DVD final quality

[_MrC_]

Or HCEnc is a great standard def encoder (free), but you'd have to know some very basic Avisynth to use it.

And that's exactly what AVStoDVD does for you.



Bye

[vhsman]

Just wanted to clarify on two issues. First, I don't remember reading that an svideo output is superior, unless that actual footage was recorded SVHS. Second of all, I read somewhere that virtual dub does not understand firewire. Advc 110 useless? Can someone confirm?

[davexnet]

Just wanted to clarify on two issues. First, I don't remember reading that an svideo output is superior, unless that actual footage was recorded SVHS. Second of all, I read somewhere that virtual dub does not understand firewire. Advc 110 useless? Can someone confirm?

The questions are academic because whether s-video works better that composite depends on the equipment
and the recording (somewhat). There is no concrete answer.

Secondly, WinDV is the recommened choice to capture DV, not virtualdub.

[sanlyn]

Just wanted to clarify on two issues. First, I don't remember reading that an svideo output is superior, unless that actual footage was recorded SVHS. Second of all, I read somewhere that virtual dub does not understand firewire. Advc 110 useless? Can someone confirm?

I think you're confusing s-video, a type of signal transmission and associated cables (also known as Y/C), and S-VHS, which is a tape format that has nothing to do with s-video transmission. VHS and S-VHS alike can be transmitted thru composite, s-video, or component (if your player has component outputs, most of them don't). Under most circumstances s-video is superior to composite, regardless of which tape format is playing, because s-video corresponds more closely to the way video data is stored on tape. Tape video is stored in a YUV system (that's a generic term for luma and chroma stored separately). S-video ships luma and chroma separately on two wires; composite joins them into a single wire, resulting in various disturbances and loss of sharpness when the signal is split again by the receiving component. The usual problems are dot crawl, chroma bleed and shift, and often chroma upsampling errors, among others. For that reason, tape looks "cleaner" thru s-video than thru composite. Dot crawl is difficult to clean without loss of image quality, and chroma shift/bleed are just more headaches to deal with but are usually minimized with s-video.

For firewire, I hear most people would use WinDV. I'm sure there are other ways, but I've always captured tape to lossless YUY2 with huffyuv thru VirtualDub.

@_MrC_: I realize the bit about AVStoDVD and HCenc, I was talking about using HCenc alone. Apparently the O.P. isn't taking that route.

[vhsman]

Out of curiosity I tried the Svideo out on several vcrs, including the ag1980. I don't see any improvement over the rca out. I used higher end cable. No improvement. I also, experimented with tmpgenc. It works better than nero. Results most obvious in audio, due to higher bit rate (224 vs. 192 with nero), and perhaps some filters. Slight video improvement. I used the demo version and with the default settings. Will the full version allow better encoding. This sells for $100. I don't quite see the price justified. I wish I could get my refund from the cruddy nero, because Nero claims to clean the audio, but does nothing about it. Also, it looks like I am stuck with a poor capture device (pinnacle dazzle) to yield any meaningful results.

[sanlyn]

Out of curiosity I tried the Svideo out on several vcrs, including the ag1980. I don't see any improvement over the rca out. I used higher end cable. No improvement. I also, experimented with tmpgenc. It works better than nero. Results most obvious in audio, due to higher bit rate (224 vs. 192 with nero), and perhaps some filters. Slight video improvement. I used the demo version and with the default settings. Will the full version allow better encoding. This sells for $100. I don't quite see the price justified. I wish I could get my refund from the cruddy nero, because Nero claims to clean the audio, but does nothing about it. Also, it looks like I am stuck with a poor capture device (pinnacle dazzle) to yield any meaningful results.

With a dazzle, you shouldn't be able to tell the difference between s-video and chicken wire. You're the only viewer on the planet who can't see the improvement over composite with an ag1980. Check your cable. Most s-video sold in stores has a softer image than cheap composite.

[vhsman]

I will post some results after I get the advc 100/110 or dac100.

[sanlyn]

I will post some results after I get the advc 100/110 or dac100.

Ah! At last! At this point, all is rash judgment, wild guessing and theory, and little more. We haven't seen a spec of video, nary a pixel. Speculation is all well and good, and fun to read, but.......

We await. And good luck.

[vhsman]

Here are snapshots from final vhs to dvd. No software or hardware touch-up. Just ag1980. Captured via pinnacle. Codec dv avi.

Dimensions: 720X480
Size: 4.87 GB






General
Complete name : C:\Users\cyberunit\Desktop\Feel the Motion\VIDEO_TS\VTS_01_1.VOB
Format : MPEG-PS
File size : 1 024 MiB
Duration : 21mn 11s
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 6 754 Kbps
Writing library : Created by NeMpeg2Enc (2013-04-12T23-03-20)

Video
ID : 224 (0xE0)
Format : MPEG Video
Format version : Version 2
Format profile : Main@Main
Format settings, BVOP : Yes
Format settings, Matrix : Custom
Format settings, GOP : M=3, N=15
Duration : 21mn 11s
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 6 428 Kbps
Maximum bit rate : 9 586 Kbps
Width : 720 pixels
Height : 480 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 4:3
Frame rate : 29.970 fps
Standard : NTSC
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Scan order : Bottom Field First
Compression mode : Lossy
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.621
Stream size : 975 MiB (95%)
Writing library : Created by NeMpeg2Enc (2013-04-12T23-03-20)

Audio
ID : 189 (0xBD)-128 (0x80)
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Mode extension : CM (complete main)
Format settings, Endianness : Big
Muxing mode : DVD-Video
Duration : 21mn 11s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 192 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 29.1 MiB (3%)

Menu

[manono]

Size: 4.87 GB

I take it you're not planning on burning it to a DVD5?

What are we supposed to take away from all those pictures? That pink is your favorite color? When you said you'd post some results, I think everyone was expecting some actual video, not pictures.

[sanlyn]

We can't do much with stills, especially stills made with Pinnacle, converted to RGB using unknown matrices, and compressed with JPG. Apparently you have VOB's, which you can open with the free DGindex utility. DIGi9ndex has a prview screen that lets you edit a few seconds pof video and save it as an m2v. Several seconds of a scene with motion (someone walking or moving around in a room, for instance) would certainly be less than 100 MB in m2v, and can be posted here. Probably won't need audio for now.

Quickie judgment from the stills....well, no, anything from stills would be a guess. All that the images show are serious color, contrast. and definition issues whose causes are yet to be determined. The images look almost like colorized b&w. Lots of analog noise. But without a chunk of video from the VOB that gave you these pictures, that's all one could say...and even that could be wrong because we don't know how you converted your source's colors to get the pics.