Based on what I understood from reading prior threads and some tutorials on this User Forum, I have been using a capture rate of 6mb/sec for capturing home movies that had been transferred to VHS tapes. I then use VS11plus to edit and convert the home movies to DVD's with chapters and motion menus. Our earlier home movies were taken with old Kodak Super 8 technology, and of course over the decades, we upgraded through the available ranges and are now using a digital movie camera. My ADS Capture Wizard system provides the option to capture at 4, 6, 9, or even higher mb/sec rates.
1. From a quality standpoint, would I be advised to capture at a rate higher than 6mb/sec?
2. Are there any major disadvantages to capturing at higher than 6mb/sec?
Never thought that I would ever get to the level to even ask questions like this, but due to your considerable help, advice and coaching, I've learned that it's a mistake to charge too far into the VS swamp without checking with the experts on this forum. And thanks again for your thoughts, advice, and guidance. Never could have advanced to my current level without your help.
Home movie capture bit rate with ADS Capture Wizard
Moderator: Ken Berry
Home movie capture bit rate with ADS Capture Wizard
Virg Mueller
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Ken Berry
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The general, and usual, answer would be that if the source material is analogue and on VHS tape, you won't capture any better quality than using a maximum bitrate of 6000 kbps. Indeed, many would say that using a bitrate higher than 4000 or 4500 kbps is a waste of space.
And the mention of space is relevant, of course. If the end quality is not going to be particularly high -- which I am afraid it is unlikely to be with that source material and USB capture method -- then using a 6000 kbps bitrate means that you will be able to burn around 90 minutes of video to a single layer DVD or 10 minutes or so more if you use Dolby or mpeg layer 2 audio. At that bitrate, the end quality will be faithful to -- but not better than -- the original VHS quality. But you could fit 2 hours on with only a minimal fall in quality if you used 4500 kbps.
Now all of the foregoing is based on the fact that you say you are capturing using the Ads device. But have you tried capturing from your VCR using a digital mini DV camera (or Sony Digital
connected to it as a passthrough device (RCA cables from the VCR to the camera's AV socket and the camera connected to the computer via Firewire)? The capture is best done using the DV format and you can use VS directly for that, or any other DV capture program such as WinDV. That of course is a common capture method too for analogue material.
I just happen to have captured yesterday a 55 minute TV program recorded in pretty good quality on a VCR using the passthrough method with a Canon 930i mini DV camera. Using DV as the capture format, you will get equal quality (as far as my eyes can tell, at any rate!
) with the original. And of course you can edit DV with little or no worry. Then you convert it to DVD-compatible mpeg-2. Now, given that this project was only 55 minutes long and captured in DV, I had no reason not to use a bitrate in that conversion of 8000 kbps. The end quality of the DVD was excellent -- though I have to acknowledge that it would probably have also been very good if I had used 6000 kbps.
As a footnote, I should add that in transferring my old analogue 8mm videotape collection to DVD, I play the tapes back directly in my Sony Digital 8 camera (DCR-TRV480E) which is connected via Firewire to the computer, and capture again is in DV format. Again I tend to use a bitrate of between 7000 and 8000 kbps for these conversions to DVD compatible mpeg-2. The differing bitrate levels are only because an analogue 8mm tape is normally 90 minutes long. Depending on how much I edit out, I will usually end up with about an hour's worth of video from a tape, and so can happily use 8000 kbps and fit it all on a single layer disc. If I don't edit out so much, then I lower the bitrate down towards 7000 kbps so that it will all fit on a DVD. And the result is truly (and to me surprisingly) excellent. Not as good as an original DV tape > DVD conversion, but not far off either.
And the mention of space is relevant, of course. If the end quality is not going to be particularly high -- which I am afraid it is unlikely to be with that source material and USB capture method -- then using a 6000 kbps bitrate means that you will be able to burn around 90 minutes of video to a single layer DVD or 10 minutes or so more if you use Dolby or mpeg layer 2 audio. At that bitrate, the end quality will be faithful to -- but not better than -- the original VHS quality. But you could fit 2 hours on with only a minimal fall in quality if you used 4500 kbps.
Now all of the foregoing is based on the fact that you say you are capturing using the Ads device. But have you tried capturing from your VCR using a digital mini DV camera (or Sony Digital
connected to it as a passthrough device (RCA cables from the VCR to the camera's AV socket and the camera connected to the computer via Firewire)? The capture is best done using the DV format and you can use VS directly for that, or any other DV capture program such as WinDV. That of course is a common capture method too for analogue material. I just happen to have captured yesterday a 55 minute TV program recorded in pretty good quality on a VCR using the passthrough method with a Canon 930i mini DV camera. Using DV as the capture format, you will get equal quality (as far as my eyes can tell, at any rate!
) with the original. And of course you can edit DV with little or no worry. Then you convert it to DVD-compatible mpeg-2. Now, given that this project was only 55 minutes long and captured in DV, I had no reason not to use a bitrate in that conversion of 8000 kbps. The end quality of the DVD was excellent -- though I have to acknowledge that it would probably have also been very good if I had used 6000 kbps.As a footnote, I should add that in transferring my old analogue 8mm videotape collection to DVD, I play the tapes back directly in my Sony Digital 8 camera (DCR-TRV480E) which is connected via Firewire to the computer, and capture again is in DV format. Again I tend to use a bitrate of between 7000 and 8000 kbps for these conversions to DVD compatible mpeg-2. The differing bitrate levels are only because an analogue 8mm tape is normally 90 minutes long. Depending on how much I edit out, I will usually end up with about an hour's worth of video from a tape, and so can happily use 8000 kbps and fit it all on a single layer disc. If I don't edit out so much, then I lower the bitrate down towards 7000 kbps so that it will all fit on a DVD. And the result is truly (and to me surprisingly) excellent. Not as good as an original DV tape > DVD conversion, but not far off either.
Ken Berry
Thank you Ken for a most thorough explanation, which BTW, I have printed off for additional reference. Your discussion also makes it clear why there aren't black or white kinds of answers to my questions, and the examples that you discussed are very helpful in getting a better handle on this issue. Thanks to your help, I am back to the races.
Virg Mueller