Best video format to capture S-VHS video?

[UweZ]

I would like to digitize my S-VHS and Hi-8 videos and retain the best image resolution possible so I can archive them and later edit and view them. I have a Canopus Digital Video Converter

ADVC 110 (once offered by Grass Valley). It has a firewire (DV) port that I can connect to the firewire card on my PC. I would capture the digitized videos using the capture software that

is part of my Vegas Movie Studio HD Platinum 13 software. It captures the video in *.avi format. Is the avi format the best to use in this case for retaining the highest image resolution or

are there better options? Also, once I edit the captured video, what file type should I use to render it?

[manono]

With a Canopus box you capture as DV-AVI. If that's what Vegas offers, that's what you use. Me, I use the free WinDV for capping from my Canopus box.

Also, once I edit the captured video, what file type should I use to render it?

Who knows? What do you plan to do with it? I usually make both DVDs and MP4s when I'm all done working on the captures. Others will have different responses, use different programs, and create different output formats.

[UweZ]

Thanks for the info, manono. It’s good to know that the Canopus box produces an AVI file. I had intended to use Vagas as my video capture software. But, on your suggestion, I have downloaded WinDV and will give it a try. I intend to show my captured videos (pre- and post-edited) on an LED TV. Creating DVD disks might be the way for me to go for transporting and showing the finished/rendered product but I would also like to carry the files on a thumb or flash drive (maybe as MP4 files). My most important objective is to retain as much of a high image resolution as possible.

Uwe

[jagabo]

AVI is a container -- a logical arrangement of audio and video data in a file. MP4, MOV, MKV, etc. are also containers. What container you use doesn't have any bearing on the quality of what's contained. Just like putting a cake in a cardboard box, a plastic box, or a steel box doesn't determine how good the cake tastes.

The output of your ADVC 110 is a DV stream. You can put that in any container that supports it, but AVI is most commonly used under Windows.

Be aware that very few devices outside a PC can play DV (it's a licensing issue). So you'll probably want to convert to another video codec for viewing.

[JVRaines]

Who has the patent on the DV codec?

[jagabo]

Sony, I believe. But maybe I'm wrong and it's just that manufactures don't think it's worth the time and effort to ad DV decoding.

[UweZ]

Thank you for your input, jagabo. You have encouraged me to do a little research into containers and codec options. Also, I have captured a couple of clips on my PC from my S-VHS player via my Canopus Digital Video Converter (ADVC 110). The resulting file (with a *.avi extension showing capture at 720x480, 29.97 fps) plays ok on Windows Media Player - though somewhat blurry and certainly not as sharp and clear as what I see when the video tape is played on a previous generation vacuum tube TV with an S-video connection. I used Vegas Studio to render the avi video to an mpg file (saved as type MainConcept MPGEG-2, with video set at 720x480, 29.97 fps). That format allowed me to play it on an LED TV. The picture was still not nearly as good as what shows up on the old TV - but ok. I did notice what seem like blocks of compressed areas in the image, like the kind you used to get when you copied a VHS file too many times. I don't expect to achieve a digital video that will be as good as my original analog but I had hoped for a little better result than what I have gotten so far.

Have I reached the limit of resolution for this analog/digital conversion or are there other standard codecs that might squeeze out something better? (And here I'm assuming that mpg, mp4, mov, wmv, etc. are synonymous with different codecs that, among other things, use different video compression).

[manono]

Have I reached the limit of resolution for this analog/digital conversion or are there other standard codecs that might squeeze out something better?

As long as you're using a Canopus box, that's what you should capture as that's how it converts analog to digital - to DV-AVI. You just want to transfer that to your computer as-is.

With a different capture set up you could capture lossless for a slight improvement in capture quality. However, I suspect any problems you have with the final output are a result of what you did or did not do once the tape was captured to the computer. For example, VHS tapes are very noisy and many denoise them to aid in later compression. Perhaps you could make available 10 seconds or so of the original capture so we can have a look.

[jagabo]

720x480 will get you all the resolution of the S-VHS tape. The horizontal resolution of S-VHS is about 500 lines across the full width of the screen (regular VHS around 350). Vertically, the signal consists of 485 discreet lines but usually not all of them contain picture information (the top and bottom 20 lines aren't normally even visible on a CRT display). So capturing 480 lines (skipping a few at the top and bottom) is sufficient. Keep in mind that DVD is higher resolution than S-VHS horizontally and it uses the same 720x480 frame.

Any apparent lack of sharpness (assuming there's not something wrong with your tape, player, or capture device) is due to the way video is displayed on a computer monitor vs. how it's displayed on a CRT TV, the relative size of the screen, and the viewing distance.

Blockiness after converting to DVD is normal. Some MPEG 2 encoders do better than others but if you stick to one hour per single layer DVD and maximize the bitrate (8000+ kbps) it shouldn't be visible at normal playback speed.

[UweZ]

Thanks to both manono and jagabo for your insights. I will include a brief part of a clip tomorrow (I'm not at my editing computer right now) so you will have a better idea of my output. It seems I now have everything on the right settings (e.g. 720x480, 29.97 fps, etc). I will do some more testing, create a one hour or less DVD - making sure to maximize the bitrate (8000+ kbps), and keep you posted. Thanks for your help.

[UweZ]

I was pleased to find but very embarrassed to admit that the poorer-than-expected video quality from my capture effort was due, at least in part, to playing back a standard VHS tape. All my VHS tapes are of the S-VHS variety, except the first one I had recorded back in 1989 from a borrowed standard definition camcorder. And that’s the tape I inadvertently picked up as my sample. Sorry for the alarm. But thank you very much for your support. I’m still having some difficulty with my equipment and picture quality but I think I can probably work that out. I’ll drop an update when/if I do.