VHS to DVD with averMedia EZ DVD... but what software to use

[cjc3003]

Hi folks !

I have a Celeron 2.5 GHz (e-machine), 1 Giga Ram and of course a new... averMedia EZ DVD PCI card (with a SAA/NEC7130 chipset I think).

I'd like to convert some of my old VHS tapes, and also videos from my Sony Camcorder to MPEG-2 (either half D1 or full D1... don't know what would be the best quality/effort ratio).

I understood from my extensive reading here that it's possible to directly convert to MPEG2 without having to go through AVI and subsequent encoding. Is that wise or would it be better to do VHS->AVI-> MPEG.

(I tried virtualDub but it didn't work). I tried also neoDVD but the quality sucks.

So my questions are: what software should I use ?

What should be the settings, compression, bitrate... ?

Should I use filters ?

Post processing ?


I thank everyone in advance for spending some time in helping me...

Thanks again,

CJ

[BrainStorm69]

I use an AverTV Stereo, but it has a Brooktree chip, not an NEC/SAA. I don't know what Avermedia's software is like for your card, but it pretty much sucks for mine as far as flexibility and picture quality.

Virtual VCR works pretty well for me with the Huffy codec. But that does mean capturing to AVI and using TMPGEnc to encode to 1/2 D1. RIght now I capture to 704x480 and then render down to 352x480. For VHS, any higher resolution isn't capturing anymore detail, it's just creating a bigger file. I use about a 4000 VBR (variable bit rate).

BTW, welcome to the forums

[wulf109]

Resolution does not effect file size,only the average bitrate used will effect file size. A 352x480 file will be the same size as 720x480 if you use the same average bitrate.

[FulciLives]

I use an AverTV Stereo, but it has a Brooktree chip, not an NEC/SAA. I don't know what Avermedia's software is like for your card, but it pretty much sucks for mine as far as flexibility and picture quality.

Virtual VCR works pretty well for me with the Huffy codec. But that does mean capturing to AVI and using TMPGEnc to encode to 1/2 D1. RIght now I capture to 704x480 and then render down to 352x480. For VHS, any higher resolution isn't capturing anymore detail, it's just creating a bigger file. I use about a 4000 VBR (variable bit rate).

BTW, welcome to the forums

I have an AverTV Stereo and the AverMedia drivers are junk. They only capture at roughly 688x480 which means you get A LOT cut off of the edges. Worse yet if you capture at 704x480 it is the same as capturing at 688x480 and then resizing to 704x480 which means you do not get an accurate aspect ratio.

Thank god another user on here (trevlac) pointed out that the BTwincap driver works properly and if you capture with that driver and set your capture resolution to 712x480 you get a perfect capture. You can then either padd it up to 720x480 or crop to 704x480 and off you go.

Sorry I don't know much about the AverMedia EZ DVD PCI capture card.

However my guess is that it uses WDM drivers.

So if that is the case try these programs for capture:

VirtualVCR
iuVCR
TheFlyDS

No specific order there. All work well for the most part.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

P.S.
I prefer TheFlyDS with my AverTV Stereo

[fastoy]

Resolution does not effect file size,only the average bitrate used will effect file size. A 352x480 file will be the same size as 720x480 if you use the same average bitrate.

Oh, I beg to differ. Read BrainStorm69's comment again.

Virtual VCR works pretty well for me with the Huffy codec. But that does mean capturing to AVI and using TMPGEnc to encode to 1/2 D1. RIght now I capture to 704x480 and then render down to 352x480.

What he's saying is that the resolution of the AVI file is dependent on the resolution. He is correct. wulf109 is correct that resolution does not effect MPEG file size.

Now back to the original question...

I realize that I'm in the minority but Studio 8 has been good for me in converting VHS to DVD. I started with 8.10.4 so maybe I missed some of the rocky times.

There are a couple of items on my "wish list." I prefer to capture in AVI format to avoid the out-of-sync problem and Studio 8 won't use HuffYUV to compress. Their "compression" is either way too aggressive (reputed to be MPEG1) or not enough. So I just use Virtual VCR and HuffYUV. Then I edit the AVIs with Studio 8. A 120 GB hard drive makes this not a problem.

The second item on my "wish list" is the ability to encode as Half D1. I had used uLead Movie Factory 2 previously and it supports Half D1 but Studio 8 does not.

The editing tool is very capable but not intuitive to me. I've not used any of the special effects.

Rendering the DVD from the AVI files takes a long time, e.g. overnight for 2 hours of video (AMD Athlon XP 2000+ 1600 MHz, 512 MB RAM).

Studio 8 probably generates DVD "coasters" only about 10% of the time. I have created a couple of SVCDs and they seem to work OK for VHS input.

Recently, I captured 3 1/2 hours of video with Virtual VCR into 100+ GB, edited out the commercials and added a nice menu. It resulted in 157 minutes of video. The rendering to MPEG took 13 hours. Studio calculated a bit rate of about 3300. The final product was very nice. ZERO dropped frames and audio in sync all the way through.

[BrainStorm69]

Resolution does not effect file size,only the average bitrate used will effect file size. A 352x480 file will be the same size as 720x480 if you use the same average bitrate.

You are quite correct. But to capture at 704x480 or 720x480 requires twice the bitrate of 352x480 to keep basically the same quality.

[cjc3003]

First,

Thanks for all your fast responses. very touched by that !

However, I couldn't understand if it's worth or not to directly capture MPEG ? If yes, how should I do that ? I read that there's a capture function in MainConcept encoder... would it be ok ?

Thanks again !

[FulciLives]

First,

Thanks for all your fast responses. very touched by that !

However, I couldn't understand if it's worth or not to directly capture MPEG ? If yes, how should I do that ? I read that there's a capture function in MainConcept encoder... would it be ok ?

Thanks again !

The capture card you have does not offer any hardware for MPEG encoding so to do real time MPEG encoding you will need a very fast computer. I'm thinking 2.0Ghz or faster for full D1

Also it can be tricky to edit a MPEG capture.

If you capture to AVI then it is very easy to edit. You can then use a software program to do the MPEG encoding. The quality will probably be better than real time encoding.

The only downside is that the software MPEG encoding adds more time to the process and depending on your computer can take a long time.

The only real benefit to direct MPEG capture is speeding up the process. You really don't get any quality boost doing direct MPEG captures.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman