VHS -> Mini DV -> PC? Good quality?

[w@ntonsoup]

As I mentioned I am having a bear of a time eliminating pixelation artifacts during any sort of motion (it's just horrendous during on-screen text moving around) when transferring my old VHS and 8mm stuff to a DVD recorder.

So... I'm wondering about MiniDV. Sadly, my MiniDV camcorder doesn't record line-in, but I know some do. Does this create a better transfer? I know MiniDV transfers really well to PC using the firewire connection.

Thoughts? Is this a bad approach?

[JohnnyMalaria]

Absolutely. DV quality is far better than VHS so you won't be able to tell the difference between the VHS and the DV version.

Problems with conversion to MPEG2 directly using the DVD recorder can be addressed by capturing to a high quality format on your PC and then using software MPEG2 encoders. They can do a better job since it doesn't have to be done in realtime.

[w@ntonsoup]

I've considered using my PC - just concerned about having blips and stuff when my PC decides to check my email, you know?

[JohnnyMalaria]

A common cause of blips is capturing to the same hard drive as your operating system. It is best to use a separate (usually external) drive.

A decently fast PC (your details shows a 3.0GHz P4) can still do other stuff while capturing. The speed that the DV is transferred at is very slow compared to the speed of the PC.

Checking emails will not likely cause trouble. Anti virus software that decides to do its thing may do - esp Norton/Symantec.

The best thing to do is try it with one of your tapes and see what happens.

[trhouse]

With issues like this, it is generally better to get rid of it in hardware before it gets digitized regardless of the format.

[w@ntonsoup]

True - and I think the DVD recorder is the hardware that needs to be excluded from the equation

[trhouse]

I meant that should the issue be noise, it should be eliminated by using hardware processing rather than digitizing it by another means and then trying to post process it. That is a long and arduous path.

[JohnnyMalaria]

What quality setting are you using with your DVD recorder? (Or, how much video are you trying to get on one DVD?)

[w@ntonsoup]

Check my other thread if you are interested - I'm at highest quality, which is 60 min per DVD. I'm getting lots of pixelation artifacts during any sort of motion in the videos. It's annoying and I'm out of ideas.

[w@ntonsoup]

Just ordered a MiniDV camcorder with the analog-passthrough deal. I'm betting the farm on this one

[harley2ride]

One that than nobody mentioned here is media... What brand of dvd's are you using in your recorder? I would suggest using nothing but Verbatim or Taiyo Yuden, unless you really follow the forums as to who is making good media, and when. Even the difference between +r and -r media can cause problems in some situations. The first thing I would try is some verbatim 16x +R media in your dvd recorder, and maintain your highest quality setting, and see if you notice any difference.

[themaster1]

As far as i'm concerned i used TDK dvds including the sctratchproof ones and -R only

So far, so good