What should I expect for quality for VCD from VHS tapes?

[tarapage]

Can you tell me what the expected quality is like is when I convert my VHS tapes to VCD? I have read that VCD should look at VHS quality, however when I capture video on my card, it is not the same quality. I've managed to capture, and the sound is great, but the picture is very pixelated and almost like I can see a line running up and down the screen (interlacing?). The VCD runs on my DVD player, but when I compare the quality to the tape in the VHS, the VHS wins by far.

I used Ulead Movie Maker to capture the video as well as the software that came with my ATI card. I even tried VirtualDub. I am capturing to VCD. I don't know if it is the capturing that is the problem, it doesn't look wonderful on my monitor either when I just view the VHS tape through the computer. I've tried different VCRs, and in fact I bought a brand new one and it is still the same.

Also, when I try to watch a movie (a store bought one), the picture is bright for about 5 seconds, then dark for 5 seconds, light for 5 seconds and so on. I also cannot copy these, they skip and pause, I'd like to make VCD copies for me so I can watch them on my DVD instead of on my VCR. Maybe you can't do this with store bought movies...

We have a brand new computer (512 MB RAM, P4 2GHz, 120 G harddrive, ATI 8500DV video card, and so on).

If you have any suggestions it would be greatly appreciated. I'm frustrated and don't know enough about what settings to tweak. I followed this: https://www.videohelp.com/ATI_AIW_Guide.htm and still no luck. My goal is to convert my current VHS movies and home videos to VCD and not lose any quality in the process.

Thanks in advance

Tara

[energy80s]

If you want a virtual clone of your VHS tapes, then VCD (and even SVCD) isn't for you! VCD can only give similar quality to VHS when the original source is of very high quality. To get a clone of a VHS you are looking at either half DVD or full DVD resolution and bitrates. THe problem is that VHS has a very high noise content that MPEG encoders can't cope with unless you use high bitrates, if you don't then you end up in "macroblock city" as you have found out. There are filters out there which will help de-noise the image, but unfortunately they also remove some of the detail. This isn't a problem if you are just after a basic copy of your videos, however if you want to keep the full picture intact (basically a clone) then you are looking at some sort of DVD type capture. Horses for courses.

[energy80s]

Oh, and the flashing is coming from Macrovision. This is a copy protection put onto commercial tapes and DVD's to stop people copying them. The only way around this is to use a "little black box" that will strip the macrovision out of the video signal before you start to capture it. These are illegal and are of varying quality. Expect to pay between £50 and £150 for such an item. They are usually called "Copy Correctors or Enhancers".

[curryman]

yep i agree, vhs to vcd is not worth wasting discs on, you have to go for dvd. managed to backup whole collection of only fools and horses from vhs to dvd and with the help of some very clever little filters the dvd was slightly better than the tapes( in my eyes anyway, maybe i was just hoping too hard)

[sentenced2000]

No more words...just go for the panasonic dmr-e30 dvd-r recorder. Is simply amazing. The resultant DVD is by far better than any vcd made at any bitrate. The simplicity of use is great..simply plug the vcr to the dvd recorder...push play the vcdr and push the magic record button on the dvd-r...choose the type of recording (1 hr= master quality, 2hr= great quality),...that's all. No more spending money in capturing devices, re-converting files, long compressing times, and finishing with a so-so quality vcd... no way....DVD-R is the way to go. And you don't have to worry about compatibility...the dvd-r is nearly compatible with all dvd players. I even have a panasonic rv30 that in the manual specify "this machine don't accept DVD-Rs" between a lot of recordable optical discs...and this machine plays my dvd-rs perfectly.

Is not cheap, but definitely worth it. I strongly recommends this baby.

[hwoodwar]

"I have read that VCD should look at VHS quality" I have heard that too. I have been working with the various video CD formats, now for over a year. My own opinion is if you are talking "good pre-recorded commercial VHS" quality, then the answer is no (although it can be done with XVCDs.) My opinion is the best that can be done with "VCD" is poor, maybe average non-comercial VHS quality. I have some commercially recorded VCDs They look "soft" like old TV transmissions from the 60's or 70's and there are many macroblocks visible during "fast-action" scenes.

That being said if you must use VCD (it would be better to go SVCD if your DVD player can handle it.) format it is well known that capturing direct to MPEG format usually produces a lesser quality image than capturing to avi format first, and then reincoding to a VCD compliant mpeg. I suggest you use TMPGenc to reincode, and set motion search precision to "High" quality. I'm sure this will produce a better quality VCD than your current procedures. TMPGEnc guides can be found on this website.

You will always loose some quality when capturing, even to DVD formats.

[bunyip]

For those of us that don't have the luxury of a DVD writer (they're still very expensive here - including blank media) VCD & SVCD will do the job.

I am converting many VHS tapes and my approach is, if the tape quality is poor I make a VCD, if it's good then I make a highest-bit-rate SVCD which produces excellent results.

The key to getting good results is to capture in as high a quality as you can, don't capture in real-time VCD - the quality will always be poor.

I use an 80gb disk for capture which allows me to capture a 2 hour tape in uncompressed half-dvd (352x576 for PAL - 352x480 for NTSC), the fact that it's uncompressed means that the encoding step is much faster, however you need a good capture card.

I then use a good encoder (TMPGEnc for VCD and CCE for SVCD) to produce the final video - the VCD will never be as good as the original tape (because of the low bit-rate) however the SVCD is as good as tape.

[vvrok]

Can you please elaborate a little more about uncompressed half-dvd format? I am trying to digitize my family videos to SVCD and my initial try using VDub with Huffyuv in 480x480 does not look as good as the original tape. Can uncompressed half-dvd format improce it? What is the procedure to capture in uncompressed half-dvd format? Can I do it with VDub? (BTW, I am using ATI AIW 7500 and I have pretty large harddrive - 120GB)

[vhelp]

hi vvrok,

Basically, the half-height DVD that was discussed above, was 352x480
resolution. You set vdub or avi_io 's resolution to the above, and
capture. This is a good comprimise for VHS sources.

About VHS..
I have the ADVC-100 and the DC10+ devices/cards. They both do a good
job about capping VHS sources, but at the moment, I'm still leaning
towards the DC10+ (but I'm still debating) With the ADVC-100, you'll
have pretty much perfect audio/video sync (DC10+ too) but the ADVC
will do it a little better. I feel however, that my final encodes
come out better when using captured sources from my DC10+ (its a
personal opinion at the moment)

I can't say much about the AIW 7500 card that you have, but I have had
my share of ATI cards. These cards by default are MV aware, cause
that's what ATI love to do - - screw you. Anyways.. back to your quesiton..

in VDUB and VFW..
* it's, File/Capture AVI..
* then, Shift+F
* select 352 and 480, and then YUY2. I've used (and much prefer)
.. the YV12, as I've used it for a about a year, and w/ great results,
.. but that will depend on your: graphics card; driver; capture card;
.. driver etc for it to work, and usually only works w/ VFW driver intalled.
* select Video/Compression.. and click on Huffy, and [OK] button.

in AVI_IO and VFW..
* it's, File/Capture Settings..
* then, set "frames per Second:" to 29.970 (always, and same w/ vdub)
* select "custom Frame Size [x] [352]x[480].
* press [OK] button to accept.
* select Video Settings/Compression.. and drop down list and chose Huffy,
.. and then [OK] button.

That's it. Now, begin capturing. What you do from there is up to you.
Good luck.
-vhelp

[vvrok]

Wait a second, maybe I don't understand something here. (And it's ok, because I am still a newbie in this video capturing world.) You suggest me to set VDub in 352x480 and then ... again select Huffyuv? But isn't Huffyuv is a mechanism for compression? Why it is called uncompressed half-dvd format? I am totally confused. I think in my first try I did exactly what you suggested with one exception: I used 480x480 with Huffyub compression in VDub. The resulting quality was worse than the original tape ...

[vhelp]

hi vvrok,

I left something out..

GLOSSARY

This may help answer some other questions you may have in your
video capturing endeavor.

Hope that helps too.
-vhelp

[vvrok]

Thanks, vhelp

Sorry to bother you with my dumb questions. I checked the glossary for few items (including "huffyuv" and "compression"). It says that "Huffyuv is intended to replace uncompressed YUV as a video capture format". Does it mean that every time I select Huffyuv as my Video/Compression I get uncompressed AVI file? What is the advantage of using 352x480 with Hyffyuv (uncompressed half-dvd) versus 480x480 with Hyuffyuv? Sorry again for my dumb questions

[vhelp]

vvrok,

----------------------------------------------------
Sorry to bother you with my dumb questions. I checked the glossary for few items (including "huffyuv" and "compression"). It says that "Huffyuv is intended to replace uncompressed YUV as a video capture format". Does it mean that every time I select Huffyuv as my Video/Compression I get uncompressed AVI file? What is the advantage of using 352x480 with Hyffyuv (uncompressed half-dvd) versus 480x480 with Hyuffyuv? Sorry again for my dumb questions
----------------------------------------------------

..352x480 with hyffyuv.. ..480x480 with hyuffyuv?

None !! well, not much anyways.. other than not having to resize to 1/2
DVD etc. It doesn't really matter all that much what resolution you capture
in, just so long as your source is good quality to begin with. but, it can
be over-kill to some, when you capture 720x480 for VHS vs. 352x480. that's
all. There are other reasons to capping at various resolutions, ie, hard
drive space, CPU too slow, etc etc.. but I'll spare you the rest of them because
there are many.

-vhelp

[zedolfblack]

Wait a second, maybe I don't understand something here. .....You suggest me to set VDub in 352x480 and then ... again select Huffyuv? But isn't Huffyuv is a mechanism for compression? Why it is called uncompressed half-dvd format? I am totally confused....

Huffyuv is a lossless compression method - no data is lost in the compression process.

Other compression methods tend to be lossy - your choice of bitrate dictating the amount of data that is discarded from the input source.

Martin.

[bunyip]

Hi, me again.

Firstly I use uncompressed because I have the disk space and it makes encoding faster since the encoder does not have to de-compress the file while it is encoding - this saves about 30% encoding time on my system.
Capturing using the huffy codec is fine as it's a 'lossless' compression, that means it does not drop any video information like other codecs. Using it does not increase or decrease the quality of the video it just saves disk space.

I said I capture at half-dvd size because that is one of the native sizes supported by my capture card, the next size up is DVD (704x576 or 704x480) and because I make SVCDs there is no advantage to using the larger capture size - it just slows down the encoding with no perceivable difference in quality.

vvrok - you said you tried a capture at 480x480 using huffy and the quality was worse than the tape - this is a worry, at those settings you should match the tape quality in the AVI file, unless the capture card is compressing the image as well. What native formats does your capture card support, YUYV, MJPEG, RGB, MPEG etc.? and what default capture sizes does it support?

[jolo]

A lot of comments how terrible VCD is or SVCD or whatever from video tapes.

There are so many reasons to convert VHS, size of media, storage, random access while watching, etc. There is a lot more you can do with once the video is moved to a digital format as far as editing, combing with other video, etc.

I don't see why converting VHS to SVCD is so terrible, we all want everything to look perfect, but I think it sounds better and looks aufully good. Also, there a loads of items that I have on VHS, many of them are just not available commercially on DVD.

I starting using iuVCR, with huffyuv, usually to 720 x 480. Then I will use Mainconcept on the avi file and convert to SVCD complaint MPEG-2 files. I have heard that it is better to encode down, I have inVCR going aqt 740 x 480.

I have a ATI 7500 all-in-blunder card and for me, VDUB for capturing is nothing but a dropped frame festival. I think it is the nature of the card.
Also, when capturing , I just cannot touch the PC, frames start dropping when I do about anything, when I leave it alone, it usually works well.