Capturing VHS videos with Virtualdub or iuVCR

[avz10]

I am in the process to convert my VHS home videos (PAL I; South Africa) to DVD and need some advice please.

1) With regards to the capturing process: I have tried the following- Virtualdub, iuVCR; Virtual VCR and the WinFast PVR. After some trial runs, I decided on iuVCR, but have now found that in some cases the video and audio are not in sync, especially when the original video was taken in bad light. I thought the quality of Virtual VCR and WinFast PVR was not good. Virtualdub appears good, but I sometimes found jitter or a horizontal vibration with the final result. Any comments please. My settings for Virtualdub are 720 by 576, data format YUY2 and I do not use filters when capturing. Any comments on the capturing process?
2) When capturing with Virtualdub, I use the Huffy codec, so the initial file size is not too big, but when I use my filterchain, the size increases dramatically, although I use the Huffy Codec for video compression. Should I use another Codec, or another setting? I tried Panasonic, but it gives me an error message.
3) Comments on my filterchain please: I use Levels (normally 15 to 240), Dynamic Noise Reduction, set at 8, 2D Cleaner and Hue, with the saturation set at 1,20. I have been struggling with different filters to sharpen the image, but it often makes it worse.
4) My next steps are TMPG Encoding and GUI Authoring, before writing.


Any comments would help.

Thanks

[avz10]

I have not had any responses!!

What I did no make clear was that my videorecorder is connected to my PC with AV cables. I have a Win Fast 2000 TV card.

[mattso]

Use firewire (eg camcorder pass-through, or separate analog-digital converter unit).

Or, use a DVD recorder. My Pioneer has noise reduction (luma & chroma), plus sharpening (detailing).

Capture cards are plagued with A/V problems, dropped frames etc...

[avz10]

I have firewire, but I cannot set my camcorder to allow pass through. I have one of these new 3CCD camcorders, a Panasonic NV GS 250, which I thought would be capable of doing it, but have not been successful. Any ideas? I do not have a DVD recorder

[ronnylov]

Panasonic NV-GS250 should have analog pass-through according to the specifications.

Anyway regarding bigger file size after virtualdub filtering it may be that virtualdub outputs in RGB format which is bigger when huffyuv compress it. Yo can set huffyuv to convert RGB to YUY2 and gain some file size without loosing much quality.

[avz10]

Panasonic NV-GS250 should have analog pass-through according to the specifications.

Thanks for your comments. I have tried to set up my camcorder, but have not been succesful. any comments on the actual settings on my camera? I have sent an email to Panasonic, but am still waiting for a reply.

I will try to change my huffy settings.

Thanks!