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  1. Hi,

    I'm just starting out in converting my old VHS tapes to DVD (as seem to be half the people in this forum ) and I'm looking at a new HDD just for capture. I'm intending to go the .avi route for at least some of the better quality tapes (others I will just go to mpeg2), but I do have some "original" bought tapes that I'd like to get in the highest possible quality.

    My main question is using the codecs (probably the free ones but might look at mjpeg), how big are .avi files per hour? I was wondering if 120gb should be enough for 3hrs of .avi at "high" quality (I guess I'll need at least 2.5hrs for some of the original movie tapes)?

    I'm gonna be capping from a GeForce 4 Ti4600 VIVO card, using (probably) virtualvcr or iuvcr. Editing probably with virtualdub - can I edit a 3hr .avi or would I need to split it?

    Audio - as I'm going to DVD I assume I use the AC3 settings... does this get split from the .avi to be cleaned up separately? If so, can you tell me what I need to do as some of the tapes will need the audio volume increasing / de-hiss etc. I have CoolEdit, and an old SoundForge somewhere.

    Any advice appreciated, especially on settings for getting the best quality conversions...
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  2. Member hech54's Avatar
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    I'm not UP on capturing....so 120gigs sounds MORE than reasonable to me... But you should know that all those gigs don't mean SQUAT if the HD is not formatted in NTFS. FAT32 format only allows you 4gig files TOPS.
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  3. I realise that - I'm using Win2k Pro and the drive will be NTFS formatted... I have a 20gb partition formatted the same way that I've been experimenting with, so I know it's ok, I just wasn't sure if 120gb would do or if I would need to go to 160gb...
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    AVI is about 30Gb / Hr I think so you should have no space problems provided you work on a project at time.

    Why keep in AVI its a PC format that cannot be used elsewhere. Your better converting to MP2 and burning to DVD. If you've lots to do then hardware conversion is the quickest route. Experiment to see if you can see the difference between D1 and 1/2D1 and find an appropriate data rate.

    A higher data rate will not improve the quality of the VHS, just waste space. VHS is only 240ish lines of resolution so encode on that basis.
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  5. Uncompressed full frame NTSC (720x486 @8 bits YUY2) is generally quoted as 20MB/seconds. Thats mega bytes per second.

    Huffyuv does about a 2.5 compression.
    MJpeg does a range, but PIC at 18 is about 15:1, at 19 about 8:1.

    So the math:

    10800 seconds = 3 hours.

    Uncompressed = 20MB * 10800 seconds / 1024 = 211Gig for 3 hours
    Huffyuv = 211/2.5 = 84 Gig
    Pic MJpeg 19 = 211/8 = 27 Gig
    Pic MJpeg 18 = 211/15 = 14 Gig

    Now you would also need space to process the file. I'd say you'd want 3x the space to cap and process to be safe (meaning you can go back if you make a mistake).

    Personally, I have 2 machines each with 2*120Gig drives on cheap IDE raid cards (about $20). This gives me the best spead/cost/size relationship.

    ** Please note, my math may be off. After all, I did not research it for you. The 20MB/s number is what is quoted. You can figure the rest.
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  6. thanks for that Trevlac - I have separate HDDs on the same machine which can hold the smaller mpeg files for burning & stuff. I presume you mean that I should copy the .avi before processing it so I can undo any mistakes... I guess that would be a good idea!

    I didn't realise the difference in size between Huffyuv and MJpeg was so large...

    Hopefully I won't need to burn anything quite so large as 3 hours, but I just wanted to be safe...

    Anyone answer my audio questions?
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  7. I forgot the audio in my calc. This gets you about another 0.17MB/s or 1.7Gig for 3 hours. Video compression of course does not reduce this.

    I cap about 6 gig per 1/2 hour using MJpeg+uncompressed audio.

    From this I strip the audio, edit, and filter. This gives me a second ~ 4Gig file. From that I encode to Mpeg2. I ac3 encode my audio.

    I don't make a copy of my file. I just keep the copy from the prior step, incase I have a problem with my encode. Overall, I need about 12Gig to work on a 1/2 hour show. Of course, I work on more than 1 show at a time.

    I use 2 120Gig drives thru IDE raid '0' as 1 drive. This makes them much faster. Faster on cap, faster on copies, faster on encode, etc. Possibly faster than moving back and forth between 2 seperate drives. Best upgrade I ever did.

    I don't 'clean' my audio, so I can't comment on that.
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  8. Member steptoe's Avatar
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    Wellll, showing my age a bit here :

    I always got told, whatever size you think is enough, then double it ........

    Mind you, when I started out with hard drives, the bulletin boards were proudly displaying things like 'now with a huge 500MB of space'

    I thought 120GB was ample, but some of the latest hi-spec systems in the PC mags are advertising a standard HD of 260GB !!!!

    But, then again, I have 3 HD's in my set-up, 'till I have enough cash and time to swap my measly 20GB HD for another 120GB which would take me upto 240GB, and would also take the strain off my power supply by dropping back to 2 HD's instead of 3 and gaining a huge amount of space

    I need a lot for the amount of emulation junk I have, some are big on video editing, I'm big on emulation... ramble, ramble, ramble




    Anyway, as I can easily buy a 120GB with 8MB cache for around £85-95 without trying too hard (local computer shops, not mail order), I suggest an absolute minimum of 120GB, if you can afford it buy the biggest you can possibly afford

    Keep in mind though, can your BIOS and motherboard support the size of hard drive you are thinking of buying


    Also, try to keep your Windoze/System on one hard drive, and the other for whatever else. That way if something major goes wrong, you won't lose everything

    Alternatively, do what I do (and have stuck to for years), plan ahead your partiton structure and set-up things on partitions, so you only lose maybe one partition if something happens, and have a fair chance of recovering from it. If its all on one drive and the worst happens, you're stuffed
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  9. Trevlac, thanks again...
    "From this I strip the audio, edit, and filter. This gives me a second ~ 4Gig file. From that I encode to Mpeg2. I ac3 encode my audio. "

    Could you elaborate on this a bit - I still don't really understand the audio part of the process. I've heard the terms "mux" & "de-mux" but I'm still in the dark... Is the audio dealt with separately when I run the capped file thru tmpegenc? This will be important as I do want a good-as-poss backup of my Star Wars originals before they disappear forever

    Steptoe - I already have my system well partitioned, I have a 60gb drive already which has an OS partition and 3 others (one for games, one for my work and one for misc crap from the net & drivers & such) so I agree completely about the use of such a setup... I am aware of the 137gb limit on some boards for single partitions, which is why I'm trying to work out if 120gb is enough... hopefully upgrading the lot soon anyway (going from AMD 2000 to 2600)

    cheers
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  10. Some detail on my process (from memory):

    Capture: (mainly CATV)
    VirtualVCR
    video: 712x480 video Morgan MJPEG 95%
    audio: 48k rate uncompressed

    Post Process:
    VDub - Cut commercials (Fast Resave for no re-compression) to save parts
    VDub / Avisynth - Join parts and save out audio
    VDub / Avisynth - Same Join as above, use filters (2Dcleaner optimized, and some sharpening. I do mostly cartoons and find 2D cleaner works for me.

    Encode:
    Encode video with MainConcept - (CCE multipass is better but MC is good enough for me.)
    Encode audio with SoftEncode - I adjust the volume a little, also add timestamps.

    Author:
    Maestro or DVDLab or IFOEdit. Depends. Sometimes I use Architect for Music DVDs because it is easy to do music compilations and it encodes the AC3 for me.


    I think you are interested in how I get the audio out of the AVI. I make sure I cap it at 48k and use VDUB to 'save' it out. Save Audio (or something like that). I think TMPGEnc can take the audio in from the AVI file. I encode it seperately to AC3. TMPGEnc probably encodes to MP2. Sorry I don't use it, so I can't say. There are probably some 'convert' guides about this.


    Hope this helps !


    Disclaimer I just do this for fun. Been doing it a while, but I am far from a pro.

    As far as the HDD question, I can't say enough how nice Raid is. Each of my machines have 3 drives. 1 for the OS/software and 2 hooked to a $20 raid card I use only for video. Read up on IDE raid before you buy.
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  11. Member Leoslocks's Avatar
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    Another thing on the Raid Array. Most IDE raid cards will allow 48 bit block addressing which overcomes the 137 gig limit imposed by standard IDE and Windows setup.
    I just love the way windows fly open on a Raid 0 array.

    I was wondering why Virtual Dub was capturing avi at 20403KB/s. I though I had it set up to use Huffyuv 2.1.1. Aparently something is amiss in my setup.
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  12. Member
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    If you live near an Office Max, they have the Western Digital 160GB HD with a 8 MB buffer for 79.99 after rebates, plus there was an extra 10.00 coupon in the coupons section of the Sunday paper here in Pgh., PA so I got it for 69.00 plus tax. I think it was like 179- 30 instant rebate = 149-20 rebate-50 rebate -10 coupon = 69.99 total plus tax.
    Quite a deal.
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  13. Thanks again - I was experimenting with the demo PicVideo compression last night and I couldn't believe the difference in size - 1 minute went from 1.2gb uncompressed to 179mb...

    I'm in the UK, so that HDD deal is a bit out of reach but thanks anyway!

    I'll read up on some guides for the audio I guess... so it's encoded separately from the video, then re-combined during authoring?
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  14. Lost Will Hay's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by steptoe
    Anyway, as I can easily buy a 120GB with 8MB cache for around £85-95 without trying too hard (local computer shops, not mail order), I suggest an absolute minimum of 120GB, if you can afford it buy the biggest you can possibly afford.
    I picked up a 160gb Maxtor 8mb from ebuyer.co.uk for under £80 last week
    Will
    tgpo, my real dad, told me to make a maximum of 5,806 posts on vcdhelp.com in one lifetime. So I have.
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  15. Video Restorer lordsmurf's Avatar
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    I've got 516GB from 4 combined drives. All EIDE and Ultra ATA, screw RAID.

    The more the merrier. :P

    Other system has 186GB from 2 combined drives.

    Those are ACTUAL sizes after formatting, not the sizes I was "sold".

    I'd rather have too much than not enough. Already been that route.

    I tend to capture a lot quickly, then slowly burn off sets. So files build up really quickly. Only filled up the 516GB system once. Normally about half capacity.
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  16. I actually have another audio-related question: If I'm using a stereo VHS and the tape has "Dolby Surround" audio, do I just cap it as uncompressed PCM then strip it out, convert it to AC3, then recombine everything at the authoring stage?

    Still a bit confused about the audio stage...

    Also (while I'm here) do I capture widescreen video at the same res as fullscreen (720x576 PAL)? I presume as the bars on VHS are fixed on the video and not generated as with DVD that the res would be the same...

    cheers
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  17. "I've got 516GB from 4 combined drives. All EIDE and Ultra ATA, screw RAID."

    I have to hand it to you in the ignorance department considering the raid statement. You will never compete in the raid read/write capabilities with a properly installed 3ware raid card. I can show you countless test data proving this position against the IDE setup. It is best to remove as many bottlenecks as possible, one being the read/write of the hard drive(s) in use. What are your test specs with your current setup, compared to a 3ware 6800 running 4 JB drives in raid 0, jbod, 0-1, or any other combo set up for redundancy?
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  18. Originally Posted by lordsmurf
    I've got 516GB from 4 combined drives. All EIDE and Ultra ATA, screw RAID.
    Hah!

    If you have 4 drives you probably have an add on controller (or no cd drive in the machine). If you bother with that, why not use a raid controller. Raid 0 is faster. Look as some Sandra tests, writeups, or whatever. The physical drive read/writes are what slows you down. With 2 (or 4) at a time you can overwhelm the PCI bus.

    Originally Posted by Toms Hardware Nov 2002
    Twice the Performance for Not a Lot More

    The main argument in favor of IDE RAID is its good price/ performance ratio. It allows you to achieve a substantial increase in PC system performance and data security for a reasonable cost. For example, a system with two 120 Gbyte hard disks (Maxtor 4G120J6) and our budget winner Dawicontrol DC-100 Raid would cost you just under $400.
    http://www6.tomshardware.com/storage/20021112/raid_controller-01.html

    Nov 2002 ! Prices are a bit less today.

    You're Behind the times Smurffy....

    Edit:I've probably got 3/4 of a terrabyte across 3 machines I use in tandom. But who cares? I probably paid way to much for that space.
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  19. Another factor that I like about RAID is the block size transfer. In video editing/capture the blocks are much larger that when transfering text etc. A setting of 256-512 with the 3ware has helped tremedously with the capture of video on my PC. If you are using the Promise TX series of cards, which I believe Smurf is using ( remembered from previous post) I believe the card is using the PDC 20265R chipset. It does not have the capability to set a specific block size, it is processor dependant, and the drivers carry to much overhead to compete against the 3ware cards. The newer Promise, Hipoint, 3ware cards are all much better in terms of read/write capabilities. I have used all three cards and can confirm with my test data the data rate.


    MAK
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  20. Video Restorer lordsmurf's Avatar
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    I tried RAID. A friend tried RAID.

    I sold my card back off, he uses his as a mere expansion card.

    I've got the Promise TX2 card. No problems. Capture right to it, can copy disc-to-disc from Pioneer DVD-ROM (TX2 card) to Pioneer DVD-R (mobo IDE) on-the-fly with no errors or underruns.

    RAID was great big pain when I was using it. Caused dropped frames, and the array acted erratic.

    I've heard other people having the same problems. Not sure what caused it, may have even been some of my other hardware. All I know is it did NOT work and I'll never do that again. Costly mistake.

    One of the few PC problems I've ever had. At least that had me stumped.

    Only time I've seen RAID work well was in server machines, and yes, I know they operate fast. But I'm not so sure that kind of speed is necessarily needed for mere video capture. Grabbing 720x480 at 15 MB/s with ATI VideoSoap isn't a problem for me.

    RAID either works or it doesn't. I was a "doesn't".
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  21. Smurf,

    The reason the Promise card did not work and dropped the frames is because it is a software based solution. In other words, it relies on the interupt of the processor for its needs. I can prove this by watching the API with my Soyo Dragon plus. It has the PDC 20265 chipset on it. It is a software based solution, just as your TX series card is. You would not believe how many requests are used to run this card. That is why all onboard (or hardware based) cards are far superior to your TX solution. You essentially shot yourself in the foot before you started installing the card for the intended purpose. The 3ware cards all have an onboard processor, eliminating the interupt request on the CPU.

    I hope this sheds some light on the subject for you, it is accurate and to the point. Your position regarding raid cards is completlely inaccurate and does a dis-service to all who look to you for advice.
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  22. guys, much as I appreciate the lesson on whether to RAID or not to RAID, could someone answer my audio query???
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  23. Member
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    Go for the 3 Terrabyte option!!!
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  24. Member
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    Get as much space as you can, I have more than 600G on my system,a nd It's like 80% full
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  25. Originally Posted by surreal
    guys, much as I appreciate the lesson on whether to RAID or not to RAID, could someone answer my audio query???
    When I cap to avi, the audio is with the video. I then use virtualdub to demux the audio out. It can then be encoded seperately and finally muxed back in when you author.

    If your question is about cleaning audio, maybe you should post that in the audio forum. I kinda lost track.

    @Jukka

    How many mp3s can you put on a 3 terrabyte music server? Assuming they are not all In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida.
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    In a wayI sympathize with Lordsmurf.

    He's tried RAID, found troubles gave it up.

    Others here would not give up RAID if it jumped up and bit them in the Ass.

    Hey, I have hundreds of MBs transfer rate and you only have X. Mine's bigger than yours..

    Some of you guys are dorks, some of you are "leading edge". But most of you are simply parroting what you have read either here or elsewhere.

    8 megs vs. 2 megs is milliseconds in difference, but it must be better, even though, moneywise, it might add a quarter to thr cost of MAKING the drive. But it's worth at least 20 bucks in buying the drive.

    So eat up all the shit the makers feed you.We need more sales to get the economy back on a sound footing.

    Cheers,

    George
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  27. Hey George,

    I guess the test results are nothing but propaganda made to order so as to mislead the public in buying a useless product. Of course the API handle on the raid driver from a softweare based card (solution) would tell nothing to someone who knows crap about what is happening behind the GUI. You don't back up any of what you spout, with fact. The failure of the card should not equate with the failure of learning why it failed!!
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  28. @George

    I have no sympathy for the smurf man. First thing he said was "screw raid". No backing. No "it didn't work for me". No nothing. I appreciate that it did not work for him, and it may not work for others. I didn't know that from "screw raid". Maybe others would not have known if someone hadn't said anything.

    However, you too are chiming in with blah blah blah "the man is out to get us". You're clearly the dork here. I mean, you've posted over a thousand posts with the same great value as the one above? How can baldrick stand it!

    The funniest thing about all the fighting over raid in this thread, is that Surreal has made it clear he's not going that route. :P :P
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  29. Video Restorer lordsmurf's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by trevlac
    I have no sympathy for the smurf man. First thing he said was "screw raid". No backing. ....... I didn't know that from "screw raid". Maybe others would not have known if someone hadn't said anything.
    I'm still harboring some deep-seated resentment from that experience.

    The list currently looks like this:
    Screw RAID (for home use).
    Screw SONY (as a whole).
    Screw Maxtor (HD).
    Screw CMC (anything).
    Screw Princo (DVD-R).
    Screw Maxell (VHS, S-VHS tapes).
    Screw RCA (tv, radios).
    Screw Magnavox (VCRs).
    ... and probably a lot more if I sit and think about it ...

    But obviously somebody like that stuff because they still sell it. Just not me. Got my reasons.
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    Much of the video processing is copying big files, like cut out commersials, demuxing, remuxing and authoring to DVD. So I have 2 hard drives and I try to read from one drive and save to the other drive. They are on separate IDE-channels. I don't understand how a RAID setup would make it faster? A RAID still use 2 hard drives but then you have simultaneous read and write on both drives when you copy a file. The speed should be about the same as when copying from one disc to another like I do, or have I missed something?
    Ronny
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