Good format for digitized VHS tapes

[delaluz]

I'm helping a friend load 8 VHS tapes to his computer. The plan was:
1. I used the Hauppauge USB 2 Live device to create mpg files from the tapes on my computer.
2. Use Video studio to cut out "wasted footage" footage from the mpg files.
3. Generate files from the cut clips and place on a USB drive.

What would be a good format to generate the files to? By good I mean preserve most of the quality of the mpg files and make them smaller if possible.

NOTE: Each tape took around 7 gig of disk when I digitized them using the "best" setting on the USB 2 live software. Assuming that I Ican cut around 2 gig of "wasted footage" from each tape I would need 40 gig of disk (8 mpg files times 5 gigs per file) if I generate mpg files that are compressed the same way as the Hauppauge software did.


Thanks!

[lata]

Hi
Can you tell us the properties of the captured video files
From Video Studio, right click a clip and choose properties, you can create an image of that panel and attach to your post, otherwise type in the details.

VHS video will be SD, standard definition, I assume the videos are Mpeg2 and DVD quality would be approx. 4 Gb per hour which would fit a SD DVD Disc.
If your VHS tapes are 2 hours then a size of 7 Gb would be correct and to be expected.

Once you have edited the footage you have the options to render to many formats.
Retaining Mpeg and reducing the data rate would reduce the files size but can impact on quality
Converting to other formats, WMV may be the better option to reduce file sizes.
Mpeg4 is another popular format

What you choose really depends on your audience, you mention USB was that as a means of returning the video to your friend or are you intending to play the video on TV using a USB memory stick.

I would test a few formats to see which is the most suitable for quality and playback on my devices.
Beauty is in the eye and only you can view the final results

[delaluz]

Here's the properties.

MPEG-2 Upper Field first
24 bits 720 x 480 4:3
29.970 frames/sec
Variable bit ratge max 8500 kps
Audio type Audio Layer 2 files
attributes: 48000 Hz 16 Bit stereo
Layer 2
Bit Rate 192 kps

[lata]

Hi
Thanks for those properties, yes bog standard Mpeg2, at 8500kbps will be 4 Gb ish for one hour of footage
If you wish to stay with Mpeg2
Using Digital Dolby audio will reduce the file size by approx. 10%
Reducing the data rate to 6000kbps will also reduce the file size, I would no go more than 6000 as quality will be noticeably reduced.

Converting to WMV will also change the interlacing to ”frame based” although quality may be ok,
I ran a quick test using the programs default templates and file sizes were increased, Asik is your man for WMV
Mpeg 4 is another option to consider.

Aspect ratio
Your videos are 4:3 aspect and as such does limit your choices of template, converting the 4:3 to 16:9 will give you a better choice.
Add the videos to a 16 9 project will have borders left and right, although you can zoom in to reduce the borders will loose details top and bottom

[delaluz]

Lata,

Thanks for the reply. I will probably leave them in the same format. I will use digital Dolby and reduce the data rate to 7000KPS. That should give me some savings & still decent quality (considering the input source).

Again, thanks!