How to make the best quality vcd from VHS source.

[aznguy]

can someone tell me what's the best setting for quality... I have premiere and cyberlink Powervcr... I like to use powervcr because I can watch in full screen while recording. but if premiere makes a big difference, I'll use that instead.

I tried putting in high setting in (mpeg1 format) and can't get it to fit into a CDR (43min video).

Can someone tell me how to get the highest quality to fit into a CDR (appox: 43min video per episode).

Thanx in advance. I also can use TMPGEnc to reencode after if needed.

System Config:
1.4 Athlon
120 HD 8MB cache 7200rpm
256 DDR (pc2100)
xp
GeForce2 Pro 64DDR

[vcdfreak]

Connect your VCR(line-out) to a camcorder that supports "bridging" and connect to PC via Firewire. Capture with MS Movie Maker (come with WinME/XP) or Premiere with IEEE1394.

If you don't have a compatible comcorder, get Canopus ADVC50 Analog to DV converter if you have the budget.

Adjust Gamma in Premiere/TMPGEnc to brighter (Will help reduce blocks in VCD format) and frameserve to TMPGEnc. You might need to use the noise reduction filter to reduce blocks in the encoded video in TMPGEnc but it will 2x or 3x or conversion time. Use the color correction filter if you want to spice up your video a bit so that the colors are not that dull.

Just my personal way of making good "analog source" VCDs. Hope this helps.

[vitualis]

Never ever adjust the gamma of your video unless you have correctly set up the colour balance and gamma of your PC monitor.

Regards.

[vcdfreak]

It's a trick I use to reduce artifacts of the encoded video. Use it on your own risk. This is most likely due to the DCT(Discrete Cosine Transform) algorithm used in the encoding process. The DCT produce bigger file size if the frame is darker. Just a trick. Not good for color accuracy purposes. Use at your own risk.

If file size is smaller per frame, TMPGEnc can avoid compressing too much per frame and thus resulting in less blocky frames as it now have more bandwidth to stream the video per second.

[vcdfreak]

And if you set up your white balance correctly, either your camcorder(expensive type) or digicam, usually you don't need to use gamma correction also.

But if you want sharper VCD video, you need to sacrifice your original white balance.

Less blocky -> less artifacts -> sharper video (they are related)


Just a trick I use. Ignore if you don't like it.

[vitualis]

Not a problem! As long as you have a reason and understand the consequences...

For newbies who didn't understand my warning, most PC monitors don't have the colour balance / gamma correctly set up. This may lead to video looking too dark (usually) on the PC. Don't adjust the gamma of the video to compensate (as you'll end up with video that looks overexposed) unless you have spent time correcting the colour balance +/- gamma of your monitor first.

Regards.

[vcdfreak]

Encoding (Video Compression) is a lossy process that make your video look pale and blur. How do you justify for that?

I guess it is not too bad to adjust the gamma of your video as the final video won't look the same as your original unless it is of XVCD, SVCD, DVD format. But for VCD (probably CVCD too), sorry it is an old technology to use with 1x CD-ROM drive. You just need to sacrifice the image quality for compatiblity with older or slower machines.

[vcdfreak]

Yep, as long as you know what you are doing. Thanks for the warning. Virtualis.

[vcdfreak]

Correction 1
--------------
To make a correction to what I said: VCD (Low Bit Rate MPEG Compression) is bad at contrasty scene instead of dark scenes. The gamma correction normalize the contrast so that it looks more natural without having to sacrifice the overall contrast.

Positive gamma correction lightens darker and brighter area more. It is something like non-linear contrast correction to correct what most imaging systems using CCDs are having problem with especially those perform badly in low light conditions. It's even better you can adjust the 'curve' rather than just 'gamma'. In that way, you can have more correction control over the contrast by specifying the amount of correction at different light intensity level. [ie: Adobe After Effects]

If you can control the shot taken by your video, try to do close-up more. Have you noticed scenes that zoomed in tends to look nicer? That's due to zoomed video tends to show less details, less info, less edges, results in less contrasty scene.

Commercial movies usually use a lots of close-up, contains less noise, and less contrasty(that's what we pay for in pro cams). The converted video usually looks nicer.

Contrasty scene with high rate of change suffer the worse in low bit rate MPEG format such as VCD. Ex. explosion scenes.

That's why adjusting the gamma can be a trick to lessen the artifacts around edges. However, your source is still very important. If you are a camera guy, try to do close-up more and shake your camera less.


Correction 2
--------------
Use the noise reduction filter only if your source is noisy. If your source is clean such as those from mini-DV, you can skip this step as it will blur up your video. If you have mostly scene with high details(high contrast) although your source is clean, you might want to blur up your video a bit to sacrifice some details for less blocks or pixelation. This is totally up to you. I believe most people will go for XVCD/SVCD/DVD instead for such situation. In some countries, those formats are stilll very rare. If you are providing commercial digital solutions, VCD is still the best in terms of compatibility where quality is not the main message to convey.



Usually the commercial CCD(Charge Couple Device) technology of the digital imaging devices such as scanners, digital cameras/camcorders is not able to replicate scene as what our eyes see. The end result always tend to look contrasty than normal our eyes perceive (we have 2 lenses and 2 apertures - 2 organic CCDs!). Professional cameras or imaging systems make the difference here. Sometimes, Result looks better than what our eyes see, especially in low light conditions!



Yes, I'm a VCDFreak as you can tell from what I just mentioned.

[aznguy]

wow.... thanx for your help!!!

anyways no camcorder... just capture card to VHS...

got another question... I saw at compusa that Memerox has a "general DVDr" & "Video DVDr" is there any differents... they are both made to use the consumer DVD burns not"author dvd burner".

thanx