Is one of these capture methods better for quality than the other or equal?

[twolf13]

I have a Canopus DVStorm NLE system and Edius/Procoder 3.

I have a fairly new Pioneer model settop dvd recorder.

I have some 1991-2004 vhs tapes.

I want to convert them to dvd.

I need to know which would provide the best quality...
method 1-capturing from vhs player to computer via dvstorm, encoding with Procoder and burning dvd with encore 3

method 2...just hooking the vcr straight to the settop dvd recorder and recording to it's hard drive, add title and fast copy to dvd(no loss with fast copy).

Using composite video connection, does anyone know which of these methods would provide the best quality or would they be equal?


In method 1 to fit the whole vhs on 2 dvd's I need to encode at a bitrate of approx 5500...(is that good quality for this type project?)

In method 2 to fit it on 2 dvd's I have to record a quality of 1hr 40 min per dvd.

So which if either would provide the best quality?

thanks in advance...t

[Forum Troll]

My best results converting VHS to DVD have used 352x480 resolution MPEG-2 at 6 kbps. 352x480 is called Half-D1, is a valid DVD resolution, and closely matches the VHS line resolution. Plus, with the smaller frame size, you can increase the video bitrate for higher quality. Plus it really depends on the source tape. Some bad recordings you can use MPEG-1 VCD resolution and get great results (352x240 @ 1.2 kbps). Plus you can get like 7 hours of VCD files on a DVD.

[Nelson37]

I would bet money on four things.

1. You can achieve significantly better results using the DVStorm method, with modifications.

2. It won't happen the first time.

3. You may ultimately decide it's not worth the effort compared to the vastly easier method 2.

4. What you learn during the process will be worth the time you spend.

Personally, I would use full D1, and max the VBR bitrate to fill a single disk, DL if necessary. Unless the original quality is really poor. Then you get into filtering, cost/benefit analysis comes into play at some point.

[tinker]

5500 kbs for VHS tape is fine. Like Nelson37 say, method one is good if you want to edit and filter your recordings.
Method two is fast and simple, you will most likely get similar bitrate, because that depend on DVD capacity and length(time) of your recorded video.