Best solution for VHS sources?

[xiaNaix]

My capture card grabs VHS source material as 720x480 48000khz DV AVI. I am currently looking to create an XSVCD (or similar) that can easily be transfered to DVD-R once I can afford a burner. I'd like to avoid MiniDVD since none of my DVD players will play them (I've got an RCA RC5240 and an Apex AD-1500). What is going to be my best encoding solution? Shall I keep the resolution that high or cut the horizontal in half during the encode? Any suggestions on bitrate, etc.?

TIA

[kwag]

My capture card grabs VHS source material as 720x480 48000khz DV AVI. I am currently looking to create an XSVCD (or similar) that can easily be transfered to DVD-R once I can afford a burner. I'd like to avoid MiniDVD since none of my DVD players will play them (I've got an RCA RC5240 and an Apex AD-1500). What is going to be my best encoding solution? Shall I keep the resolution that high or cut the horizontal in half during the encode? Any suggestions on bitrate, etc.?

TIA

For VHS, capture at 352x480. That's closer to VHS resolution.
You'll also save a lot of disk space in your capture.

kwag

[MITSUI_1]

Not really useful to capture that wide on VHS since effective horizontal VHS res is much much less.

I suggest you capture at 352x480 which is supported by amost all DVD players. Also capture at 48khz audio so that you don't have to upsample when it comes time to make DVDs out of that stuff.

If you're looking to eventually put them on DVD's you ought to go with SVCD or rather, xSVCD using the 352x480 format and 48khz sound if your players will support it. (The Apex should support both).

Use AVISYNTH to feed your captures to CCE 2.5 using one pass constant Q at a setting of 16 to 24, min 512 max 2496 max, 224 sound and you'll get most titles on 2 CDs with good quality. If the number of CDs is no object, then use multipass VBR. I use an avisyth scrip containing decomb.dll to IVTC and have found that application of temporal smoother helps a lot with VHS material. For full screen VHS caps (i.e., not letterboxed) you can do some interesting things with putting black borders where the "overscan" areas would be. This saves you bitrate but does not degrade your viewing experience since the black borders are in off screen areas anyway. Good luck.

[xiaNaix]

All analog sources are coverted to DV with my capture device so I'm locked at 720x480. Is there somewhere I can get a simple avisynth script that will resize the video down to 352x480, send it to CCE, and maybe add some of the filtering you mention? Could you possibly share an example of your script? ;)

TIA

[MITSUI_1]

I'll get you a copy when I get home to my computer.

[MITSUI_1]

Here's that AVISYNTH script:

(I use AVISYNTH 1.0 beta 5)


#++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
# FOR CAPTURED VHS FOOTAGE:
#++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


# CAPTURE TO AVI USING PICVIDEO @ 20Q, HUFFYUV OR HIGH
# QUALITY "DV"


# STEP ONE: PLUG-INS GO HERE
LoadPlugin("c:\avisynth\decomb.dll")


#STEP TWO: LOAD THE CAPTURED AVI
AVISource("vdubcap.avi")


# STEP THREE: DECIDE WHAT SORT OF FIELD PROCESSING YOU WANT
# (UN_COMMENT ONLY ONE, DEPENDING ON WHETHER THE VIDEO
# CAPTURED IS FILM, TRUE NTSC NON-FILM, OR HYBRID

# OPTION "A": FIELD DEINTERLACE ONLY. (NON-FILM OR HYBRID)
# (THIS OPTION OUTPUTS 29.97 FPS BUT REMOVES COMBING)
# (TO USE OPTION "A" UNCOMMENT ONLY THE NEXT 1 LINE.
#
# FieldDeinterlace() # <-- UNCOMENT FOR OPTION "A"

# OPTION "B": FULL IVTC W/POST PROCESSING (TRUE FILM)
# (THIS OPTION PERFORMS IVTC ON TELECINED MATERIAL RESULTING
# IN 23.96 FPS MATERIAL)
# (TO USE OPTION "B" UNCOMMENT ONLY THE NEXT TWO LINES.
#
# Telecide() # <-- UNCOMENT FOR OPTION "B"
# Decimate(cycle=5) # <-- UNCOMENT FOR OPTION "B"

# STEP FOUR: RESIZE TO FINAL RESOLUTION
# UNCOMMENT ONLY ONE OF THE FOLLOWING OPTIONS
#
# BilinearResize(352,480) # XSVCD (FUTURE DVD-R COMPATIBLE)
# BilinearResize(480,480) # TRUE SVCD

# STEP FIVE: (OPTIONAL) REDUCE LEVELS TO KILL DANCING PIXELS
# IN WHAT SHOULD BE "BLACK" SCREENS
# (A PRETTY COMMON PROBLEM WITH CAPTURED MATERIAL)
# (NOTE: USE ONLY AS MUCH DARKENING AS NEC TO MAKE THE BLACK
# SCENES STAY BLACK. )
# DARKER = BETTER COMPRESSION, BUT DON'T OVER DO IT
#
# COMMENT OUT ONLY ONE
# Levels(20,.85,231,0,244) # STONGEST DARKENING
# Levels(16,.91,235,0,248) # STRONG DARKENING
# Levels(14,.94,243,0,250) # MEDIUM DARKENING
# Levels(8,.97,251,0,252) # MILD DARKENING
# Levels(4,.99,253,0,254) # MILDEST DARKENING


# STEP SIX: (OPTIONAL) CLEAN UP THE VIDEO NOISE
#
# TEMPORAL: TIME-BASED CLEANING
# (UNCOMMENT ONLY ONE OF THE FOLLOWING THREE)
#TemporalSoften(2,15,15) # STRONG, USE FOR NOISY CLIPS
#TemporalSoften(1,9,9) # THIS ONE USUALLY IS ADEQUATE
# TemporalSoften(1,4,4) # USE THIS FOR CLEAN CLIPS
#
# SPATIAL: AREA BASED CLEANING
# (UNCOMMENT ONLY ONE OF THE FOLLOWING FOUR)
#
# SpatialSoften(3,16,16) # REALLY STRONG, FOR REALLY BAD CLIPS
# SpatialSoften(2,10,10) # STRONG, BUT NOT TOO BAD
# SpatialSoften(1,7,7) # MEDIUM, THIS ONE USUALLY IS ADEQUATE
# SpatialSoften(1,3,3) # LIGHT, FOR GENERALLY CLEAN CLIPS

[afreitas]

The main topic is about VHS sources. Kwag suggest to use 352x480 because VHS dont need more than this. Is there any other suggestion if Im capturing in real time from a camcorder? Is 352 a limitation from the tape or the protocol?

Kwag: You are using 352x480 in your TMPGEnc template because you started it making tests from VHS?

[kwag]

The main topic is about VHS sources. Kwag suggest to use 352x480 because VHS dont need more than this. Is there any other suggestion if Im capturing in real time from a camcorder? Is 352 a limitation from the tape or the protocol?

Kwag: You are using 352x480 in your TMPGEnc template because you started it making tests from VHS?

Hi afreitas:

No. Originally I started at 720x480. But the bit rate required for that resolution to be fairly macro block free would be 4,600Kbps.

So I decided to go 1/2 D1 resolution, which is 352x480, and for that resolution you need at least 2,300Kbps because it's exacty twice the bit rate standard VCD.

And at 2,300Kbps, most DVD players work fine on MPEG-1, but not at 4,600Kbps.

kwag