Quality comparison? PVR-350 vs Pioneer DVR-520H encoding

[TripleTransAm]

I've been reading through A LOT of the threads in this forum, and I don't think I have quite decided what my best approach will be to what I need to accomplish.

Here is my situation:
I am intending to "upload" a metric ton (!) of DV-8 tapes to create DVDs, for safe keeping and also for ease of access. The tapes were recorded on a Sony DCR-TRV315 Digital-8 camcorder, which uses Hi-8 cassettes to record about 1 hour of digital video. The camcorder naturally has S-VHS and Firewire (IEEE 1394) outputs.

The most-obvious-to-me approach was to use the Firewire link to upload the video into an AVI and prepare it on the PC. However, between taking an hour to import (real-time) from the camera then taking close to 4 hours per tape to re-encode to MPG using TPMGenc's 4.0 Express then using DVD Author 2.0 to prepare the DVD, I'll be old and grey before I get through the whole stash. And I won't be looking forward to doing any new material either!


So here are my two options as I see things:

1) Use Firewire connection straight into my set-top Pioneer DVR-520H dvd burner w/ 80G harddrive and using that unit's built-in MPEG encoder. For best authoring, I could always save to DVD-RW in VR mode and import it into DVD Author 2.0 to create nicer menus and a better final product (which is thanks to the suggestions given to me by the fine folk on this board!).

Drawback: the set-top unit would have to be off-limits to the family during the recording (ie. no TV recording, no burning?, etc.) and the camcorder would be easily accessible to my ultra-destructive 19 month old bulldozer I call my youngest son.

2) Use the S-VHS output of my camcorder to connect directly to my Hauppage PVR-350 capture/tuner card on my PC and have it do the hardware-encoding to MPEG, and then use DVD Author 2.0 to finish off the job as with option 1 above.

drawback: am I losing any import quality by going with S-VHS versus Firewire? Will I care? I have no idea how the Hauppage compares to the Pioneer's built-in MPEG'er. As it is, I'm happy with the Pioneer's results on full tilt quality settings on the DVDs that I have put together from the camcorder (prior to realizing I could import things over to my PC using VR-mode DVD-RWs). On the other hand, I have no clue how the PVR-350 card does on S-VHS captures.



Judging by the horsepower needed by TMPGenc 4.0 Express to do an AVI-to-MPG conversion, I'm thinking realtime sw conversion of a DV-to-MPG nature is not feasible. Ideally, I'd love a firewire'd DV-to-MPEG hardware encoder, but I don't know if they exist (nor do I have the budget for such a thing, sadly... the PVR-350 is staying with me for a long long time).


Any input on my dilemma would be appreciated.

[TripleTransAm]

No opinion? Anyone? Please?

I just viewed a Firewire'd/TMPGenc'ed result and I'm going to have to resort to doing the same DV-tape straight into the Pioneer in order to compare. Maybe I'm paranoid, but I'm almost thinking the Pioneer hardware MPEG'ing does a better job than using TMPGenc 4.0 Express to encode DV-AVI to MPEG via software. Hard to tell unless I compare.

I have connected an S-VHS cable to my Hauppage and am only lacking the audio lines to be able to try this third alternative. Unless someone has already compared the Hauppage and a set-top DVR, in which case I'd really appreciate the feedback so I don't have to waste too much time and possibly end up with an inferior transfer.

[jagabo]

drawback: am I losing any import quality by going with S-VHS versus Firewire?

Yes, S-VHS has limited resolution, especially for the color components.

Will I care?

I don't know. Will you?

I have no idea how the Hauppage compares to the Pioneer's built-in MPEG'er.

Why don't you just compare for yourself?

Judging by the horsepower needed by TMPGenc 4.0 Express to do an AVI-to-MPG conversion...

Switch to a faster and better encoder. CCE for example is ~3 times faster and produces fewer macroblocks. If you don't need files of a particular size use single pass constant quality encoding. That will be twice as fast as 2-pass VBR and can deliver the same quality.

[Scorpion King]

We have many tapes also and most of them I have only watched once. We don't have any home movies that we watch so much that warrants easy access and fancy menus. By what I've seen in my life I would say our home movie collection is fairly typical.

There has been times that I have made special occasion copies of our home movies to give to friends or family and those I take the time to do my best work. I cut out the garbage, add transitions, fades, etc, then create a DVD with fancy menus. These usually take quite a bit of my time to do so I don't do many of them.

Tackling a metric ton of tape would be something I would not even want to attempt. I just don't have the time or the energy for such a project as that. My wife has asked me several times to do ours but so far I have been able to get out of it. She understands how much time it would take me so she hasn't been pushing it that much lately.

I vote for a simple backup/easy access dvd then record realtime mpeg2 on R disks leaving everything else as it is. For special occasions then go the firewire/edit/encode/author method.

As for the bulldozer? Put everything up about 5 feet off the floor for the next 10 years.

Good luck.

[FulciLives]

The best thing would be for you to test both methods using the same 1 hour long tape.

1.) Record to the Pioneer DVD recorder using FIREWIRE and record in the 1 hour XP mode. Transfer to DVD-RW and import to the computer so you can use TMPGEnc DVD Author.

2.) Record to the Pioneer DVD recorder using S-Video and record in the 1 hour XP mode. Transfer to a DVD-RW and import to the computer so you can use TMPGEnc DVD Author.

3.) Record to your Hauppauge WinTV PVR 350 using S-Video and record at a CBR of 9000kbps and use Stereo 16-bit 48k MP2 audio at a bitrate of 384kbps. Makre sure to convert the audio to AC-3 format for the final TMPGEnc DVD Author stage. I suggest using a bitrate of 256kbps for the AC-3 audio although you could go 320kbps if you want. I wouldn't go higher than 320kbps or lower than 256kbps.

Compare to see which looks better.

One other note I would like to point out. I don't have the Pioneer model DVD recorder that you have but I do have a more recent model Pioneer DVD recorder (the DVR-531H-s with a built-in 80GB HDD) and I'm pretty sure that your model has the same feature as mine.

With my Pioneer DVD recorder (and think with your model as well) you can record in the 1 hour mode with PCM audio or you can record in a 1 hour mode with AC-3 audio. The difference? The PCM audio mode will have PCM audio which is as good as you can get audio wise but the video bitrate will be slightly lower than if you go with the AC-3 audio mode but then you have AC-3 audio instead of PCM so the audio quality will not be as good but the video quality will be better ... but you probably won't be able to tell the difference (knock on wood).

Since home camcorder material never has really great high quality audio I would use the 1 hour AC-3 mode because I doubt you will be able to really hear a difference between PCM and AC-3 audio but the increased bitrate for the video (in AC-3 mode) might make a noticeable visual difference.

My guess is that all 3 methods will look about the same. However you don't know until you try.

As for the FIREWIRE computer method. Definately try that as well. Capture as DV AVI and convert to MPEG-2 DVD spec using whatever you have (I prefer CCE but TMPGEnc is A-OK as well). Here you have the option of a video bitrate of 8000kbps CBR with PCM audio or you can go with a video bitrate of 9000kbps CBR with AC-3 audio. For the "best" AC-3 audio I would go either 256kbps or 320kbps.

My personal suggestion? Go with the FIREWIRE to DVD recorder option using the 1 hour AC-3 audio mode. However since you seem to have some negatives going that way (as you mentioned) then go the Hauppauge route.

I think you will be happy with the quality whichever way you go. After all putting only 1 hour per DVD Video disc means you are using very high bitrates so you have a lot less quality concerns.

However if you really wanted to put more per DVD Video disc ... like 2 hours or something like that ... then I would expect the only way to get really steller quality THAT WAY would be to use the FIREWIRE capture and so a true multipass VBR encode with a software MPEG-2 encoder such as CCE or TMPGEnc etc.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

P.S.
The concern over FIREWIRE vs S-VIDEO is really NOT that big of a deal. Some equipment is different than others but when all is said and done the difference between the two methods is virtually the same quality wise.

For instance someone once did a test with a Canopus ADVC-100 where they took a DV cam and used the S-VIDEO output to the Canopus ADVC-100 and captured that to DV AVI then compared that to a direct DV cam to FIREWIRE to DV AVI capture. They looked very nearly the same eventhough one had the analog step and one did not. It is that test that made me believe that the QUALITY difference in direct FIREWIRE vs S-VIDEO is virtually none. Since you want to attempt to go straight to MPEG-2 DVD spec I see no reason to worry about FIREWIRE vs S-VIDEO.

[TripleTransAm]

Yes, S-VHS has limited resolution, especially for the color components.

Ah, thanks for the confirmation. I guess that eliminates the Hauppage since I'm going to try to stick to the Firewire interface.

You have to understand something about my nature... I can literally sit in front of some gadget and tweak for days only to find myself having over-tweaked things and having to start all over. I am the type of guy who will see a bit of noise on-screen and immediately think to myself: was that in the original material? Would it have been there if I had used that other tool?

I've enlisted my wife (far less particular about the little details than I am) to help with comparing the results of importing into the Pioneer 520H versus the first DVD I produced tonight. Thankfully, I won't add the Hauppage test to the comparison, that'll save me some time.

Switch to a faster and better encoder. CCE for example is ~3 times faster and produces fewer macroblocks. If you don't need files of a particular size use single pass constant quality encoding. That will be twice as fast as 2-pass VBR and can deliver the same quality.

Interesting. Thanks for the reference, I'll look into that. When I first became aware of VCD back in 2001, TMPGEnc was the cat's rump when it came to encoding. It's surprising to hear that it isn't at the top of the heap. I'll do some more reading and comparing between the two. Thanks again.

[TripleTransAm]

I vote for a simple backup/easy access dvd then record realtime mpeg2 on R disks leaving everything else as it is. For special occasions then go the firewire/edit/encode/author method.

Noted. The main benefit at the moment is freeing up the 520H for regular TV use. As it is, I'd have to record the material imported from my camera in FINE mode (1hr per DVD) and with the puny 80G harddrive, that sucks up a lot of real estate. ( I know, I gotta get around to upgrading that HD one of these days when my warranty's up).

A lot of the material is the usual kids' stuff (which we might watch more frequently if it was easier to access, as it would be on DVD compared to a sequential access medium like the DV-8 tape). But a lot of it is special interest stuff (my music performances, some of my track runs with one of my cars, some car show participation, etc.). It's this kind of stuff I'd want to have available at my fingertips as needed.

Maybe one method of dealing with the "Bulldozer" would be to allocate an hour per evening to import a cassette after we've put the kids to bed. This, of course, will depend on the result of our back-to-back comparison which should happen tomorrow night.

[TripleTransAm]

With my Pioneer DVD recorder (and think with your model as well) you can record in the 1 hour mode with PCM audio or you can record in a 1 hour mode with AC-3 audio. The difference? The PCM audio mode will have PCM audio which is as good as you can get audio wise but the video bitrate will be slightly lower than if you go with the AC-3 audio mode but then you have AC-3 audio instead of PCM so the audio quality will not be as good but the video quality will be better ... but you probably won't be able to tell the difference (knock on wood).

Thanks for the lead, John. To be honest, I don't think my 520 has this ability, I think it's PCM all the way at the top speed. I've just picked up a used Pioneer for my parents (upcoming Xmas gift) and I believe it to be the 531H (it's tucked away in my closet right now, and I'm not willing to wake up my youngest son to get to it! We appreciate the rare moments of silence in this household! ). I remember reading about the XP mode there, but my 520 lists its top mode as FINE.

However, I'm going to apply the theory behind it to my PC encoding software. Thanks for the suggestions.

By tomorrow night, I'll have a comparison done between the Firewire/encoding/DVD-on-PC option and the straight-into-the-Pioneer option. You've given me food for thought on the Hauppage option with your comments on S-VHS versus Firewire, so I might throw that one back in the ring once again.


Again, special thanks to all for the food-for-thought. I hope I don't give the impression I was lazy in asking for a quick solution to my issues... I suffer from a mental condition which forces me to sweat every little detail (no pun intended) when it comes to tweaking anything. For heaven's sake, I used to record basic analog cable off my Hauppage at 720x480 at 9000+ until someone in another thread clued me in on how the Pioneer shaves resolution in exchange for acceptable frame rate and it suddenly dawned on me exactly how little resolution I had to begin with from my source!! So I appreciate it greatly when someone brings me back down to Earth with realistic frame rates and some good real-world experience and suggestions.

Thanks again for pointing a newbie in the right direction (again!).

[FulciLives]

I'm almost positive your DVD recorder has a 60 minute mode with PCM or AC-3

Look at the page (near the back of the manual) that explains the different MN modes.

Even if you have to go to the 65 minute mode to get AC-3 that will still give higher video bitrates than the 60 minute mode at PCM audio.

But either way you might not see a visual difference.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[FulciLives]

I downloaded the manual for the Pioneer DVR-520H-s and if you use the MN31 mode (65 minute mode) then you get AC-3 audio and this will give you a higher video bitrate than if you use the FINE mode (aka XP mode) ... also the manual mode of MN32 is exactly the same as the FINE mode (aka XP mode).

Again the FINE/XP/MN32 modes use PCM audio for about 60 minutes of recording time whereas the MN31 mode uses AC-3 audio for about 65 minutes of recording time.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

P.S.
My Pioneer DVR-533H-s calls the 1 hour mode XP mode but I guess the 520 calls the 1 hour mode FINE mode. Same thing either way.

[jagabo]

Yes, S-VHS has limited resolution, especially for the color components.

Ah, thanks for the confirmation. I guess that eliminates the Hauppage since I'm going to try to stick to the Firewire interface.

You should still try it for a comparison. DV color has 1/4 the resolution of the liminance. So it doesn't have high color resolution to start with. But you are still likely to suffer a bit from the digital to analog to digital conversion. The analog stage allows for many small degredations (noise, resolution loss, color shift, etc).

[TripleTransAm]

To prove to you guys that I'm not simply sitting on my rump waiting to be spoonfed, I've been doing a lot of online reading using different combinations of search terms in google. Among the interesting reading, I found this snippet:

I too notice greater picture detail when copying from my camcorder via DV to my Pioneer DVD recorder. When I experiment with s-video instead, I see two obvious differences: 1) the recorded color intensity is higher with the s-video, and, 2) the picture detail is softened noticably with the s-video. I assume the color intensity difference is just some slight mismatches in reference levels used by the products involved. BTW my camcorder is a 3-year-old inexpensive single CCD JVC with 680k pixels.

One more thing I came across... a performance test of a 520H indicated the tester was able to notice a resolution of 450 lines in the recorder's maximum performance setting (Fine), a bit less in SP (naturally). What perplexes me: if the 520H manages "more than 450 line" horizontal resolution at the best setting (for a 720x480), does this mean a PC does a better job? ie. 480?
(again, reality check: can my eyes even detect 30 horizontal lines of extra resolution?)

[FulciLives]

To prove to you guys that I'm not simply sitting on my rump waiting to be spoonfed, I've been doing a lot of online reading using different combinations of search terms in google. Among the interesting reading, I found this snippet:

I too notice greater picture detail when copying from my camcorder via DV to my Pioneer DVD recorder. When I experiment with s-video instead, I see two obvious differences: 1) the recorded color intensity is higher with the s-video, and, 2) the picture detail is softened noticably with the s-video. I assume the color intensity difference is just some slight mismatches in reference levels used by the products involved. BTW my camcorder is a 3-year-old inexpensive single CCD JVC with 680k pixels.

One more thing I came across... a performance test of a 520H indicated the tester was able to notice a resolution of 450 lines in the recorder's maximum performance setting (Fine), a bit less in SP (naturally). What perplexes me: if the 520H manages "more than 450 line" horizontal resolution at the best setting (for a 720x480), does this mean a PC does a better job? ie. 480?
(again, reality check: can my eyes even detect 30 horizontal lines of extra resolution?)

Af for the difference between FIREWIRE and S-VIDEO you have to remember that when using S-VIDEO that the capture hardware's filter chain comes into play and that could be why the image might be "softer" looking i.e., more filtering.

As for the 450 line thing ... sounds like you are confusing analog video resolution with digital video resolution. Not the same thing.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[TripleTransAm]

Last night overnight, I left TMPGenc 4.0 Express running at CBR instead of VBR, at the default bitrate. It took 2 hours instead of 3.5 to do the AVI from one cassette. The resultant MPG is roughly 4.2 Gb whereas the previous VBR attempts on other AVIs from tapes resulted in files of 3.8Gb-4.0Gb.

Would I be correct in thinking the quality should be similar between the two approaches (VBR and CBR) simply because in one case I am maintaining a CBR of 9xxx whereas in the VBR case, I'm setting a ceiling of 9xxx and in some cases the bitrate might be considerably less? Unless I'm breaking some general DVD player rule, this CBR output should be playable everywhere just as well as a VBR file, right? (and I'm hoping I haven't overlooked something simple like not leaving aside enough bitrate for audio as would have been the case with VBR, etc.?)

If this is correct, I can live with leaving 3-4 tapes batch-encoding overnight, at 2 hrs a piece. As long as I'm not trading off anything other than simple file size.

As it is, from last night's late night reading, I'm getting the impression the 520H's DV-to-MPEG hardware conversion is considered fairly good to begin with. So I'm not feeling so bad about that option either.

John, I guess I must be confusing the analog and digital video resolution, but I'm not sure how. I'll have to do some more reading and thinking about it to see where my misunderstanding came. (ie. I always thought a line was a line, on screen).

[FulciLives]

At very high bitrates ... such as 9000kbps ... you should do a CBR because you can't go any higher so no need for a 2 pass or multi-pass VBR.

As far as size is concerned 4.2GB should be fine but if you want a slightly smaller size do a CBR of say 8900kbps or 8800kbps etc.

That will make the file size ever-so-slightly smaller and no you won't be able to see any kind of difference between 8800kbps CBR and 9000kbps CBR.

I mean a 2-pass or multi-pass VBR with an AVG of 8800kbps and a MAX of 9000kbps makes no sense ... the two are not "far enough away" from each other to benefit. In fact I would never even think of doing anything but a CBR unless the bitrate gets well below say 8000kbps.

A DVD with a 9000kbps CBR video bitrate will play on any DVD player as long as the audio is not too high in bitrate. For instance if you use PCM audio then you better lower your video bitrate to 8000kbps CBR but if you use MP2 or AC-3 then even at the highest bitrates for those audio formats you are still A-OK with a 9000kbps CBR video bitrate.

Analog resolution and digital resolution are different and you cannot do a one-to-one compare between them. For instance VHS has an analog resolution of about 240 lines but a VHS to DVD at 720x480 will look sharper than a VHS to DVD at 352x480 and a VHS to DVD at 352x240 looks like shit.

That's just an example and I know I am not really explaining it all that well but analog resolution numbers do not directly correspond to digital resolution numbers.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[jagabo]

Some note regarding resolution:

NTSC has a fixed vertical resolution because a single electron beam scans across the screen 480 times per frame (actually it's something like 486 times but most digital equipment has settled on 480 lines, throwing away the top and bottom 3).

Horizontal resolution is measured by video engineers as the number of vertical lines that can be resolved over a width equal to the height of the screen. That is, a square area, not the full 4:3 rectangular area.

If an analog device claims 520 lines of resolution that doesn't mean that 519 lines are drawn perfectly but 521 are no longer visible. As the source frequency approaches the resolution limit contrast decreases.

At low frequencies you clearly see black and white vertical lines. As the frequency gets higher the difference between how dark the black lines are and how bright the white lines are starts to become less. At even higher frequencies the image of alternating black and white lines simply becomes a gray blur. So determining the horizontal resolution is something of judgement call. There are mathmatical methods of generating the resolution number, say when the swing between dark and light falls below 70 percent of the full values, but still, that choice of 70 percent is arbitrary.

The situation is different with digital video. As the source frequency approaches the sampling frequency you start to get moire patterns. Low pass filtering can be used to reduce the moire but completely eliminatng it requires so much filtering you get a loss of clarity.