DVD Recorder vs Huffyuv Uncompressed

[jrodefeld]

Hello everyone,

I just wanted to see if someone could explain to me the difference between using a capture card to capture VHS source as uncompressed AVI for later mpeg encoding and using a DVD recorder? I don't understand why people choose to use a DVD recorder or how that works when capturing VHS. Do you just burn the DVD right from the recorder? What if you wanted to add menus and so forth?

Why would someone use a DVD recorder instead of capturing to Huffyuv AVI? What are the advantages? Thanks.

[poisondeathray]

Hello everyone,

I just wanted to see if someone could explain to me the difference between using a capture card to capture VHS source as uncompressed AVI for later mpeg encoding and using a DVD recorder? I don't understand why people choose to use a DVD recorder or how that works when capturing VHS. Do you just burn the DVD right from the recorder? What if you wanted to add menus and so forth?

Why would someone use a DVD recorder instead of capturing to Huffyuv AVI? What are the advantages? Thanks.

Main advantages are ease of use, lower cost . You can still extract the recorded mpeg2 video from the dvd and author in authoring applications, add menus and so forth if you wanted to

Maybe they don't care about cleaning up VHS capture, can't be bothered to do , or don't want to pay someone to do it

[jrodefeld]

Hello everyone,

I just wanted to see if someone could explain to me the difference between using a capture card to capture VHS source as uncompressed AVI for later mpeg encoding and using a DVD recorder? I don't understand why people choose to use a DVD recorder or how that works when capturing VHS. Do you just burn the DVD right from the recorder? What if you wanted to add menus and so forth?

Why would someone use a DVD recorder instead of capturing to Huffyuv AVI? What are the advantages? Thanks.

Main advantages are ease of use, lower cost . You can still extract the recorded mpeg2 video from the dvd and author in authoring applications, add menus and so forth if you wanted to

Maybe they don't care about cleaning up VHS capture, can't be bothered to do , or don't want to pay someone to do it

Thanks for the response. However, I have heard that many use certain DVD recorders because they have certain filters available to them that is useful in restoration. But I always thought that the highest quality is achieved by capturing uncompressed then encoding with high quality software once any filtering is done.

So why do so many experts like LordSmurf always talk about using a DVD recorder in capturing projects? I just want to know more about the advantages over capturing to Huffyuv.

[themaster1]

When you think about it the only main advantage is the ease of use actually.Encoding in mpeg2 on the fly will be inevitably lower quality than a huff > mpeg2 2pass encoding for instance.A dvd record cost what 200+ buck? a simple capture card cost ~75

[poisondeathray]

I have heard that many use certain DVD recorders because they have certain filters available to them that is useful in restoration. But I always thought that the highest quality is achieved by capturing uncompressed then encoding with high quality software once any filtering is done.

You still need a TBC and ensure proper levels somewhere in that workflow - The problem is there are no software TBC's , it has to be done in hardware.

For everything else, software filtering will generally have more power , customizability, utility than hardware filtering. The reason is, hardware filters have to cut corners to be done in realtime (unless you are talking about very expensive dedicated hardware , not stuff you can get for < $10K). Complicated motion compensated filters work very slowly even on fast multithreaded systems, far from realtime

So why do so many experts like LordSmurf always talk about using a DVD recorder in capturing projects? I just want to know more about the advantages over capturing to Huffyuv.

You have to PM him specifically, because he doesn't come by that often

I see more disadvantages than advantages using a DVD recorder. The primary disadvantage is low bitrate MPEG2, compression artifacts.

[jman98]

Thanks for the response. However, I have heard that many use certain DVD recorders because they have certain filters available to them that is useful in restoration. But I always thought that the highest quality is achieved by capturing uncompressed then encoding with high quality software once any filtering is done.

So why do so many experts like LordSmurf always talk about using a DVD recorder in capturing projects? I just want to know more about the advantages over capturing to Huffyuv.

Have you ever listened to MP3 files? What's the lowest bit rate you personally find acceptable? I worked with a guy once who swore that anything below 224 Kbps was not worth listening to and he would describe 224 Kbps as "barely acceptable". Various studies have shown that most listeners actually prefer 320 Kbps MP3 to the orignal source and incorrectly believe that the 320 Kbps file is the "original source" because it "sounds better". Studies have also shown that many users cannot tell any difference between the original source and 196 Kbps MP3 files and some people even find bit rates as low as 128 Kbps to be quite good. I've heard files that were recorded at 96 Kbps or less and at sampling rates like 22 KHz and while I can hear all kinds of artifacts in those files, there are some people who don't mind it at all.

The point to this is that I want to ask - can you REALLY tell a difference between HuffyAVI recorded video and what a DVD recorder gives you? Maybe YOU can. But that doesn't mean that other people can. Some years ago when I was recording a few laserdiscs to my PC to make DVDs out of them, I would just record as MPEG-2 at bit rates around 9000 Mbps and then edit and re-encode back down to my desired bit rate. I was pretty happy with the results. If your source is not very good and/or you are person VERY sensitive to video artifacts, maybe YOU need to record in HuffyAVI to be happy. But that doesn't mean that everyone does. I have a good friend who used to record stuff OTA in VCD format and his recordings were completely unwatchable to me with their low bit rate and low resolution and constant broadcast dropouts but he thought they were fine and I think he still has them in a library. It might be interesting to do a blind study with random people comparing videos recorded in HuffyAVI and filtered and those recorded to a DVD recorder and see who thinks which has higher quality. The results might be surprising.

[2Bdecided]

Not all DVD recorders are equal. Some improve the signal. Some are hyper sensitive to TBC errors and make it look worse. Some have really lousy encoders. You can't generalise.


People use them for speed, and because they don't want to get involved with PC video.

With favourable conditions, you're going to have to put a lot of effort in via the PC route to create a DVD that has obviously higher quality video than what a decent DVD recorder can deliver. Sometimes it's more than good enough.

With less favourable conditions, the DVD recorder route will produce something so sub-standard that almost anyone would spot that it was worse.

Cheers,
David.

[hech54]

You still need a TBC

No....you don't need a TBC. I've never felt the need for a TBC. My captures and recordings to my DVD recorder are perfect in every way because beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

[orsetto]

This is a polarizing discussion, especially here on VH where some members tend to speak in absolutes (as if anyone who disagrees with them is an idiot who has no idea what they're doing, or "doesn't care about quality"). I'm firmly in the DVD/HDD recorder camp, not because I'm "lazy" or "convenience-oriented" but because it helps me achieve the results I want in the most efficient manner. You have to weigh the advantages and disadvantages of each workflow based on what tapes you're actually capturing. Someone who is digitizing priceless personal camcorder videos may well have incentive to spend countless hours learning to use a PC capture system to maximize the last degree of quality. Someone else, who has no personal videos and is simply trying to digitize a vast library of VHS tv recordings will often prefer a good DVD/HDD recorder. I'm in the second group, and I'll tell you flat out I'd rather have my wisdom teeth yanked with rusty pliers than deal with the endless drudgery of PC capture.

Everything the "pros" here say about PC capture is true: you can achieve some amazing results not possible with a standalone recorder. But they don't usually qualify these claims with the rest of the story, which is "it ain't as easy as it looks". In my experience, unless you're either a savant (many here are) or willing to invest an awful lot of time and energy in becoming a savant, a straight-up VHS PC dub to even uncompressed AVI is not going to look a hell of a lot better than a dub to a good-quality DVD/HDD recorder. Its a lot more aggravation for minimal advantage. The experts here who use PC capture have been doing it a long time, and have already been thru the mill figuring out which cards to use with what software and which filters to apply how strongly at what point in the chain. If you know all this stuff by heart, then yes you can sometimes make a silk digital purse from a VHS sow's ear. But no guarantees, it doesn't work with every tape, as often as not we're talking a 10-20% improvement max (much of which will disappear the minute you compress the AVI to MPEG2 DVD).

My source tapes are not made from camcorders, most were made in the '80s on high-end VCRs of the period from off-air and cable broadcasts, some are second generation compilation reels. I have dubeed over a thousand of these so far and have another thousand or so to go. There is no way I can justify a PC workflow with these tapes: they cannot realistically be "improved" enough to bother, and after years of testing I'm very happy with the quality I get from my DVD/HDD standalones. I'm not talking about the cheezy Kmart VHS/DVD combos so many people use: my recorders are late-model Pioneers that cost me a small fortune between 2006-2008. I have several of these, each connected to a Panasonic industrial AG vcr or a Mitsubishi DVHS. These vcrs have built-in TBC and noise reduction features which I use when necessary to clean up color noise or other issues. The Pioneer recorders have very solid frame sync of their own, eliminating the dropped frames, lipsync issues, and distortion that often plague PC capture (requiring additional hardware to cure). I capture to the HDD, which on each recorder will hold about 60 hours of material including edits, thumbnails and menu layouts. The DVDs burn at high speed from HDD, about 12 mins each. Essentially these recorders are miniature PC workstations dedicated to MPEG2 capture: perfect for me since I have no interest in AVI or other PC formats, I want DVDs.

The big problem with DVD/HDD recorders is the unavailability of really good units. In North America, they're all discontinued except for the Magnavox 513/515, amazingly good for a bargain price but not quite as flexible or smooth to use as the pricier older models. The "cult" recorders promoted by LordSmurf and others were usually the JVC DRM100 and the various early Toshibas. These had unique built-in noise filtering which some love and some hate. Those filters could not be easily replicated in software, they were strictly a hardware thing, and many feel you should do as much in hardware as possible. The JVC did not have a hard drive, so one needed to rip the resulting DVD into a PC for final touchup and decent menu creation. The Toshibas were available with and without HDD, the HDD versions were the most sophisticated video recorders ever sold (with authoring features approaching PC level). Unfortunately both the Toshibas and the JVCs proved staggeringly unreliable, which led to a lot of sneering pushback against those who recommended them. When I owned them, I found the Toshiba wonderful but too fussy to operate, the JVC gave me an over-filtered result I didn't care for. I eventually settled on Pioneer 550 and 560 recorders: they don't have fancy filters but they encode VHS with never a hiccup or distortion and they're reliable, with just enough authoring ability to suit me.

Last year I picked up a couple of the astoundingly cheap Magnavox DVD/HDD models and found their encoding ability similar to Pioneer but coupled with fewer features and a crude operating system. The Magnavox video chip is the most recent refinement of the encoder used in the JVC, minus the filtering but with other stability improvements. While the Magnavox is capable of incredible results at a price as low as $169, using it can be a pain. If my choice today was between Magnavox or PC capture, I might be more inclined to PC, although it would be a tough call. I'm realistic and practical about my VHS source tapes: the fine encoder in the Magnavox is perfectly capable of handling them on par with a PC. But the Magnavox has a horrible system of HDD navigation and clunky operation in other areas, making a PC seem more attractive since the aggravation would be similar. Lets just say I'm glad I stocked up on the Pioneers when Pioneer tanked a couple years ago, otherwise I'd be trapped behind a bunch of generic PCs pulling my hair out today.

[2Bdecided]

as often as not we're talking a 10-20% improvement max (much of which will disappear the minute you compress the AVI to MPEG2 DVD: if you don't plan on archiving the AVI, don't even bother).

That's not really true. The benefits of a TBC (if really needed) will be quite obvious after MPEG-2 encoding. The benefits of fixing the levels, improving the chroma, removing huge amounts of noise etc (if you need to and choose to) will be quite obvious after MPEG-2 encoding. As you say though, not always needed (or done) - in which case, you're right.

I agree with the rest.

Cheers,
David.

[edDV]

Simple answer

DVD Recorder: No learning curve. 2 hr tape capture takes 2hr + burn time if from HDD model. Quality will vary by unit hardware processor/encoder.

Huffyuv capture:
- Learning curve
- Tuned computer disc system.
- 2 hours to capture + non-realtime filtering + non-realtime MPeg2 encoding
(adds up at least 5-6 hours of work, more like 8-10 hours)

In the end, some will see a quality difference, most won't. The more you know, the more difference you will notice. Don't expect women to be impressed.

[2Bdecided]

Don't expect women to be impressed.

A comment that has relevance well beyond the present discussion

Cheers,
David.

[victoriabears]

I am gonna be repeating myself but at my age I am allowed, I said at my age I am allowed.

If you want as near perfection as you can get, then spend the hours/days/months reading how to capture on your computer (The best source material/equipment is very important) and then the hours/days/months finding the right filters for what is "wrong" with your result, then hours/days/months converting it to a playable format or I suppose if you can just play it off a computer, more and more the coming thing with TB's of hard disk, then no conversion required.

Or....

Get the best vcr, may be a tbc , and a JVC m100 or similar, not the latest batch they are LG's , DVD recorder and see if you like the result, I always used XP speed and overlapped material of greater length, there is usually a place where editing together on a computer is not noticeable.

I spent 7 years converting my mass vhs collection and tried all sorts of equipment, if you are in the USA, getting the right dvd recorder is gonna be a challenge, the vcr less so, I would go with a Panasonic 1980P myself, its more consistent in the playback problem area , and if you can find the right JVC dvd recorder it also has nice filters.

It is odd how some folks find the combi route good for them, others need all the techno stuff they can get, others have used commonly available solutions like the roxio capture hardware good for them,

http://www.roxio.com/enu/products/creator/default.html?rtrack=hp_C2011_20110325

see what is easiest/best quality for you, I would also remind that modern dvd player and HDTV's also filter and enhance.

Good luck

[sanlyn]

You still need a TBC

No....you don't need a TBC. I've never felt the need for a TBC. My captures and recordings to my DVD recorder are perfect in every way because beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

How did you figure out how to remove the TBC circuit from your DVD recorder?

[hech54]

You still need a TBC

No....you don't need a TBC. I've never felt the need for a TBC. My captures and recordings to my DVD recorder are perfect in every way because beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

How did you figure out how to remove the TBC circuit from your DVD recorder?

Which one?

[chowmein]

as often as not we're talking a 10-20% improvement max (much of which will disappear the minute you compress the AVI to MPEG2 DVD: if you don't plan on archiving the AVI, don't even bother).

That's not really true. The benefits of a TBC (if really needed) will be quite obvious after MPEG-2 encoding. The benefits of fixing the levels, improving the chroma, removing huge amounts of noise etc (if you need to and choose to) will be quite obvious after MPEG-2 encoding. As you say though, not always needed (or done) - in which case, you're right.

Capturing to huffyuv or DV + avisynth post-processing + non-real-time encoding will ALWAYS provide superior quality, hands down.

[lordsmurf]

This is a polarizing discussion, especially here on VH where some members tend to speak in absolutes (as if anyone who disagrees with them is an idiot who has no idea what they're doing, or "doesn't care about quality").

Some of them are idiots, but I don't see any of them posting in here (yet).

we're talking a 10-20% improvement max

Only if you don't know what you're doing.
Or if the source is totally screwed.
Or already perfect.

The Magnavox video chip is the most recent refinement of the encoder used in the JVC

Not, it is not. It's not even close. LSI hasn't made the Logic chipset in many years.

No....you don't need a TBC. I've never felt the need for a TBC.

I'm pretty sure we ascertained your DVD recorder has a frame sync in it, possible some added NR. One of the specific Pioneer models, yes? You're not using typical garbage.

But I always thought that the highest quality is achieved by capturing uncompressed then encoding with high quality software once any filtering is done.

You can't make that statement. It's like a car vs a truck. Neither is always best for all uses. A truck would be horrible for gas mileage, while a car is crap for towing something. It's merely a matter of the right tool for the right task. Same for Mac vs Windows for the computer capturing.

Maybe they don't care

Bingo. This is why many people just buy whatever cheap crap is sold at Best Buy, consider it "good enough," and they're done. Others honestly don't know it can look better than the mediocre junk made for them. Some even have an insane idea that homemade video can never look good, based on their limited knowledge. (Though professional gear often does need to be in use -- you can't shop at Walmart for these things.)

Don't expect women to be impressed.

I've known a few that were very grateful, having received "perfect" quality work.

[hech54]

No....you don't need a TBC. I've never felt the need for a TBC.

I'm pretty sure we ascertained your DVD recorder has a frame sync in it, possible some added NR. One of the specific Pioneer models, yes? You're not using typical garbage.

Not even close.

[2Bdecided]

as often as not we're talking a 10-20% improvement max (much of which will disappear the minute you compress the AVI to MPEG2 DVD: if you don't plan on archiving the AVI, don't even bother).

That's not really true. The benefits of a TBC (if really needed) will be quite obvious after MPEG-2 encoding. The benefits of fixing the levels, improving the chroma, removing huge amounts of noise etc (if you need to and choose to) will be quite obvious after MPEG-2 encoding. As you say though, not always needed (or done) - in which case, you're right.

Capturing to huffyuv or DV + avisynth post-processing + non-real-time encoding will ALWAYS provide superior quality, hands down.

...but sometimes only 10-20%.

If I ever go back and re-do something via both methods, I'll show you.
Clean S-VHS camera master, decent VCR, optional ES10 loop-through, then decent DVD recorder vs DV capture + AVIsynth + HcEnc.
The difference isn't necessarily worth the effort.
The main obvious difference is the levels and chroma saturation (depends entirely on DVD recorder).
The subtle difference is the quality of denoising and (artificial!) sharpness of the chroma.
The main benefit for me is I end up with easily editable DV on my PC.

Each to their own.

[2Bdecided]

Maybe they don't care

Bingo. This is why many people just buy whatever cheap crap is sold at Best Buy, consider it "good enough," and they're done.

...which is 200% true. And that's a long way from the best that can be achieved without a PC.

I wonder how many would care even if you showed them the difference?

Cheers,
David.

[lordsmurf]

I wonder how many would care even if you showed them the difference?

I find a majority of them to be stubborn about it, defending their sloppy method. In some situations, the defense is a claim that both versions (pro vs sloppy) "look the same", even when errors are extremely obvious. It takes a special kind of gift to be that stupid.

What's really bad is when the sloppy person shows off their video butchery, expecting praise for a job well done. I refuse to say "oh yeah, great job" when you show me crap. I'll tell you what's right, what's wrong, and how to fix it. If you did everything wrong, then that's the feedback you'll get. I won't be abusive about it, but I also won't hide it under flowery euphemisms that inadvertently make it seem better than it is.

[sanlyn]

How did you figure out how to remove the TBC circuit from your DVD recorder?

Which one?

Almost every DVD recorder except the cheapest junk has a built-in TBC of some type, varying in quality. You don't appear to be using a cheapie, so I'd say yours has (have) have a built-in TBC. I don't know any way to disable them when recording.

As for an external TBC, usually frame-level, I'd agree: you don't always need one.

[lordsmurf]

Most people will need a TBC, for most sources, on most hardware. It's unavoidable for practically everybody.

Some of you have found yourself in one of the exceptions to the rule. But please don't pretend the rest of us are money-spending fools. We're not. It's needed, the end. If I didn't need a stack of TBCs, trust me, I would have never spent the $$$$ on it. In fact, I tried for several years to see what sort of alternatives existed -- none worked, including the devices that promised to "defeat Macrovision" (technological snake oil).

I just really hate to see people misled. (Even if that isn't your intention.)

While I trust hech54 and sanlyn know proper quality when they see it, most people will not. Many of them will falsely think they're exceptions, and butcher their videos in the process. That would be a shame.

[sanlyn]

Sometimes you can get away without one, but sooner or later you will "need" that TBC. No way I'm getting rid of mine. If mine ever breaks, it will be replaced immediately. For VHS I always use a pass-thru line TBC thru my DVD recorder, but more often than not that extra external TBC has been "needed." No doubt about it.