Is lossless really necessary?

[Sharc]

I still think that throughout this discussion there is a mix - or at least no clear definition - of the meaning of "lossless" for the capturing of analog sources and for "lossless" conversions between digital formats. Maybe it's only me

[lollo]

No, Sharc, it is not you. If you read post #56 you can see the best of the best of the non sense and idiocies from sophisticles.
Not even worth an answer.

[dellsam34]

That lossless is lossless, there are not different types of lossless. I am not going to call anyone out by name, but anyone that doesn't understand that utvideo 8-but 4:2:2 is not the same as 10-bit 4:4:4 FFV1 should not be in this discussion.

As it was explained to you numerous times and obviously still can't penetrate your thick bubble, Capture cards for analog video are 4:2:2 by standard, You can't get any new information by telling the card to upsample to 4:4:4 at the output, And anyone suggesting lossless capturing is for playback is nuts, no one is suggesting to playback a 70GB file, it has to be encoded to a final lossy format, The reality is you should not be in this discussion.

[dellsam34]

I still think that throughout this discussion there is a mix - or at least no clear definition - of the meaning of "lossless" for the capturing of analog sources and for "lossless" conversions between digital formats. Maybe it's only me

For the subject we are discussing which is analog video capture, lossless means the first file generated when the card's ADC samples an analog signal Y-C into digital component YUV/YCbCr according to the standard issued by the CCIR back in 1982 a.k.a rec.601, without any modifications, such as chroma upsampling or downsampling, conversion of the color standard, resizing, de-interlacing, lossy compression ....etc.

This does in no circumstance means VHS is lossless. Such digital file is known as the master file, the sole purpose of the master file is a backup copy to edit and post process from, so if anything goes wrong or not satisfied with the results you can always go back to the master file and try again, it was never meant for playback or sharing, It's silly to think capturing a low quality analog tape format into several GB for playback or sharing. After proper editing, restoration and other processing is performed one can proceed to encoding to a final lossy format for playback or sharing.

[sophisticles]

I still think that throughout this discussion there is a mix - or at least no clear definition - of the meaning of "lossless" for the capturing of analog sources and for "lossless" conversions between digital formats. Maybe it's only me

That's because these people do not understand what lossless really means.

If we define lossless to mean indistinguishable from the source, then lossless includes any codec when used with a sufficiently high bit rate.

If we define lossless as mathematically lossless, we narrow the potential candidates.

Here's the reality, there is no such thing as a free lunch.

If we are capturing VHS, an 8-bit 4:2:2 codec like utvideo can be used to represent all the available data. The benefit of this codec is it requires little CPU processing power to encode and decode. The negative is that it requires a lot of storage space and should be used with a RAID 0+1 setup, at a minimum.

If we move to something like an all I frame, 10-bit 4:2:2 x264 qp 5, it requires less storage space, less I/O bandwidth but more processing power.

DNxHR is a good middle ground, it is close to mathematically lossless, visually transparent, you don't need a RAID array and is relatively light on the CPU.

Even the guy in England that was held up as an expert doesn't use lossless unless requested, he uses DV-AVI.

What does that tell you?

The triplets in this thread, Moe, Larry and Curly, don't know what they are talking about.

The own a couple of VCRs and they feel like that makes them experts.

[usually_quiet]

No, Sharc, it is not you. If you read post #56 you can see the best of the best of the non sense and idiocies from sophisticles.
Not even worth an answer.

In modern English usage, a "sophist" is someone who uses clever but untrue arguments in an attempt to deceive others. I used to think his username was a joke but maybe not.

[Alwyn]

and should be used with a RAID 0+1 setup, at a minimum.

Who said and why?

[sophisticles]

Actually near lossless is great for 99.9% of scenarios. I suggested x264 qp 1 when you need high quality - because the quality is 10-20 db higher then ProresHQ . For the scenarios where ProresHQ is not enough

So I take I take it you agree that capturing VHS to lossless, huffy, ut or ffv1, is a waste?

Assuming you had a powerful enough computer, what would you capture to, huffy or I frame only 12-bit 4:4:4 x265 at say qp 5?

These guys are stuck 25 years in the past, let's be honest with ourselves.

In fact, i would even go as far as to say that if you wanted to capture lossless, assuming you have sufficiently fast enough storage, you would be better off using NVENC lossless, that I have used and it is great, fast, reliable, robust and great quality.

[sophisticles]

No, Sharc, it is not you. If you read post #56 you can see the best of the best of the non sense and idiocies from sophisticles.

Not even worth an answer.

If you want to see idiocy in all it's glory, just look in the mirror.

You gave exposed yourself and frankly no one wanted to see that.

You keep using your little toy VCRs with your little utvideo, telling yourself how leet you are, and everyone else can make up their own mind.

How does that sound?

[dellsam34]

The own a couple of VCRs and they feel like that makes them experts.

We can all see who's playing the expert here who hasn't fired up a VCR since 1994.

[poisondeathray]

Actually near lossless is great for 99.9% of scenarios. I suggested x264 qp 1 when you need high quality - because the quality is 10-20 db higher then ProresHQ . For the scenarios where ProresHQ is not enough

So I take I take it you agree that capturing VHS to lossless, huffy, ut or ffv1, is a waste?

For VHS capture, lossless makes sense for some people

There are different types workflows and usage cases -

You agreed on the need for a lossless archival format, correct ?

I think lossless is a waste of time and space, useful for archiving but not for actual production work.

For the people who edit and filter with scripts, why would they waste time , storage space, and lose quality (however small) encoding to some intermediate like ProRes/Cineform/ DNxHR ? You already have the lossless archive - use that. It's a "sunk cost" . You already have it.

I believe in the proof is in the pudding

Have you seen the results of some scripts ? If the proof is in the pudding - there's your proof - have a glance at some of the examples of before /after. Look at the sheer amount and variety of various problems that VHS and various analog transfers have. You can't fix those sorts of problems get results like that from NLE's only

Assuming you had a powerful enough computer, what would you capture to, huffy or I frame only 12-bit 4:4:4 x265 at say qp 5?

Those are very different formats. Huffyuv is only 8bit422 , x265 is lossy at qp5

For VHS, 12bit is useless. 4:4:4 is useless.

These guys are stuck 25 years in the past, let's be honest with ourselves.

Not at all . You're probably not aware of some of the workflows that people use

For others, it might not make sense, not even a lossless archive. Some folks are happy with a crappy video on youtube. Different strokes for different folks

In fact, i would even go as far as to say that if you wanted to capture lossless, assuming you have sufficiently fast enough storage, you would be better off using NVENC lossless, that I have used and it is great, fast, reliable, robust and great quality.

Well lossless is going to be "great quality" in terms of a given source

But reliability and compatibility issues with hardware capture cards are undetermined at this point. You'd have to do some tests if it's even possible. You might need a custom interface driver

[lollo]

No, Sharc, it is not you. If you read post #56 you can see the best of the best of the non sense and idiocies from sophisticles.
Not even worth an answer.

In modern English usage, a "sophist" is someone who uses clever but untrue arguments in an attempt to deceive others. I used to think his username was a joke but maybe not.

Yes, maybe not…

[sophisticles]

and should be used with a RAID 0+1 setup, at a minimum.

Who said and why?

Because of the data rates involved.

All codecs have bottlenecks, some like svt-av1 require lots of ram, doing 4k encodes on my system eats up over 8gb ram.

Some, like jpeg2000 12-bit xyz are bottlenecked by decode speed, there is no hardware accelerated decoding of this format available outside of dedicated Digital Cinema servers.

ProRes 4444 XQ is a beast to decode via CPU and the only computers that had hardware accelerated decode of this format are the M1 and newer Mac ARM processors.


Then you have lossless. Lossless, at least 8-bit 4:2:2 lossless tends to be very easy on the CPU and easy on the ram but because it can be processed for fast it requires a lot of I/O performance.

For fast, reliable I/O with sustained data rates during continues writes like done in a video capture you really should use RAID 0 or striping. But RAID 0 is not reliable long term storage, if one disk goes down you lose your data, so what is normally done is RAID 0 + 1, where 2 drives are striped and then that one logical volume is mirrored onto a third drive for true RAID.

With VHS resolution video, in theory, a good NVMe with sustained fast I/O should be used.

The reason you want to do this is for the same reason that someone objected to using ProRes or DNxHD, namely dropped frames.

The way computers work is that when you attempt to write a file to disk the file, or at least portions of it, is cached in ram, The bigger the file and the slower the disk, the more of the file gets cached.

When you are capturing, or downloading for that matter, the data goes to system ram, then gets written to disk, If you were using uncompressed video, you would quickly see your I/O get saturated and your ram usage spike,

With lossless video, because it is lightly compressed, it alleviates this a bit but it still happens.

If you were to use a near lossless codec, you would be offloading some of the "stress" unto the CPU, thereby reducing your I/O requirements.

In fact I will take it one step further and say that if I was going to capture lossless, I would have a computer with massive amounts of ram, set up a ram drive and use that as the capture drive before copying it to an external drive for archiving, thereby eliminating any I/O bottlenecks. Of course if you plan on doing that then you should also be using ECC ram.

As for who said it, i did.

Who am I?

Just a guy, with degree in Biology, a Degree in Cyber Security, Certification as a Unix System Administrator, an extensive background in computer science and i used to do consulting work fixing damaged video files for a music video production company, that was many years ago.

Or maybe I'm just a lying troll, who doesn't know a damn thing, and you should listen to The Stooges, who think owning a VCR makes them experts.

Either way is fine with me.

[sophisticles]

I still think that throughout this discussion there is a mix - or at least no clear definition - of the meaning of "lossless" for the capturing of analog sources and for "lossless" conversions between digital formats. Maybe it's only me

For the subject we are discussing which is analog video capture, lossless means the first file generated when the card's ADC samples an analog signal Y-C into digital component YUV/YCbCr according to the standard issued by the CCIR back in 1982 a.k.a rec.601, without any modifications, such as chroma upsampling or downsampling, conversion of the color standard, resizing, de-interlacing, lossy compression ....etc.

This does in no circumstance means VHS is lossless. Such digital file is known as the master file, the sole purpose of the master file is a backup copy to edit and post process from, so if anything goes wrong or not satisfied with the results you can always go back to the master file and try again, it was never meant for playback or sharing, It's silly to think capturing a low quality analog tape format into several GB for playback or sharing. After proper editing, restoration and other processing is performed one can proceed to encoding to a final lossy format for playback or sharing.

Thanks, because i don't think any of us knew any of this.

Any other obvious pearls of wisdom you wish to share?

[sophisticles]

The own a couple of VCRs and they feel like that makes them experts.

We can all see who's playing the expert here who hasn't fired up a VCR since 1994.

Yes, I readily admit I haven't used a VCR in decades nor have I done a capture.

I have no interest in VCR, DVD, even BD doesn't really interest me unless i buy a cheap $3 BD at 7/11, which I sometimes do.

This doesn't mean i don't understand computer science way better than you guys.

If you want to see the absurdity displayed in this thread, just look at what has transpired:

Two self proclaimed experts have stated that I don't know what i am talking about and that people should be using the recommended procedures and hardware that these self proclaimed experts advise.

Fine, i ask what is the best capture card and the best VCR to get, money no object and they can't answer that question, they say it proves i don;t know what i am talking about.

Think about how stupid this is. You expect people to listen to you guys, state that they should use the recommended hardware, then can;t actually recommend any hardware.

Why not just put on a clown suit while you guys are at it?

Here's prove to me, and everyone, how smart and knowledgeable you are.

Scenario:

I have an old circa mid 80's VHS that has the birth of my child on it. I have a budget of $5000. What VCR and capture card do you recommend i buy and why?

[dellsam34]

Any other obvious pearls of wisdom you wish to share?

I don't think it's obvious to you, or else you wouldn't be bringing up your "degrees" that have nothing to do with the subject we are discussing, That's called insecurity, Most of us are highly educated people with university degrees in other fields, but it's silly to claim knowledge in something you have no degree of, So none of us claimed to be "expert", you are putting words in our mouths, The only one claiming the expertise is you, and so far, it's not showing.

[lollo]

Who am I?

An idiot.

Or maybe I'm just a lying troll, who doesn't know a damn thing

Correct.

[sophisticles]

Ladies and gentlemen, the two video capturing "experts" who can't say what capture card or which VCR they recommenced or why.

Also, one of them wanted to prove what i was saying was wrong and recommended a guy in England that seems to be a legit expert and in fact employs capture methods that mirror what I recommended.

Why would anyone believe them if they said water was wet much less any technical topic is unfathomable.

I'm glad I started this thread, these two have been exposed for what they are.

Take the L guys like adults and move on.

[usually_quiet]

Ladies and gentlemen, the two video capturing "experts" who can't say what capture card or which VCR they recommenced or why.

Also, one of them wanted to prove what i was saying was wrong and recommended a guy in England that seems to be a legit expert and in fact employs capture methods that mirror what I recommended.

Why would anyone believe them if they said water was wet much less any technical topic is unfathomable.

I'm glad I started this thread, these two have been exposed for what they are.

Take the L guys like adults and move on.

If you want to learn about equipment and workflows for capturing VHS you could do your own research. Videohelp has a search function and there are numerous threads on this subject. There isn't anything new going on in this area. All the recommended equipment dates from the mid-2000s and earlier. You claim to have vast technical expertise so a little research should not be beyond your capabilities.

[rgr]

ProRes 4444 XQ is a beast to decode via CPU and the only computers that had hardware accelerated decode of this format are the M1 and newer Mac ARM processors.

What? Even a weak processor will decode it quickly.

[rgr]

If we are capturing VHS, an 8-bit 4:2:2 codec like utvideo can be used to represent all the available data. The benefit of this codec is it requires little CPU processing power to encode and decode. The negative is that it requires a lot of storage space and should be used with a RAID 0+1 setup, at a minimum.

Any SSD can handle it.

[lordsmurf]

I know this thread is "done" now, and the OP troll is now gone. But people still read old posts, so this needs to be added here:

Forensic labs have moved on from VHS, they no longer have such equipement, But for the sake of argument, let's say a cold case have been reopened after finding a video tape somewhere in storage, The investigators would try to source the equipment if they can,

No, no, there are still forensic media labs in the U.S. I actually worked with several in the 2000s. I didn't do any direct work on active cases, but I did some consulting for technique, sometimes using closed case (and FOIA accessible) footage that they gave to me. I also worked with some PIs, and some local LEOs. At one point, I'd considered moving to forensic media, as I had an entry opportunity, but then my health tanked, and that was that. Now, in the 2020s, they'd send it to a private licensed lab, using proper chain of custody. It's really only the local/state/federal labs that moved on.

But since they lack the knowledge in such equipment they will most likely put a bid for someone to come and help, A knowledgeable hobbyist like some of us here with different types of equipement pro and consumer, Or a well established business in high quality work like Colin from video99.co.uk, Obsolete video service, digitalfaq.com and the likes, people that repair and tune their own equipment just like some of us the hobbyists,

Yes, but only within the law, chain of custody, licensing, etc. It's not that simple to handle evidence, or it could be thrown out of court. The only gray area is non-evidentiary PI work, as those are generally "work product" to conduct investigations, and never used as courtroom evidence. Maybe some independent security contractors. I actually turned down a lot of this sort of work in the 2000s, lots of shady and sleazy SOBs in that "wannabe the po-po" field.

not got-memories, west coast digitizing, kodak, legacybox, these are the fast food joints not restaurants with chefs.

LOL! No, never. And whomever made that mistake would be fired, probably blackballed from others practices/depts. Even an intern should know better.

There is no such "what's the best capture card money can buy?", People who often ask this question are ignorant

As always, 'best for what?"
And not just "best for the task", but often (and sadly) "best for your cheap/broke self" (which unironically is not a "best" whatsoever, only cheap garbage). There is a vast difference between "budget" and "cheap junk" (often Chinese junk from Amazon/Temu/etc).