saving VS9 project to avi files

[CAnn]

Hi.
I have a few questions that are troubling me and hope someone is able to to answer them. I don't have a great deal of experience in this field, but I can see from what I've read that there are many in this forum that do. Anyways... I am converting my old old family beta & VHS tapes to DVD format. Some of them are 19 years old and I can see deteoriation already! I am transferring the analogue to a Canon digital video camcorder and then using a firewire capturing it in VS9 (dv format). As these are family tapes, there is a lot of edits to be made. Unfortunately, most of VHS tapes were recorded at slow speeds so that we had 6 -8 hours of tape as opposed to only 2 hours. Lots of edits!! As I don't want to tax my computer & I've read that you should capture in short segments as opposed to 1 long segment, I have a number of 30 min dv-avi segments. As I edit etc, I add another segment and then save which saves as a project (VSP). When all edits & transtions etc are done, I want to save as avi file and then encode to mpeg using TEMPGnc and then author using DVD lab Pro. That's why I need to ask these questions rather than just follow recommended procedure for success using VS (which I have read).
1.) After saving my "now ready" project, I want to create a video file, do I choose- save same as project , NTSC DV (4:3) which are the microsoft avi files & dv video encoder Type 2 (which I've read can cause audio sync problems) or custom where I can use No compression, Huffyuv (I've version 2.11) or the DV Video encoder?
2.) Referring to the above...as I want the best results, can someone explain the difference in these choices or at least explain what I should choose and why? I would think that using no compression or the Huffyuv codec (which is almost lossless) would be best for preserving quality. I have lots of space on my computer, so that's not an issue.
3.) Third and last question...as I want to give a copy to each of my children, I want to make sure all will be able to play on any DVD player. I've read that sometimes audio is a problem. Should I save audio as PCM or Mpeg layer 2 format? And of course, I am assumong that I should apply anti-flicker and smart render as well?
I know I asked a lot here, but other than spending hours trying to figure out which to use, I'm hoping someone can save me a lot of time as I have 19 years of tapes to work on!!
Thank-you for your help!! It is greatly appreciated!!
CAnn

[Ken Berry]

A preliminary question: are you capturing with DV Type 2 encoder? If so, is this because TEMPGnc requires Type 2, rather than Type 1? (I can't recall if it is one of the programs that will only work with Type 2 DV). I ask because Type 1 is far easier on most computers than Type 2. At any rate, if your captures seem OK, then your computer should be up to the job (you don't give your system specs) as you would quickly see problems if it could not handle Type 2 (stuttering video and/or audio).

Now to your specific questions:

1) This really depends on just how much disc space you actually have and your proposed work flow (i.e. how soon you intend to erase and/or archive captured or produced video once it is burned to disc, thus making space on your computer for more large files). Given that you are capturing VHS, and indeed even lower quality half-speed VHS at that, then the DV format in which you have now captured it is about as good as it is every going to get. As you will have found, DV takes up space at the rate of about 13 GB per hour. (DV was the format of compressed though lossless AVI developed by Microsoft to exactly emulate the quality of the digitial video on a DV cassette.) Uncompressed AVI will take 65 GB per hour, and though I don't know the exact figures for Huffyuv, it is somewhere between those two figures. But my basic point is that you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear: there is simply no way to get better quality out of your project than the quality of the video that has gone into it. So I would recommend you use DV -- this would also allow you to archive the completed files back to a DV cassette if you wished. (This is what I do with my digital -- though not analogue -- captures.)
2) Covered in 1 above.
3) Mpeg audio is not part of the NTSC DVD standard. LPCM is. But, though excellent quality, it produces large files. Depending on how much video you intend to burn to a single DVD (and I would think 2 hours would be a reasonable estimate, given the VHS source), LPCM would take up a relatively large amount of the disc space. A better candidate might be Dolby AC-3 dual channel stereo, which produces a much smaller file (around the same size as mpeg audio), is an excellent format recognised by all DVD players of which I am aware, and moreover is part of VS9.

Good luck! Like a lot of us, I suspect, I too am midway through the process of transferring my own large collection of Video8 cassettes to DVD, so I know the hours and angst involved!!

[2Dogs]

Dear CAnn,

sounds like you'll be getting square eyes!

Having imported your avi clips into your project, done all your edits and applied transitions, filters, overlays, titles, audio, etc, you could then output the whole thing to one big avi file to later render to MPEG-2 with TEMPGnc.

A one hour project would then use 13Gb or so for the clips and produce another 13Gb output file - although you do say that drive space is not an issue.

My experience, however, is that the titles will turn out better if you output your project to MPEG-2 in VS9.

I carried out some empirical tests with a trial version of TEMPGnc, and from what I could ascertain, it rendered much more slowly than VS9, and I preferred the two-pass variable bitrate output from VS9 to any I managed to achieve with TEMPGnc.

Since you have so much footage, you should carry out your own tests with a few small sample clips and see what the output quality differences are for the different workflows, as well as the rendering times and so on.

As for the sound - my VS9 trial definitely doesn't like Dolby Audio - but is quite happy with MPEG, even though that's not supposed to be the NTSC default. Using Dolby or MPEG allows you to push the video bitrate higher and still be DVD-VR compliant - which it has to be to result in a DVD capable of being played on any set top system. The high bitrate is a red herring in your case, however, since you are only importing relatively low quality VHS footage. In that case, using LPCM audio will potentially give you better audio quality, which may be noticeable if you add CD tracks, for example.

One other workflow you might consider, in view of the amount of VHS footage you have, would be to use some kind of analogue capture device. These typically capture your VHS clips straight to MPEG-2. If you capture with settings that match your final output, you'll then be able to make use of the VS "Smart Render" feature, which results in considerably reduced rendering times for your project. Maybe you could borrow a friend's capture box to try out with your sample clips and compare the final quality with that from the other two suggested workflows.

Good luck!

[rguthrie]

CAnn,

I think it would be worth your time to also take a look at the article Understanding your source from http://www.digitalfaq.com/dvdguides/cap ... source.htm. Since you're capturing from VHS, it may not be necessary to capture at such a high source. In other words, your source is VHS, so if you capture at 720x480, it doesn't mean that your final video will look like it's DVD quality. Again, experiment with some test files and judge for yourself.

Hope this helps,
Ron

[Ken Berry]

Just a point of clarification on 2Dogs comment re mpeg audio: I had not intended to imply that VS9 in NTSC mode could not handle it. I imagine it can handle it quite well and that it will play back on a lot of NTSC stand-alone DVD players. My point was only that it is not part of the NTSC DVD standard, and as such, should not be expected to play back well on all NTSC stand-along DVD players (or at all on some). I don't know about the trial version and Dolby, but certainly I -- and I believe a lot of other people -- have had no trouble with using AC-3 in the full version of VS 9 on their DVDs...

[CAnn]

Thank you all for your help and suggestions. It sure has been helpful. This will be my fourth "family" dvd that I've created. This will be my first time using VS9. I purposely bought a large second hard drive to facilitate my projects a while back once I discovered how much space they require; however, I only create 1 DVD at a time, make my copies, erase all files and start again. As to my system: I have a HP a620n with an Athlon XP 3200 processor, 2x512 mb memory; 144 GB HD & 150 GB HD; BenQ 1640 DVD-DL & NEC DVD/CD rom writer, PCI TV tuner card. When I capture, I am capturing with DV Type 1 encoder. TEMPGEnc will split them into video & Audio. When I looked at my choices of audio, I did not see Dolby AC-3 dual channel stereo. There's IMA ADPCM, microsoft AP PCM, CC/tt A-law, Mpeg audio layer 2, layer 3 etc. Which one is AC-3? Also, I will try a few trials with some short clips as suggested by 2dogs. being that I didn't follow the Ulead format suggested for successfully, creating & burning a DVD, I will encode with TMPEnc, author with DVD-Lab pro and will try the trials with the next family DVD.
Thansk again!

[rguthrie]

CAnn,

I'm 99% sure that AC-3 isn't available during capture, however, when you encode to MPEG then it becomes available. I use AC-3 all the time now. It a has better compression rate, so you can up your video bitrate quality.

Hope this helps,
Ron