DVD not as clear as VHS-C source

[MiataJD]

I am capturing and burning family movies from 1986 to now, which were shot on a JVC camcorder bought in 1986, on VHS-C tapes. I've seen it said that the DVD images are sometimes sharper than the original VHS source tapes. Mine are not quite as good so far. A few specific quesitons:

1) Would using s-video cables help? I've seen postings saying yes, and others saying yes only if the source tape is VHS-S, that it doesn't help images captured off of regular VHS tape.

2) What does TBC do, and does that help the picture quality?

3) Would trying a different capture card really have an effect on the piture quality? I am able to capture the video and audio, the picture just seems a bit blurry, especially when I pause the DVD player.

Thanks for help and suggestions.

[macleod]

The subject line is a common miconception with a lot of people knew to backing up VHS. They own a disney movie (or whatever) on VHS and then they look at it on a DVD and it is sooooo much crisper, etc.

The basic rule is that your DVD from your VHS source will never be technical better than the VHS. You can apply certain filters to "clean up" some bad stuff on the video, but it wont be "better". I have done my capping with an ATI TV wonder card and have capped at 352x240,352x480, and 720x480. I have then used a standalone dvd recorder (E-20) to make copies with a SVHS cable from a SVHS vhs player (panasonic).

Personally, if you REALLY want to preserver the best quality you can for your home movies, I would invest in a standalone recorder, like the E20. Burn it to DVD-R or RAM, pull that into the computer and then edit and author it and reburn it out to DVD-R. That has given me the BEST results. You can also try the pass through feature on DV camcorders with the vhs source.

As far as the set up you have now, I would use SVHS cables if your computer and player has the ports, in second with the be S video cables, and finally the coax.

TBC is a time base correctly, which I believe (too lazy to look in the glossary section) helps to sync up audio/video on tapes. BTW the E20 has the TBC built in.

I dont have a vast knowledge of all of the cap cards out there, but I put them into three main categories. Your going to get pretty much the same output in the lower end cards ($20-$100'ish), I have heard alot about the ADVC-100 and the like, and then the really expensive ones.

Some questions for you would be what are you capping at (resolution and bit rate). What are you using to convert and the apps settings, etc? With my caps, until the E20 days, I capped at 352x480 AVI (used IUVCR) and then converted using DVD2SVCD (easy to use) to the final MPG at 352x480 2500bit rate. But, now I use the E20 for all my capping needs!!!!

Hope this helps!

[MiataJD]

Thanks for your response. I am capping at 640x480 at 30 frames per second. I have no idea how many kps that is. I am using ArcSoft Showtime DVD to capture, edit, and burn. I am pulling my hair out .... today i bought (clearance price) a JVC s-vcr, plugged the s-video into my card, and .... nothing. I'm sure that somewhere there is a place to change the input from composite to s-vidoe, but damned if I can find it.

The main question I still have is that when I pause the DVD, the image is blurry. It seems so sharp after capture and when I'm editing it. If any of these companies had decent customer service, I'd just get in touch with them. But they don't. Now I know why people like my daughter love their Apple computers. There are not dozens of incompatable choices to do what they advertise as a simple task. Grrrr!

[chaseru]

The basic rule is that your DVD from your VHS source will never be technical better than the VHS. You can apply certain filters to "clean up" some bad stuff on the video, but it wont be "better".

If you are willing to experiment with filters you can make your DVD look better than the original VHS. You will never increase resolution but filters can do wonders in removing video noise that was in the original VHS tape.

I doubt there will be a plug and play solution for transferring VHS to DVD that will make the DVD look better than the original tape so I think the average Joe that bought a DVD burner with his computer will be disapointed with transfers of analog video to DVD.

[Nolonemo]

I would find a digital video camera with analog passthrough I could borrow and cap straight to DV video (an .avi file). One thing that could be happening (I'm speculating - anyone actually know about this?) is that when you encode your 640x480 caps to the NTSC spec of 704x480 you are using a little quality in interpolating to the other size (you don't say what you're using to encode to mpeg2). The other thing that can bring down your quality is trying to fit too much on a disk. I try not to go over 90 min. Use the bitrate calculator on this site to determine the max bitrate you can use for the length of video you have.

[Ejoc]

How are you capturing it?

I saw you said you were editing the picture. So if you capture as MPEG-2 then do video editing and producing another MPEG-2 you are going to have a bad picture. I use virtualdub and huffyuv, do my editing w/ avisynth (you could use virtualdub if needed) and then encode it w/ TMPGEnc as a VBR MPEG-2.

[MiataJD]

Thanks for your responses.

I am capturing with a Pinnacle DC10Plus capture card. The captures are saved as avi files. When I edit, the resulting file is saved as an mpeg.

[Bob W]

All the captures I did via computer/capture card were good with some as good as the source VHS tape. Then I bought the Panasonic E50 DVD recorder and IMO my DVDR's now look better than the source VHS tape. It must be something to do with the TBC built into the E50.

[TheGr8Steve]

Simply, I believe that Arcsoft does a horrible job of capturing. Go to Ulead and download one of their 30 day free trials of Movie Studio 7 or almost anyone else. (The Ulead would be for IEEE1394 capturing.) You may have a Pinnacle capture card, but I believe that when I looked up your computer profile, I saw the name Arcsoft, and I would assume you are capturing to their program for further editing. Try something else, especially if it came in a bundled package, and if it came with Sonic MyDVD, then go to Ulead and try one of their 30 day free trials of Moviefactory or one of the others. The bundled stuff from Arcsoft and Sonic will only waste your time until they sucker you into spending the money they want you to spend to get it to work right. And yes, S-video would be better even with regular VHS, but not necessarily noticibly better, just slightly.

[Popee]

I'm sure that somewhere there is a place to change the input from composite to s-vidoe, but damned if I can find it.

If you leave both the composite and the S-video cable plugged in, the card may read only one input. You may have to unplug one for the card to read the other. If you have already tried that, I have no answer.

The main question I still have is that when I pause the DVD, the image is blurry.

I may be phrasing this wrong, but that may have something to do with interlacing. There are 2 fields to a frame. If your DVD is pausing between fields, chances are the picture will be blurry. Or, the opposite may be occuring, wherein the DVD you are making is deinterlacing, and when you pause, you are getting a mixture of 2 fields. There is probably a better way to state this, but hopefully, you will get the idea. Or, perhaps someone else can jump in and explain it better.