Need input from Dazzle DVC II owners

[Eddie-D]

I'm about to send mine back to the company. I got it with the intention of backing up my video tapes, but having tried seemingly every setting in the moviestar software and every conversion with TMPG afterwards, I'm convinced it's not possible to make a good replica of my tapes, and that I'd just be better off making backup tapes.

Has anyone found a way to make a really good reproduction of a VCR tape, or television picture using moviestar software, if so what were your settings. My particular problem, outside of the usual annoying computer pixelation that occurs, is that the picture is just to soft. To give an example think of a show like the Late Show with David Letterman, that show is videotaped, but if you were to run it through moviestar software, recording in mpeg2 format and highest settings, and then edit it with TMPG into a standard compliant VCD, when you play it back on a home DVD player, it looks like something that was filmed, it's softer, annoyingly so, there's a horrible lack of detail. I hope that makes sense.

All I want is to make backups of my VCR tapes that look close to the original as possible.
I appreciate any help you guys with more experience could give. If i can't figure it out, I'm just saving for a home DVD player you can record with.

Thanks all.

[unclebud]

Your best bet is to capture in a lossless codec (avi), and uncompressed. Then edit or render to VCD compliant MPG in TMPGenc.
Capturing in MPG 1 or 2 and then re-rendering is killing the quality of your video.

[House de Kris]

Hold on Eddie-D, is the DVCII really your problem here? How does the high bitrate MPEG-2 capture look BEFORE running it through TMPGEnc? If it looks OK to your eyes, then the problem is probably not the DVCII. True, the resolution of VCD is pretty low and will never match broadcast NTSC, hence no matter how you capture, it will look softer.

Rather than use captures of live Letterman (which is how I understand what you are doing), why not capture your tapes that you want to backup for your comparisons? You may find that using the SVCD template will work just fine for you. Ideally, you don't want to have to transcode once you've captured, as this will further degrade your quality.

Going to VCD may not be the best target for you if you are picky about quality. Give SVCD a try. Even capturing to a huge AVI file then converting to a VCD compatible MPEG-1 will look poor in comparison due to the VCD limitations.

[Eddie-D]

I just used Letterman as an example, I was actually backing up VCR tapes that have a variety of shows on them as well as tapes with home movies, Letterman was just an example, because it's a show that's videotaped, not filmed. The point I was making was that after using DVCII to record a videotaped show, converting it to VCD and putting it on a CD, it mysteriously looks filmed, as in the picture is too damn soft.

All I'm looking for is someone who's been backing up their VHS material with good results to give me the specs they're using. Otherwise, I see recordable DVD players are down to 750$ in a lot of places. I'll just ship this back and save up til I can get one of those.

So again, if you've been capturing using DVCII for the purpose of backing up VHS tapes, and have been getting great results, just please tell me the specs you're using.

Thanks

[House de Kris]

OK, fine, Letterman was just an example. I understand. At any rate, you didn't mention if the straight unconverted DVCII capture meets your quality standards. For the two months that my DVCII has worked for me out of the year and a half that I've owned it, I was able to make some exellent VHS captures.

Using the DVCII to capture straight to VCD quality files gives poor results in both video (due to the limited resolution VCD will never look as sharp as VHS) and audio (it really mangles the upper bass zone). BUT, capturing using the DVD templates, I thought, looked great. And you don't have to use the highest bitrate to get good results either. Burn this file as a cDVD and things will look great. OK, great is a subjective call, so only you can judge if it is great to you. Unfortunately, cDVDs are playable on very few machines. So, you've got to decide if you want great pictures or if you want to be able to play your discs.

During the time I had a working DVCII, I didn't have Nero so I never captured straight to SVCD. Currently I use miniDV tape to capture my VHS tapes and then transfer that to the computer to get a huge AVI and make SVCDs from there. These, in my opinion, look really good to great.

If DVD recorders are a viable option for you, then do that. You probably won'tbe sorry.

[leebo]

I agree. My DVC II has worked from the day I bought it two years ago.
There have been some kinks, but nothing to do with the quality of the captures.

VCD is low res and thats most likely whats annoying you. SVCD is much better, but still can't compare to DVD quality.

Either send it back and save for a set top DVD recorder, or keep it and get a DVD burner like the A-03. (which will give you the option of making better looking menus and is more flexable about where you place chapters than a set top).

[Eddie-D]

Thanks for the replies guys. My problem is that neither of my DVD players can play SVCD or Mpeg2, unless converted to VCD first. I found a nice setting today that produced beautiful video quality but on the DVD players, it would play for one second then pause, back up a little, then play another second, pause, back up a little, etc. Was pretty damn funny to watch, but I wasn't looking for laughs.
The product does produce good results at high settings, I just don't have the equipment to play it. And yet my DVD players are both listed in the DVD player compatibility list as being able to play them, but I've not been able to find a setting that works and I'm tired of having to throw CD-R's away. I really thought that mpeg2 converted to VCD would look somewhat comparable to VHS, but wasn't even close.
Anyway, DVC II going back, and the money spent will be put it into a Recordable DVD player fund....any and all donations welcomed :D

Thanks again for the help.