Highest quality file type for VHS backup

[VidWidget]

Hi All

New member, first time post and noob to the whole VHS backup process.

I have some old VHS tapes that are deteriorating over time and I want to convert them to digital before they are completely lost forever.

Does anyone know the highest quality file type to convert to? e.g. MPEG2, MOV, AVI or some sort of raw media file?

I am not concerned about the resulting file size what so ever as I have heaps and heaps of hard drive space. I am only concerned on obtaining the highest quality possible footage and sound when converting. To future proof it would also be good to be able to use in a video editor such Adobe Premier to clean up the footage, color, saturation etc.

Also I have an LG VHS DVD combo unit from about 2007 which has HDMI out. This allows the playing of VHS via HDMI. The player also has s-video out. Do you think I will obtain better quality conversion if:

1) I obtain a decent HDMI capture card/box like gamers use such as an Elgato product and capture the VHS playback via HDMI? This essentially means the player is converting from analogue VHS footage to digital. I'm thinking its probably going to cost about $250 for a decent gamers capture device. If I do this do I need to somehow match the frame rate of the vhs dvd writer combo player with the frame rates available by the card?;

2) I obtain a less expensive VHS to Digital USB stick that has S-video and connect the player's s-video output to the usb sticks s-video input. This will probably cost a bit of over $100 for a decent convertor. If I do this am I better off buying a SVHS player?;

3) I obtain one of the older digital camcorders that take digital tape and then connect the player to camcorder and record onto the digital tape for later transfer to my pc. Thinking this is going to cost about $200 looking at decent 2nd hand camcorders online.

Any help is much appreciated.

Thanks

[johnmeyer]

If you list the various things which will determine the quality of your digitized video file that you get from your VHS tapes, the file type would be at the bottom of the list. For VHS, it doesn't matter much compared to choosing the right equipment; knowing how to choose the right settings for that equipment; etc.

There are hundreds of posts here and at digitalfaq.com which will answer your basic question of how to do a good VHS transfer so there is no need to answer it again.

[DB83]

Or indeed post the whole topic in another thread.

[redwudz]

Vidwidget, one post per topic is enough. If you wish a topic moved, PM a Mod. Duplicate topic deleted.

Moderator redwudz

[JVRaines]

Does anyone know the highest quality file type to convert to? e.g. MPEG2, MOV, AVI or some sort of raw media file?

Apples and oranges, as they say. MOV and AVI are examples of media containers: file formats which wrap the content. MPEG-2 is a codec: the software which compresses and decompresses digital video according to some specification. Codecs can be divided into lossy and lossless types; the former throws away some of the original information while the latter maintains all the information at the expense of a larger data stream.

The highest quality file will contain either uncompressed (no codec at all) or losslessly-compressed video. HuffYUV, Lagarith, UT-Video and FFV1 are examples of lossless codecs.