my old Panasonic NV-DS50 DV to capture directly to hard disk drive.

I don't want it it be in DVD format at all. The best possible quality format available is what I want. I would play the files via Media Centre from a hard disk.

[jagabo]

With DV tapes you want to use a firewire cable and adapter to copy the digital data on the tape from the camcorder to your computer. That will give you an exact copy of the DV data in an AVI file. You then convert those DV AVI files to MPEG and author DVDs.

[newpball]

I don't want it it be in DVD format at all.

In that case I would stay away from MPEG.

The best possible quality format available is what I want.

Well since you do not think it is worth to go back to the earliest available generation you got DV which is the best possible quality format you have available, any re-encode will make things only worse or equal but much larger.

[freee]

When I play these miniDV tapes there is a bar at the bottom of the recorded video that looks like scrambled signal ( a few pixels high). What is the best way to deal with this. Mask the bar (make it black) to preserve 720 x 576 or crop the video?

[newpball]

When I play these miniDV tapes there is a bar at the bottom of the recorded video that looks like scrambled signal ( a few pixels high). What is the best way to deal with this. Mask the bar (make it black) to preserve 720 x 576 or crop the video?

I would leave the archived capture completely untouched.

If you want to encode a copy for viewing I would crop the video.

[freee]

I will crop the video and remove the VHS tracking from the video (once captured from DV tape). That will give me a non-standard aspect ratio but at least the annoying bar will be removed. Or, are you suggesting to crop it as 4:3 and loose a bit of the video on the sides as well?

[newpball]

That will give me a non-standard aspect ratio but at least the annoying bar will be removed.

So what?

I never understand why some people hang on to aspect ratios as if it is some religion.
Last film I looked at was at 1.19:1 it is what it is.

As long as you do not deliver the video in DVD or BLU-RAY or to some studio that has endless rules about your source there is no need to.

Or, are you suggesting to crop it as 4:3 and loose a bit of the video on the sides as well?

For delivery I would crop only that that is not useful, keep the rest why crop what is good?

[freee]

I have ended up with AVI resolution 700x563 after processing the files in Virtualdub. I need to render the video in Sony Vegas Pro. The resulting video files will be watched on HDTV via Lacie Media Player (it can play almost all file formats). I am having trouble selecting the right rendering template in Sony Vegas as this is a non-standard resolution (700 x 563). Can anybody please suggest something that will work for me (template, file format etc) so I don't end up with black bars around the encoded video and the quality is as close to source AVI quality as possible.

[manono]

I have ended up with AVI resolution 700x563 after processing the files in Virtualdub.

You can't use odd numbers. And unlike my esteemed colleague who doesn't seem to mind ruining the aspect ratio, if you don't want to cut from the sides to keep the aspect ratio after cropping from the bottom, rather than just cropping away that bottom part, I'd also add back black (probably evenly divided above and below) to return to the original resolution and aspect ratio.

When he says the last movie he watched was 1.19:1 (to show why aspect ratios aren't important?), it was playing in the correct aspect ratio and it was most likely a silent film.

Can't help with the Sony Vegas questions.

[lordsmurf]

Never alter aspect ratios. They're there for a reason.
Same for interlace.

Cropping is a terrible idea. Mask it instead (cover up with black matte). You screw up both aspect and interlace otherwise.

Converting tapes,(nd making them look like crap, is easy.
Converting tapes, and getting quality results, takes more care and patience. It's not easy or cheap, but can be done. (I've been doing it for almost 15 years, both for hobby, and professionally.)

[usually_quiet]

I agree with manono, since I don't enjoy watching distorted video. Pillar boxing, letterboxing or both is normally used to make a video with a different aspect ratio into one using either a 16:9 or 4:3 aspect ratio. newpball's 1.19:1 video was likely pillarboxed to fit a 4:3 frame, unless he was watching an actual film in a theater or watching the the video on a PC using media player software that allows setting a custom display aspect ratio.

[newpball]

...using media player software that allows setting a custom display aspect ratio.

Obviously!

If I have a video where some pixels are useless I crop it, nothing gets distorted or nothing gets screwed up as some people incorrectly suggest.

[Cornucopia]

Only because you lucked out. That doesn't work for everyone. What works for everyone is in understanding the reasoning behind the rules and knowing when they can be bent and why, or following those rules faithfully otherwise, so that the result is playable REGARDLESS of the luckiness of your player's smarts.

Lordsmurf & manono are right, things can get screwed up unless you maintain correct AR, mod2+ & I/P cadence.

Scott

[usually_quiet]

...using media player software that allows setting a custom display aspect ratio.

Obviously!

...but if the OP prefers to use a media player, for example VLC, which only supports various standard aspect ratios and does not allow setting a custom aspect ratio the video, it may not look quite right using any of them. If he takes a copy of the video to a friend's or relative's house to watch on their TV using their hardware-based media player, then it is unlikely either will allow setting a custom aspect ratio.

If I have a video where some pixels are useless I crop it, nothing gets distorted or nothing gets screwed up as some people incorrectly suggest.

LordSmurf and Cornucopia do this for a living. Maybe you are not as good at spotting problems as they are.

[jagabo]

Only because you lucked out.

Or maybe he actually knows what he's doing and doesn't care about little plastic discs.

...using media player software that allows setting a custom display aspect ratio.

Obviously!

...but if the OP prefers to use a media player, for example VLC, which only supports various standard aspect ratios and does not allow setting a custom aspect ratio the video, it may not look quite right using any of them.

VLC follows pixel (sample) and display aspect ratio flags in the video.

[newpball]

...using media player software that allows setting a custom display aspect ratio.

Obviously!

...but if the OP prefers to use a media player, for example VLC, which only supports various standard aspect ratios and does not allow setting a custom aspect ratio the video, it may not look quite right using any of them.

No, VLC is a pretty good player.

Here is a tricky one 1:1.667 aspect ratio (square pixels!):

Testing.mpg
Plays just fine in VLC!

How about if we upload it to Youtube, Youtube will re-encode but can it handle the aspect ratio?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTtD3_rAbhA&feature=youtu.be

Yes, no problem.

Only because you lucked out.

Or maybe he actually knows what he's doing and doesn't care about little plastic discs.

Indeed the poster was clear about not being interested in putting this on a DVD.

How about 1920x400?
long.mp4

Plays fine in VLC, it even plays fine in WMP.

And youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJ1jy7DSNe0&feature=youtu.be

No problems.

[manono]

I don't want it it be in DVD format at all.

You might want to rethink that. You said these are family videos. Other members of the family might want to watch some of them at some point. DVD is still the most universally used format for people to watch from their living room couches. Even MPEG-2 video not authored for DVD won't play on many (most?) pure standalone DVD players.

If they're only for you to watch on your computer or streamed from your computer to your TV one way or another, then there are many other choices available.

[freee]

This is what I am up against (screenshot of DV file with VHS attached)

[LMotlow]

I must ask, what are we supposed to do with a "screen shot?".
VHS attached?
I guess I missed something.

[freee]

I must ask, what are we supposed to do with a "screen shot?".
VHS attached?
I guess I missed something.

What would you do with this before encoding?| Mask, crop, leave it as it is or something else?

[newpball]

I must ask, what are we supposed to do with a "screen shot?".
VHS attached?
I guess I missed something.

What would you do with this before encoding?| Mask, crop, leave it as it is or something else?

First thing I would do is capture and encode it unaltered in a lossless codec and archive it.

Whether you mask, crop and/or alter the aspect ratio depends totally on the finickiness of the recipient and the device on which it is played.

[LMotlow]

Well, if you ask what you should do with a video judged solely on one still frame of partial views of uninteresting objects, one of which has its highlights blown all to hell, in an off-color image resized to dimensions invalid for any standard video format except for PC playback -- as opposed to submitting a real piece of video that we can look at and give decent technical advice for -- but based entirely on the still image you posted, I'd say it's entirely up to you. One thing I don't get is what would be doing with Vegas Pro except for some cut and join work. That's a lot of money to spend just for an "editor". But, again, that's strictly up to you. With one still shot as a guide, the easiest thing to do would be to crop off the right side and bottom, and otherwise leave it as-is. You only want PC playback anyway. You don't even have to resize. Save it as DV-AVI. You might make an oddball encoded mkv or mp4 from it to reduce file size, but it won't go thru DVD or BluRay/avchd encoding.