How to successfully burn VHS or DV to a DVD- I Wish

[VHS Burner]

Hi there, I have had MF3 for a few months and have found it really useful for capturing and burning vhs/dv up to 1 hour duration. I just cannot get 2 hours (ie movie length) onto a dvd with good quality. Am I asking the impossible!!? I have been thru the whole gambit of Jerky pictures, Audio sync problems, pixelated pictures, no sound pictures and etc.

I was wondering as a resource for others and of course myself, could we get a list of parameters or settings for capturing both VHS and DV well. If anyone out there has been successful, could they please help and let us know how they configure MF.

By the way I have a P4 3.0ghz 512 Mb Ram.

Thankyou so much in anticipation

[videomartin]

VHSBurner,

i work with MovieFactory 2 SE and 3 since they exist. without greater problems.

But I normally use *.AVI in full size and resolution instead of MPEG2 files, because i come from the video part (MSP).

Such files i either convert within MSP to MPEG or i put the full size DV-avi into MovieFactory and convert it there into a DVD compatible files.

Maximum of about 90 minutes will give you fine results, with captured VHS data i would use a maximum of 120 minutes.

I normally move the quality slider to the right under respect of better results, but a lot of more rendering time.

At capture time i cannot recommand direct to disk or capturing directly to MPEG2, because in most programs without hardware support the results are not very sufficient and in addition the codecs are poor, too (alike in Pinnacle Studio products).

But MovieFactory and MSP uses the Mainconcept coder/encoder, which will give you fine results, if you will give it the time for that.

If you know a lot about MPEG2 you can enable the extended features of the Mainconcept. Somewhere here the new line for the dmf.ini, msp.ini was already posted.

[VIODRIVER]
Advance=1

[VHS Burner]

Thanks Videomartin for your quick reply. What settings do you use ie bitrates and etc to produce your dvd's?

[videomartin]

VHS Burner,

that may depend on the used format - PAL or NTSC.

In Europe there is mostly PAL important:

PAL 720x576, 25 frames, lower field first, VBR
for about 60 minutes i use a complete value of nearly 8000 kbps.
for about 90 minutes about 6000 - 6500 kbps
for 90 to 120 minutes about 5000 - 6000 kbs

For longer films i use 2 DVDs to hold my quality approach

NTSC, 720x480, 29,97 frames, lower field first, VBR
because NTSC has less pixels (but a few frames more) maybe you will get more minutes with the same Bitrate.

[GeorgeW]

Hi,

How are you capturing your VHS material? Are you using the dv camcorder as a "pass through" to convert the VHS to DV on-the-fly?

Also, what format are you capturing to your hard drive? DV .avi's, .mpg, .or other?

George

[videomartin]

George,

because i'm coming (since 1996) from the video side i bought for your years an replacement for the analog only FAST AVMaster from Pinnacle - Studio DeLuxe what includes a IEEE1394 and analog in/out Device.

That card i can use with Studio and/or scLive (http://scenalyzer.com/
a fine capture and write back programm with a great buffer), but not with Ulead or other comparible software.

And i have an JVC-HR-DVS3 with MiniDV and VHS/S-VHS drives, analog and IEEE1394 in/output and naturly TV receiver.
That machine feeds 6 other JVC-7500 S-VHS-Recorders

In most cases I only use standard DV AVI format inspite the huge files, because of the overall existing problems with editing and authoring of MPEG2 files.

[steeleye]

Encode at half DVD resolution (360 x 480) and use (variable) bitrate of 3500-4000bps. This will capture all the useful information available at VHS resolution and result in at least 2 hours of video that will fit on a DVD. If you need to fit more, lower the bitrate by 250bps at a time.

[VHS Burner]

Thanks heaps guys I will try some of these out. One problem I have with trying to drop the resolution, is that I set the lwr res by adjusting the project settings(under the cog icon) to say 360 x 480, but when the finished dvd comes out it is back in 720 x 576. The same seems to happen when I try and ac encode at this stage too. It is sort of like the sw is ignoring me!!

I have tried using my panasonic DV as a pass thru and capturing thru the composite input of my hdtv card. The dv gives a better picture, but the last few times I have tried with it I have produced really compressed, tinny sounding audio.

Thanks again everyone

[videomartin]

VHS Burner,

you must edit the project settings AND the MPEG settings. Only with the MPEG-settings (user defined) will cause calculating the length oand size on the "time line" (i call it in that way) of MovieFactory and the output process.

I cannot believe, that bitrates down to 2500 kbps (steely wrote 250 bps) and 360x480 will give you predictable results.

But that may depend on your NTSC-system, on the used dvd-player and tv and the particular approach.

[GeorgeW]

Hi VHSBurner,

Half D1 resolution for PAL will be 352x576 (352x480 for NTSC). To get good video, you should use either mpeg or AC3 audio (not LPCM audio). Since you mentioned a PAL resolution, I'll assume you are creating a PAL DVD -- so both audio formats should be fine.

Using one of those audio formats (AC3 audio is only an option on some versions of MF2 and MF3), you can encode your video up to ~4800kbps -- Assuming no motion menus and background menu music -- you have to lower the video bitrate if you include other things that take up space.

I wouldn't try to fill up an entire DVD disc, so go with ~4500kbps (either CBR or average VBR) -- using Half D1 resolution.

George

[maddrummer3301]

When recording on Panasonic Dvd recorders or a Sony dvd recorder
in the 2 hour mode the resulting Mpeg2 files are as below.
The panasonic unit also has a "Fit To Disc" feature which is nice.

Panasonic unit: (2 hour mode)
Aspect_Ratio = 4:3 (Depends on source material)
FrameSize = 704x480
Variable_Bit_Rate = 4800-5400 (target is probably 5000), it's variable so
the bit_rate displayer is always changing (max_bit_rate is high).
Audio = AC3 Stereo 2/0. - 256kbs
Interlaced = (VS8 > UpperFieldFirst > Field B).

Sony Unit: (2 hour mode)
Aspect_Ratio = 4:3 (Depends on source material)
FrameSize = 720x480
Variable_Bit_Rate = 4800-5400 (target is probably 5000), it's variable so
the bit_rate displayer is always changing. (Max_bit_rate is also high).
Audio = AC3 Stereo 2/0 - 256kbs
Interlaced = (VS8 > UpperFieldFirst > Field B).

Hope this helps,

MD

[GeorgeW]

Given the audio bitrate of 256kbps, the target video bitrate cannot be an average of 5000kbps -- it wouldn't fit onto a standard dvd5 disc.. The best you could do is 4820kbps -- so that must be the target "average" VBR bitrate.

The reference to "Upper Field" -- I am assuming you are using the RCA/S-Video/Component inputs to the DVD Recorders? Do they have firewire input? If so, what does it show for field order in a firewire recording?

For VHSBurner -- try to maintain the same field order as the video that you capture to your hard drive -- it could vary based on whether you capture dv .avi or some other type of .avi or .mpg -- check with your capture hardware.

VHS usually looks fine at Half D1 resolution (when capturing it via analog). The problem here is it is being upsized to Full D1 resolution first (when converting to DV .avi). So not sure which will look better -- keeping it at Full D1 at low bitrates, or going back to Half D1 after upsizing it during the analog-to-dv capture. Would need to run a side-by-side to see (but I suspect that Half D1 would look better at lower bitrates).

George