Capturing Video Laser Discs

[jayhawker]

Has anybody tried to capture Laser Video discs to harddisk and then convert to VCD, or SVCD. I have quite a collection of these 12" Video Discs that I would like to put on to CD, but I have no idea how to do this. Any Suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[The village idiot]

This can be a very long process. Or it can be fairly quick.

The fairly quick part would be to buy a good HARDWARE mpeg encoder card. The capture cards "tab" will help you there, but note: not all cards work well with all computer setups!

The longer way would be to capture the video using one of the analog to DV converters. This requires a firewire connection, though many do/or can come with a card to provide that connection. Then some good editing software will be needed. Then some good conversion software. For the hardware side, you will need a couple of very large hard drives formatted as NTFS (win2000,XP) or Macintosh. Then lots of time to convert (depends on processor speed).

Add to that the time it takes to play the movie, etc.

[ctvideo]

I am in the process of doing my VHS tapes first, then will do my Laser Disks. It does take time but if you organize yourself you can turn out one a day. I capture early evening. Let the file convert overnight, first thing in the morning I set my chapters and make my labels and burn while I am at work. I am using DVD Complete and it makes me a real production house. I like the program very much.

[socketus]

WtF? dvd complete? how bout just to svcd? I'm about to try capping at the asus card full res, 704x480 to see what i get

then 480x480

using vdub and huffy
i can settle for svcd for now

i want to avoid buying a cap card, unlike jayhawker, i'll drop back by with results.

finally, a forum that talks sum english about capping/ripping/encoding/burning that i can get!

[jayhawker]

Thanks all for your response.....I've been busy trying to convert some video tape programs....(TV programs from the 50's). So far no luck! I'm using the Matrox GTV450 capture card with TMPGnc Ver 2.5*, and I also tried Matrox PVR, Virturaldub and try converting with VCDEasy 2.5, yet I still get the same outcome...video is poor (because the video tape isn't the best quality), audio goes in and out and finally catches up to the video. I burn with Nero and when I play the VCD/SVCD (I tried both) and play them on my DVD Player the results are.....Terrible!! My video workstation consists of: Win 2K, 2 harddrives (1 (10g) for programs) and a 80g 7200 for Video), with a AMD-1800+ processor. I think I have enough power to do video. If anyone has had success in capturing and burning videos from a vcr or laser disc player.....please help....I need to know how you done it!

[The village idiot]

Sounds like you need a Time Base Corrector for the old tapes. Try a laserdisc and see if you still get problems with the audio sync to video. If it is good with the laserdiscs, then you will need a TBC, if not then you need to look at you capture card and software for the problem. I recommend Datavideo's TBC-1000, it seems to work fairly well for the price.

[darvin11]

I have been capturing my Star Wars discs and the Indiana Jones Trilogy from laser to SVCD (non-compliant 48k stereo audio)

Each movie takes between 2.5-3 cds each and the quality is outstanding. I am having a little problem with sync but because I can only capture one side of a disc at a time, it is pretty easy to resync.

Capturing analog composite with virutalvcr set at 480x480, but cropping to 480x272 to lose the letterboxing from the source. Then I inverse telecined and clip frame in tmpgenc, with the output custom size within the 480x480 file being 480x272. I found the best image quality is found by setting the deinterlace setting in the ivtc to double(field)-other settings, like Even or Odd gave tremendous artifacting and aliasing.

The template I am using is the KVCDx3 template with the automatic-cq setting changed to 74 quality, maximum bitrate 2250 and minimum 300.

Obviously the audio is analog capture into my soundblaster live value line-in and then converted with toolame. I need a card with digital in for my next attempt which will be recording and decoding ac-3 and dts from laserdisc.

Hope this was helpful.

Darvin

[normano]

I am using Dazzle II to do this job and have succesfully created SVCDs.