VHS to DVD quality issue

[jagabo]

We need an independent reference that shows what the colors are supposed to be. A poster for the event, pictures taken at the event, etc.

[cinemakyle01]

I unfortunately don't have that. I guess my main goal is to make it look good and not too different from the tape image when I play it on TV. This VHS belongs to a friend and I just want to avoid having him noticing anything unusual about the image.

[jagabo]

My guess is it's supposed to be something in this ballpark (sat=2.5):


[Attachment 56793 - Click to enlarge]

If your editor doesn't give you that much latitude with one saturation bump you can try applying it multiple times.

[cinemakyle01]

This looks pretty close, does it? This is at 84%

[cinemakyle01]

I also wanted to ask on here a question. So, I'm planning on converting tapes for people for money and it crossed my mind that people might ask me to convert tapes of recordings off of TV. I know I can't copy movies and tv on vhs for legal reasons, but I was wondering what if someone wanted me to copy a recorded program of something such as a news program or a RECORDING of a TV show/movie. Would that be legal?

[jagabo]

I was wondering what if someone wanted me to copy a recorded program of something such as a news program or a RECORDING of a TV show/movie. Would that be legal?

No.

[cinemakyle01]

Ok thanks. Another question. Is it possible to bump up the saturation on a VHS/DVD combo player? I don't think it is, but I thought I would ask. I was wondering if on a VHS/DVD player with the converting feature, if it's possible to adjust settings like that on the machine. I noticed when I send the footage to a computer, then to a DVD, the image looks a bit degraded in the final result. Maybe it doesn't do that for all tapes perhaps, but for this particular one I'm working with, that's the case.

[jagabo]

None of the VHS/DVD combo units I've seen have any adjustments when dubbing VHS to DVD.

[cinemakyle01]

Ok, I just wanted to make sure.

[cinemakyle01]

Hello, I'm back. I've been working on this for a few weeks and wanted to ask anyone that converts tapes about the quality of their converted footage. When you convert the footage, is it possible for the DVD to have an IDENTICAL match to the tape? I've been working on some other tapes and noticed that they have a similar problem to the other tape I was talking about on here a few weeks ago. Turns out it's not just an issue with my TV as I originally thought. When anyone here converts tapes, do you have an identical match or is it regular for the colors to look a bit different? I imagine since these are different formats, it's sensible for them all to look different from one another. It's the same situation as I had earlier where that VHS looked more saturated than the DVD as well as whenever its converted to a digital file. I've tried bumping up the saturation for the digital files, but it actually degrades the image whenever shown on a TV. Is there anything that can be done?

[aedipuss]

is it possible for the DVD to have an IDENTICAL match to the tape?

of course not. it's not a file on the vhs tape you can just copy to a computer. it's an analog data stream, that has to be converted to digital. now you'd have to define "a bit", i don't usually mess with the color for consumer tape transfers. it normally is close enough.

[cinemakyle01]

is it possible for the DVD to have an IDENTICAL match to the tape?

of course not. it's not a file on the vhs tape you can just copy to a computer. it's an analog data stream, that has to be converted to digital. now you'd have to define "a bit", i don't usually mess with the color for consumer tape transfers. it normally is close enough.

I'll take some pictures of a tape I recently converted and put them up here. I'm planning on converting tapes for people for money and I'm wanting to make sure the final products are good enough.

[cinemakyle01]

ignore that wavey stuff and notice the colors and brightness. This is the DVD

[cinemakyle01]

the VHS

[jagabo]

You usually don't want your product to look exactly like the VHS tape. VHS recordings often have bad levels, bad colors, their noisy, etc. You want to fix all that.

[cinemakyle01]

Do you think that dvd image looks fine?

[davexnet]

Do you think that dvd image looks fine?

Can you post a small clip direct from this DVD ?
You can use DGindex to mark and save a section as m2v, or possibly Avidemux, save as mpeg program stream

[jagabo]

Do you think that dvd image looks fine?

One can't judge a video by a photo of a TV screen. There are too many variables. But it looks oversaturated and over bright. As davexnet said, a video sample (not reencoded, not uploaded to youtube) would help.

[cinemakyle01]

this is just recorded off my phone.

[jagabo]

That is NOT a sample from the DVD. It has been decompressed by the DVD player, deinterlaced and displayed on the TV, captured and compressed by the phone. There are going to be problems at each step of that process. You should extract a clip from the DVD. Do not re-encode it, keep the original MPEG 2 video. Upload the resulting sample to this site.

[cinemakyle01]

I have VLC media player. I may try one of the ones you guys mentioned, but does VLC have the capabilities to do this?

[davexnet]

I have VLC media player. I may try one of the ones you guys mentioned, but does VLC have the capabilities to do this?

NO you have to access one of the VOB files on the DVD itself (Or copied to the HDD), they're inside the VIDEO_TS folder on the DVD
Open the VOB directly with either of the two programs I mentioned above

[cinemakyle01]

1. is there a Mac version for DGindex?
2. I downloaded Avidemux and it didn't work.

[jagabo]

Another program that can trim out a short sample is Mpg2Cut2. It's ugly but it works. Open the source video. Use the Mark-In and Mark-Out tools ([ and ]) to mark a section. Then Save This Clip to save that section as an MPG file. I don't think there's a Mac version of this program.

What does "I downloaded Avidemux and it didn't work" mean? That's not a helpful description.

[cinemakyle01]

Yeah, there's not a Mac version of Mpg2Cut2.

When I said it didn't work, what happened was I downloaded the software and had the program up, but when I tried to import a VOB file, it said it was unable to import the file. I tried to drag and drop the file as well as going to the import function and neither worked.

[davexnet]

If the VOB is not too big, could always upload the whole thing to a file hosting site, or here (up to 500mb)

[cinemakyle01]

The footage is split up into different files, and luckily the last one is small enough to put on here.

[aedipuss]

neither the dvd vob or vhs is "good" but both are end user "acceptable" for the home made type video it is. trying to make either "perfect" would be an extreme waste of time.

[cinemakyle01]

Hello again. So I think I am near reaching results I want with these tapes I've been trying to convert. The one issue I've been running into is that I have some computer software that appears to be exporting footage improperly. When I pop the exported DVD into a player, it looks like it exported it at somewhere around 360p as opposed to something higher. It looks too pixelated. The footage from the tapes look like something that would've been uploaded to Youtube in 2006. I'm using an app purchased from the App Store for about $15 that does not give me the right options for changing this setting. It does have a setting where you can adjust the exported DVD size, but putting two hours of footage onto a standard blank disc gives me that 480p. Does anyone know of some better apps or software that can allow me to handle an issue like this better? Keep in mind I've tried the software available at Best Buy (can't remember what it was called), but I had too many issues with it.

[cinemakyle01]

Hello again. So I think I am near reaching results I want with these tapes I've been trying to convert. The one issue I've been running into is that I have some computer software that appears to be exporting footage improperly. When I pop the exported DVD into a player, it looks like it exported it at somewhere around 360p as opposed to something higher. It looks too pixelated. The footage from the tapes look like something that would've been uploaded to Youtube in 2006. I'm using an app purchased from the App Store for about $15 that does not give me the right options for changing this setting. It does have a setting where you can adjust the exported DVD size, but putting two hours of footage onto a standard blank disc gives me that 360p. Does anyone know of some better apps or software that can allow me to handle an issue like this better? Keep in mind I've tried the software available at Best Buy (can't remember what it was called), but I had too many issues with it.