DVD Recoder vs. ADVC 300 + Procoder

[djnice]

I want to archive old VHS tapes.
What method is the best quality?

JVC S-VHS
Full Frame TBC
Sony/JVC/Pioneer DVD Recorder

or

JVC S-VHS
Full Frame TBC
Canopus ADVC-300 + Canopus Procoder

[DVWannaB]

I think the very first thing is that you are saving a lot of money by going the DVD recorder route. The second method is at least 2 or maybe 3 times more money outlay.

As far as the best quality, my gut feeling here is that you get better bang for your buck, in that I dont think you gain anything by going Canopusx2 direction.

Choose a recorder like the Pioneer or JVC with additional input filtering to go along with the TBC and SVHS VCR and I think you come out ahead of the game. Also, I believe you could throw in a good color corrector/Proc Amp from ebay and you should be enjoying life

Chain would look something like this:
JVC SVHS -----> TBC ------> Color Corrector -------> Process Amplifier -----> DVD Recorder

Just my .02c worth.

[edDV]

Are the DVD recorder editing features adequate for your needs? Are you planning to heavily filter the capture?

A DVD recorder may minimally need a proc amp in the chain to set levels.

VHS is such low quality, I doubt the Canopus products can extract any additional quality compared to the internal hardware codecs in the DVD recorder.

The Canopus products would be highly useful for other purposes.

[FulciLives]

I got a stand alone DVD recorder for cable TV stuff as there is simply just not enough time to capture in HQ (such as DV) on a computer and re-encode in software (like CCE) to MPEG-2 DVD spec. Not when you work during "prime time" and want to record several TV shows a day!

Having said that I do miss the ability to "filter" as many cable TV channels have way too much "video noise" and this really mucks up the MPEG encoding. Using a filter such as Convolution3D is essential many times in my experience.

For pre-recorded stuff where time is not essential then I say go the computer method.

Of course if you use a stand alone DVD recorder you could get a proc amp or even more importantly something with "noise reduction" for the video ... for instance maybe the DR-1000 IMAGE ENHANCER by Sign Video

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[cbkilner]

I have experience with:

(1) JVC-SVHS -> ADVC-300 -> Mac
(2) JVC-SVHS -> Lite-On 5006 via S-Video
(3) JVC-SVHS -> ADVC-300 -> Lite-On 5006 via Firewire

Option (1) offers the most control, best (only?) editing, and, with color correction and filters on the Mac, excellent picture quality (PQ) - BUT this method is very time consuming. Without tweeking on the Mac, the basic software encoding of MPEG on a Mac (Compressor engine) from the Canopus DV codec has problems with high detail of similar colors (e.g., background of green trees) and can end up with "floating blob" artifacts.

Option (2) is fast, but the disc has no real menu and the PQ suffers from loss of color.

Option (3) gives the best combo of speed and PQ (about the same as in (1) when tweeked on the Mac), but has the lousy menu produced by the DVD recorder. The ADVC-300 acts like a proc amp to boost the colors (and can also be used for other picture tweeking). The minimal TBC in the ADVC and JVC have been sufficient for all my old VHS tapes - the video stabilization in the JVC seems to help with old stretched tapes.

For archiving other people's tapes (i.e., no editing), I use option (3). For my old home movies, I use option (1) to get the nice Hollywood-style menus. The PQ isn't any better, but the disc navigation is.

[djnice]

Thanks for the answers.
I want to archiving other people's tapes.
The best quality and the most expensive solution is the svhs - advc - dvd recorder via firewire option.
However may I will use a proc amp instead of advc in the chain.