LaserDisc Conversion - Suggestions

[indolikaa]

Greetings!

Recently, it has come to my attention that Pioneer will be discontinuing LaserDisc player production. This sucks, as my LD Player probably qualifies for Medicare benefits.

Unfortunately, I have an emotional attachment to some of the oldest discs in the collection. So I am going to transfer them to DVD. I use the Dazzle DVC II and an Optorite DD0203 all-format recorder. Horsepower is not an issue, so is there any reason not to capture at the maximum Dazzle rate of 10mb video and 384kb audio?

Your input is appreciated.




Athlon 1200
1.5GB Mem
4-Disk RAID 0
Optorite DVD±R/W
Optorite CD-R/W 52x
- and -
12 Kato N-Scale C44-9W Santa Fe Warbonnets :P :P :P

[housepig]

is there any reason not to capture at the maximum Dazzle rate of 10mb video and 384kb audio?

the only reason I can think of is that I'm pretty sure it's over the bitrate allowable for dvd spec.

The formula isn't right in front of me, but the total bitrate can't exceed 10.08Mb/sec, which is audio and video combined. And I think the top end for video is 9.8Mb/sec, max.

So if your video bitrate is 10Mb, that would only leave you 80kbs for audio, 384 would put you over the top.

check www.dvddemystified.com for the DVD FAQ - it will have some info about dvd spec and bit budgets.

[housepig]

there's also a huge, very active thread on Star Wars conversions, I think a lot of those posters are capturing laserdisc, you might find some good info in that thread.

[borghe]

the star wars thread is here. Being an active participant of that thread:

If you are grabbing movies off of laserdisc (typically 2 hours) and want to stick them to one DVD, 10Mbps won't fit. Doing Star Wars which runs at 2:01:04 I have to encode at around 4800Kbps VBR.

384Kbps for a stero soundtrack with AC3 is a waste. 192Kbps will give you full frequency response and 224Kbps will generally give you near perfect reproduction of the entire sound. 384Kbps is generally not used until you get to multi-channel 5.1, etc.

The most important factor by far in this project will be the quality of your LD player. If you just want to throw the discs onto DVD, no biggie. If you care a lot about the quality, scour ebay for a good player. I am lucky enough to have invested in a Pioneer Elite CLD-79 eight years ago.

It's laserdisc, so beware of the quality. When DVD first came out, on its best day it looked a little better than laserdisc. With where DVDs, mastering, and MPEG-2 compression are today, the average DVD looks a lot better than the vast majority of laserdiscs. Don't expect astonishing DVD quality video.

That's about it off of the top of my head. The Star Wars thread is pretty in depth if you seriously care about getting the utmost quality out of your transfers. If not it may be a little too deep.

[indolikaa]

Wow! Thanks for the replies!

When I said the LD player may qualify for Medicare, I probably should include the Star Wars trilogy discs as well. The LD is a Sony MDP-333 manufactured in 1990, while the discs are from 1989. Shee-it, it was in high school in 1989!

I will investigate the Star Wars thread. Oh, and by the way...

There is never such a thing as 'too deep' when dealing with Star Wars. Really. And it's not 2:01:04, it's 2:01:04:16! :P :P :P

[mazinz]

i noticed the very lengthy starwars thread. i have 2 pioneer laserdisc players and coverted over the original starwars from my nice laserdisc. I noticed all theseo ther steps that i felt was uneeded.

i have the dazzle 2 i used a variable rate (with the variable rate fix patch), Converted the audio over to an ac3 and made a nice disc with menus, in Maestro and i still had room to fit the deleted scenes that only appear on the starwars behind the magic cd. The dvd came out pristine as my laserdisc was in very good shape (how about never played or opened till then).
But converting your lasers is really that simple and a few other steps i notcied were not required. UNLESS your going to svcd,etc and not directly to dvd

[indolikaa]

I am currently moving Side 1 of Disc 1 of ANH through the Dazzle at a VBR of 5000 with 256 audio. I am then going to feed it to TMPEG and see what spits out tomorrow morning.

The reason I asked about the 10mb thing had to do with DVD+R/W. Neither of these formats can technically be called DVD because they do not comply with The Forum. In fact, I am starting to see advertisements where the format is simply called +R/W, making no mention of DVD. Yet, these formats are readily/mildly compatible with DVD optics. I understand the 9.8 limitation, but has anybody ever tried the 10mb path? I mean, this is Star Wars. It deserves nothing less than maximum bitrate love!

DVD players, even older ones, have proven their ability to handle bitrates nobody knew about before we started asking questions like this. Heck, my Sony DVP-S330 plays anything you feed to it on CD-RW!

No AC3 on this disc, it was printed in '89. You should see the promotional sticker touting "Dolby Surround" on the jacket plastic. I think this was about the time Motorola was trying to prop-up C-QUAM equipment for AM Stereo broadcasting. Geez, I'm getting old.

[mazinz]

if i may ask, as i might be missing something. If your capturing already with the dazzle 2, why are you bothering to input the clip in tmpg?

[indolikaa]

Good question. I am experimenting. Playing with the tools of the trade. Learning how these things work.

[Philbiker]

I have a large LaserDisc collection with some material that will never be available on DVD that I'd like to copy over, and I just got a DVD-R burner. So naturally I'm interested in this conversation.

I will read the "Star Wars" thread, as those movies in their original format are among the movies I would like to transfer.

Quesion : is the Dazzle package sufficient to handle the relatively high (420 lines) resolution of LaserDisc?

No AC3 on this disc, it was printed in '89. You should see the promotional sticker touting "Dolby Surround" on the jacket plastic. I think this was about the time Motorola was trying to prop-up C-QUAM equipment for AM Stereo broadcasting. Geez, I'm getting old.

If you can afford it, you should look for the "Faces" version of the trilogy on Ebay. Those older discs you have are fairly poor transfers, the "faces" versions are significantly better quality image and sound.

[indolikaa]

Hi Phil!

I got myself into trouble over this in the Star Wars thread. I own nine different versions of the Star Wars trilogy. My favorite is the original LD LBX realase. At least, I think it's the original because it was printed in 1989. Still doing research on that one. I enjoy popping them in the player once in awhile, I get a nostalig kick out of them.

On the quality side, I can tell you only what I see with my own eyes. I have ripped DVDs to DVD+R and of course, I theoretically have a clone of the original. I have also plugged in my DVD player to the Dazzle and produced pseudo-clones that are very high quality IN SVCD MODE! My personal tastes in video quality are very high and I have so far been satisfied with what the Dazzle has produced, whether it came from DVD or my DirecTV receiver.

Perhaps a sample file is in order?

[geek rock]

just out of interest, why is there all this talk of max bitrate when there's no way a 2-hour film at max bitrate will even fit on a DVD-R?

just wondering..

[vhelp]

@ indolikaa..

As far as a recommend for "LaserDisc Conversion - Suggestions" goes..
I'd give TMPG's CQ mode a try (you can experiment) if you are trying to
fit single LD's on one dvdr disk.
You can't beet the vide device (below) in quality and issues, but you seem
to have the DVC II under control, and as long as it works for you,
that is all that matters. As a DVC I usb user and still owner of, I
would not use it for this task, but I've never had any serious issues w/it..
just sharing my experience w/ this device. Anyways..

>> Perhaps a sample file is in order?

Of what ??


@ Philbiker..

Hmm... no mention of the ADVC-100 for Analog convertion to DV.
I've read elsewhere that the Dazzle Bridge's quality is not up to par w/
the ADVC-100. And, the review speaks for it'self over at the .

Good luck in your conversion of your LD collection
-vhelp

[indolikaa]

I've never had any problems with the DVC-II that I have seen discussed in the Capture Cards area. The only issue I ever had was that one of the PROMs had to be pushed into its socket, but that's it.

I have a sample clip of Star Wars produced straight from the DVC-II, no reprocessing. I was offering it to Philbiker so he could see the quality. The clip is not SVCD (oops on the last posting), but CVD (352x480) at 2520 mb/s + 256 kb/s @ 48kHz. It is my opinion that CVD is better than SVCD.

I haven't run any of the CVD through TMPEG yet. That is the next fun time project. :P

[indolikaa]

Geek Rock,

Forgot about your post, sorry! Maximum bitrate conversion would, in fact, result in the movie being spread over two DVD+Rs. It was more a question of curiosity. Since I posted, I have done some homework, and better understand why it would be a waste of time and electrons. But I did it anyway, and I can hardly see any difference between 9.8mb/s and the aforementioned CVD.

[Philbiker]

Thanks all. I will be looking for analog capture in a few months. For now I've got a lot to keep busy transferring my DV tapes to DVD.