Analog to Digital converter..which method?

[monkey man]

I have never been able to get this question answered. I'm transferring VHS tapes to DVD. I want to get a perfect transfer (or near perfect DV format). Which of these two methods gives one the best transfer in terms of quality. Using a stand alone converter like Dazzles' Hollywood DV Bridge or using the analog to digital converter on a Sony Trv17 Digital camcorder? My goal is a pristine image with minimal loss of video quality.
thanks
Mike
Please don't recommend a capture card just the two methods I listed. I will be encoding with DVDit or tmpge



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<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: monkey man on 2002-01-10 19:49:21 ]</font>

[ironwood321]

Hi,
First of all are you aware of VHS limitations. All UK video has 576 vertical line or 483 for NTSC. With VHS its bandwidth is 3MHZ so you only save about 250 lines horizontal of data to the tape so horizontal definition is (250 * (4/3)) which is 334 x 576 or 334 x 483 which is close to VCD standard. S-VHS stores 400 lines that's (400*4/3)) 533 x 576 or 533 x 483 which offers better quality. Better quality can be achieved from live footage or laserdisk.

Bearing all this in mind don't expect perfection as you loose some quality due to your vcr player, heads, age and vcr quality. Jitter!!!

Hollywood DV is said to be fine but produces a slightly off colour image and does not cope well with poor quality footage so you might have to invest in a TBC.

Most places ie(Video) Dub to DV tape either via a stand alone player or using analogue inputs of your DV CAM. This is then brought in via firewire.

Now because you are using VHS invest in a TBC time base corrector to deal with poor signal, macrovission. Some S-VHS recorder by JVC have TBC built in and offer better recording quality.

All you need to worry about is you destination format.

But you've probally heard all this before

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: ironwood321 on 2002-01-10 16:37:51 ]</font>

[monkey man]

Hi there,
My SVHS player has the TBC. I'm just trying to figure what medium the dazzle Hollywood bridge or a Sony TRV17 DV camcorder connected to my SVHS player will due a better job digitizing the video of the VHS that I'm making will be made into a DVD later. What I'm going to do is 1. Capture the video in a DV format. 2. Compress the footage in DVD compliant mpeg 2. 3. author the footage. 4. Then burn it to DVD-R. I have a capture card but it sucks in term of capture quality. That's why I want to use either the Dazzle bridge or a Sony Trv17 camcorder to do the job.
thanks
mike

[Tommy]

If you already have the sony, I would use it. But then if you already have the dazzle i would use that. I don't think it would matter much. However if you don't have either I would go with the camcorder just because you can also use it as a camcorder.

I don't think you should have a problem, but keep in mind the end product will not look better than the source. I've captured video from both my vhs and hi-8 with a Sony pc-9 and they both turned out fine.

[monkey man]

Thanks Tommy,
I just want to preserve the original transfer as best as possible. I just wasn't sure if the Sony analog to digital pass through function would be as good as a stand alone device like the dazzle unit. Basically I just want to make sure before I spend the big bucks on the DV camcorder that it's going to do all the things that I want it to due.

So tommy when you transfered your VHS footage through your camcorder how close to the original did the final product look?

_________________
1.2 Thunderbird overclocked to 1326
AIW 128 pro 32 caputure card
ASUS A7V133 RAID 0 Motherboard
30.7 gig 7200 rpm IBM hardrive
256 SD-RAM cas2
Sound Blaster live





<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: monkey man on 2002-01-10 19:52:49 ]</font>