Optimal Property Settings for VHS Capture in Vegas?

[hip_school_preppie]

Hi Folks,

I'm kinda new to whole A/D video conversion thing and have started trying to convert old VHS tapes to DVD. I'm using a JVC S-VHS > Canopus ADVC 110 > firewire > pc. The software I'm using is Vegas 7.0. I have an HDTV (Panny Plasma, TH-50PH9UK). I know my Frame Rate should be 29.970 (NTSC) and would imagine the Pixel aspect ration should be 0.9091 (NTSV DV). I tried a 1.2121 (NTSC DV Widescreen) test once and the movie ended up looked "squeezed" on my HDTV. Maybe it wouldn't if I checked the "Stretch Video to fill Output Frame size (Do not Letterbox)" option before rendering? I would assume you can't widescreen something that was already created 4:3 like VHS tapes without cropping.

I see that there are a few different Property settings...
Field Order:
- None (Progressive Scan)
- Lower field first
- Upper field first

Full resolution rendering quality...
- Best
- Good
- Draft
- Preview
(I've been going with "Best", but not sure it's any different than "Good")

DeInterlace Method...
- None
- Blend fields
- Interpolate fields

What's the optimal combination? The VHS is captured to AVI (like a 20 GB file) and when rendered goes to MPEG-2, like 4 GB.

On the Audio Tab I've been choosing "Best" for Resample and Stretch Quality - I assume that's fine.

Also, when you go to Render you have the option to "Stretch Video to fill Output Frame size (Do not Letterbox)" - Do I need to check that?

Is there anything under Options > Preferences I should change?

Thanks in advance for any help - it's much appreciated

-CW

[thecoalman]

test once and the movie ended up looked "squeezed" on my HDTV.

Don't know about the particulars for Vegas but you should have a selection for 4:3 or 16:9, VHS is 4:3

Field Order:
- None (Progressive Scan)
- Lower field first
- Upper field first

DV devices use Lower field or Bottom Filed

Full resolution rendering quality...
- Best
- Good
- Draft
- Preview
(I've been going with "Best", but not sure it's any different than "Good")

I think i seen someone mentioned Vegas uses Mainconcept, the editing application I use also uses mainconcept. Insead of static selections it has a slider. to tell you the truth I don't see a difference in encoding times or quality so I always slide it to 100%. Not sure exactly what it does.

DeInterlace Method...
- None
- Blend fields
- Interpolate fields

Never deinterlace video that's going to be watched on TV.

[hip_school_preppie]

Thanks CoalMan!

I read on other forums that as far as the Deinterlace Method goes, you should blend fields for slow moving images and Interpolate for fast moving. What do you think they're referring to if you say you should never do it for TV?

[edDV]

NTSC VHS is 480i/29.97 interlace
You are capturing to DV format which is 480i/29.97 interlace.

If you want to play to a normal TV or 1080i HDTV, you should stay in 480i/29.97 interlace to the DVD. Tradeoff is bitrate vs. hours per DVD.

If your target is a progressive HDTV, the TV will handle the 480i/29.97 to native progressive conversion in hardware better than you can do in software. Certain exceptions apply if you want to get deep into this.

If you intend extreme compression or web distribution, different rules apply. Even so, I would encourage you to save the 480i/29.97 master for important material.

[hip_school_preppie]

Thanks edDv - no deinterlacing it is

[edDV]

Thanks edDv - no deinterlacing it is

That works for archive. Cost is fewer minutes/hours per DVD but DVD media is cheap and you will be glad you took the higher road when HDTV is mainstream.

[hip_school_preppie]

Hey edDv - so I ran a render test last night that just finished with the Deinterlacing set to "Interpolate" and man does it look like crap. The intro screen where it should be just jet black looks kinda grey and has color fuzz wigglin' all around (sorry, I can't think of a better way to explain it, but I think you get the point). I'm assuming this happened because I deinterlaced?

[edDV]

Hey edDv - so I ran a render test last night that just finished with the Deinterlacing set to "Interpolate" and man does it look like crap. The intro screen where it should be just jet black looks kinda grey and has color fuzz wigglin' all around (sorry, I can't think of a better way to explain it, but I think you get the point). I'm assuming this happened because I deinterlaced?

"Interpolate" deinterlace is combining two fields that are offset in time by ~1/60th second. You should be seeing "fuzz" increase for moving objects. As for levels shift, that shouldn't be happening unless something else is at play.

[thecoalman]

Sounds as if your "wiggling" is the result of MPEG compression, that's a guess. Solid black area shouldn't make a difference where interlacing is concerned.

The affects of deinterlacing will be seen during fast moving scenes and overall you have reduced the resolution. Here's some brief examples, this first pick is interlaced. Interlaced is comprised of two frames of video each in a seperate field. The horizontal lines in this example would be each represent a seperate frame. Note that these are zoomed.:




When you deinterlace, coincidentally this was done with interpolation you combine the two frames.



This will look better on computer monitor than the interlaced example when played, however most software will do this on the fly so you really have no need to deinterlace. Also though it may not be evident in this pic you have also thrown away half the resolution.

[thecoalman]

Here's a 2 frame animation to represent the lost resolution, both frames are from a the same single source. they were deintelaced using interpolation, the only difference between the two is what field was kept, note the dfference between the girls hair in the lower left.



One thing to note is this is gif and it's limited to 256 colors so some of what you see is the result of the reduction in the color pallete.

[hip_school_preppie]

Cool, thanks for the detailed explainations.

Yeah, I too think the MPEG compression is causing the "wiggling" on the black background. I'm doing my AVI > MPEG-2 encoding with Vegas 7.0 with the settings mentioned above. A 20 GB avi gets encoded to about a 4 GB mpeg-2. This is about 90 minutes of video.

Are there any other settings I need to be concerned about for encoding? I'm just going with the defaults when clicking on "Make Movie" in Vegas.

[thecoalman]

The most important one is bitrate, for 90 minutes you'd be using 6000kbps which is pretty standard. You could try 8000kbps but this will only allow for a 60 minutes on a single layer disc.

[hip_school_preppie]

It looks like you cannot adjust the bitrate in Vegas Movie Studio, but by default it encodes at about 8000kbps. I guess in DVD Architect (which comes with Vegas Movie Studio) you can though, or use a feature called "Fit to Disk" in which I guess it figures out the highest bit rate for the avi to go to mpeg-2. I'll try both and see what happens.

[hip_school_preppie]

BTW - I like how the girl's hair in your example above goes from "bad 80's hair" to "really bad 80's hair"

[thecoalman]

Whatever you do only encode to MPEG once.

[hip_school_preppie]

OK Coalman - I just finished a capture/render/dvd burn and am pleased with the results. I used all the settings we discussed. Lower Field First, no Deinterlacing, frame rate set to 29.970 (NTSC) and did things in this order:

1. Capture the VHS (about 1 hr 29 min) to AVI in Vegas Movie Studio 7.0. About a 20 GB file was created.

2. Used Vegas 7.0 to cut out unwanted footage in the beginning and end of movie and then resaved to a new AVI. About a 19.4 GB file was created. No compression there, so I assume this step is OK. In the future I'll be more careful about my start and end capture points.

3. Imported the new AVI into DVD Architect and inserted chapters and menu w/ some music overlay.

4. Rendered the AVI at about 6400 kbps. This was the max I could do to fit onto a single layer disc. AUDIO_TS and VIDEO_TS folders were created with IFO and VOB files. This is the "Prepare" process in DVD Architect after clicking on Make DVD.

5. Then I went back to the Make DVD section and selected "Burn" and it just takes the newly created files and creates an ISO file.

6. Burned ISO to DVD with NERO.

Sound good?

[thecoalman]

No compression there, so I assume this step is OK.

Vegas should oly reencode the frames you have edited so there is no concerne there. Even if it did DV-AVi is pretty forgiving where that is concerned. When you created the file if it took only a short time then that's what it did.

[hip_school_preppie]

Yeah, if I recall properly it took about 20 minutes or so for it save the 19.4 GB file (I only have 768 MB RAM). It did say "Rendering" in the progress bar during this time, but that just maybe a default statement in the dialog box, because it was just actually resaving an AVI. The rendering in DVD Architect took about 5 hrs after that.

[thecoalman]

Yeah, if I recall properly it took about 20 minutes.

That's about right, if you copy that file from one folder to another that's about how long it will take. This is one opration you can speed up if you have two drives. Source from one drive and save to another.

[hip_school_preppie]

I'm shocked at the size ratio bewteen AVI and what is actually burned to a single layer disc. Once you encode, you've dropped 70% in size. Is that a huge deal?

Do you know in Vegas if you can choose where you want the layer change to happen when burning to a 8.5 GB dvd?

[hip_school_preppie]

Actually, I think you can in DVD Architect.

[hip_school_preppie]

Here's a question I thought of....

The properties I set for Field Order and Deinterlace Method in Vegas; when does that occur? During the capture or render process?

I would assume during the render process, in which case if I just capture in Vegas and then render/encode in DVD Architect I don't think those settings are being accounted for in Architect. They don't have any settings like that anywhere in Architect - just 4:3/16:9, kbps, and audio stereo or 5.1.

I wonder if I want to use Architect's encoding process (because it alows my to define kbps) if I should resave every captured AVI in Vegas first to ensure my Field Order and Deinterlace selections are enforced? Recall how when I resaved that other AVI it said "rendering for about 20+ minutes.

[hip_school_preppie]

anyone? Bueller?