Best video bit rate when converting VHS

[jparnold]

I am converting some video from VHS tapes starting by copying my VHS tapes to my DVD player/recorder's harddisk.
I then intend to copy from the hard disk to DVDs and don't mind copying at the maximum resolution.
I will then import those DVD's into VS and edit.
What I want to know is what is the maximum bit rate I should use so that I don't loose any resolution (my VHS is bad enough as it is) but also fit as much as possible to a single sided DVD. As the resolution of VHS is nowhere as good as DVD I would have thought that it would be a waste of space to output at say 7500kbs.

[Trevor Andrew]

Hi John

As a guide…….
A bit rate of 4000kbps will create a file at VHS quality.
6000kbps will be good DVD quality
and 8000 being best DVD quality.

I would use 5000kbps this would give you approx 120 minutes per DVD.

Approximately how long are your DVD’s gonna be

[jparnold]

Thanks Trevor
Could you believe I have at least 18 hours of unedited VHS video (I have transferred 6 hours from tape to DVD recorder hard disk so far and done some basic editing using the recorder inbuilt 'split video' function).

My wife recently gave me the job to transfer our home video on VHS to DVD. At first I thought it would be relatively easy but I thought that there was less than 10 hours of unedited video.

I expect the 18 hours to come down to about 4 or 5 hours after editing with VS after watching the first few hours and noting how much stuff I 'taped' which is of little interest (I have improved my camera work heaps since using digital video 10 years ago. As mentioned above I will do some basic editing on the DVD recorder before transferring to DVD and importing into VS for the serious editing.
These tapes are from 1989 to about 1995.
Based on what you state I think that I will end up with 3 or 4 DVDs which sounds a lot but it will cover about 6 years of home video (holidays, graduations, birthdays Christmas's etc).

I was thinking that encoding at around 5000kbs might be about right but wanted some expert opinions - thanks again. I will also encode using 2 pass variable and dolby which always saves space and gets more minutes onto a DVD.

John

[Ken Berry]

There are also many people out there who say you can't make a silk purse from a sow's ear (me included!) The point being that if you are starting off with VHS, then regardless of the transfer method and the format selected, you are never going to have high quality video. At best, you will have video which looks the same as your VHS original. So 5000 kbps itself in this view might be overkill. 4000 kbps would probably still be good enough.

Personally, when I have been transferring my old analogue 8mm tapes, I have used a Sony Digital 8 via firewire to capture in DV format. That gives as good a quality as you are ever likely to get. But you are still left with the choice of what bitrate to use when transferring to mpeg-2 for eventual burning to DVD. I have been less interested in squeezing a lot onto one DVD, given the cheap price of DVDs. So I usually go for no more than one hour or a bit over for one single layer DVD. I have used 8000 kbps at times, but frankly cannot see any difference in quality if I do the same video in the 5000 - 6000 kbps range.

[jparnold]

Thanks Ken
I too am not worried about the price of DVDs (just got 50 Verbatim for $18) BUT (my main consideration is storage space - 5 DVDs take up half the space of 10! WE have so many DVDs in our house that storage is becoming a problem.

What I was mainly interested in was what bitrate to use as a MINIMUM without loosing any quality (of the original VHS) which is bad enough as it is. YOu both seem to have answered that question. Thanks

[skier-hughes]

Most dvd/recorders also use a weird dvd format, lower physical size than std dvd's, 704x576 if I remember right, which isn't going to help if you then upscale this to 720x576 in VS, make sure you don't convert any files.
I always take my vhs in to my pc as a dv.avi file.

[jparnold]

Thanks Graham

I think you are correct about the lower physical size (704 X 576) as I can remember importing video which I had recorded from TV and there were very narrow black bands on either side of the picture. Having said that I am not sure if there would be any noticeable degradation between 720X576 and 704X576 - my calculator shows a 2.2% difference AND there would be no need to resize as the narrow black bands end up outside the TV safe area anyway.

Maybe I should purchase a USB 2.0 Video Grabber with Audio although is USB fast enough to capture VHS video? I note that these devices do real time conversion to MPEG 4/2/1 encoding so maybe USB is fast enough if it only has to handle MPEG. Has anyone used such a device and if so do they do a satisfactory job (I ask this as the one I saw is only $29.95 which isn't very much.


I had considered using my video camera between the VHS player and my PC however my camera only has a S-video input and my VHS player only has composite output.

I also have the problem that my DVD recorder "doesn't know" that my DVD recorder records in 16:9 so my 4:3 original VHS video gets stretched to fit 16:9. I was going to rectify that in VS by using the video in the overlay track and 'resize' it back to 4:3.
I guess all this could result in loss of resolution.

[Trevor Andrew]

Hi John

Are you sure that your recorder does not have a 4:3 recording option.
Check out the manual or the menu/setup?

[skier-hughes]

All that messing, resizing, reencoding is going to lead to quality degradation, as Trevor says, have a good look through the manual.

[Ken Berry]

...And 704 x 576 is in any case one of the acceptable frame sizes under the international DVD standard for PAL...

[jparnold]

I had looked all through the menu on the DVD recorder a few days ago but have just looked through the user manual to check. The only settings are -
TV ASPECT
Select the aspect ratio on the connected TV (4:3 or 16:9) Surely this only affects what TV (output) is connected not the aspect ratio of the source (input)
DISPLAY MODE
Selects how to display a wide picture when (4:3) is selected in TV Aspect. Choices are Letter Box (displays a wide picture with bands on upper and lower portions on the screen) or Pan Scan (automatically displays a wide picture on entire screen and cuts off the portions that do not fit).

Maybe the video is being recorded at 4:3 but the recorder and/or the TV is automatically stretching the image to fit the 16:9 screen. I will transfer some to DVD and import into VS and see what it looks like there.

[Trevor Andrew]

Hi John

I have a LG DVD HDD recorder, I know its not a combo VHS/DVD but should be similar as it records to disc.
Before I suggested the aspect option
I did change the recording aspect ratio from my machines “setup options” and successfully recorded a 4:3 video.

If your recorder does have this option it will save you a lot of work re-sizing the video.

[jparnold]

Thanks Trevor
I'll have a look later.
HOWEVER my dvd player/recorder is not an LG and it's not a 'combo'. It is an NEC NDH-80 which it seems has an LG (brand) DVD writer inside as any DVD I burn has a 'lable' in the format LG_nnn so I just assumed that something inside was made by LG (sorry if I misled you). I have an LG VHS tape recorder/player plugged into it.
John

[jparnold]

(continued - just found more info)
As a matter of fact I have just found that my NEC NDH-80 is a RE-BADGED LG-7521 - nice eh? you buy a particular brand and end up with something different!

[jparnold]

I have found it at last - buried in the owners manual and hard to find. Also like the instructions on how to finalise a DVD which not only is difficult to find in the owners manual but also is incorrectly described. Almost useless manual (and recorder). I will never buy LG again.
Anyway -
Yes the aspect ratio CAN be set (16:9 or 4:3) BUT only when recording direct to DVD rather than to hard disk (aspect ratio cannot be set when recording to hard disk - it defaults to 16:9) - seems a bit stupid to me.
Pity that I can't record direct to hard disk and have the aspect ratio set to 4:3 as I can do rough editing on the hard disk before transferring to DVD.
I will have to start again - I had already copied 6 hours of tape to hard disk.