...to DVD (dang subject line ran out)

Okay, I've had a number of people asking me lately how I get such lovely quality for my homebrew DVDs, and some just flat-out refusing to believe that it's possible to make an old VHS recording look better than it is (and wondering why I use 3-4 discs for a 13 episode series instead of cramming it all on to one disc). Well, I can assure you it IS possible (you just have to know what you're doing), and the reason for the number of discs is - QUALITY (which once again, you'd know if you know what you're doing).

So here's a rather lengthy blurb about just HOW I do it, and what techniques I use to get my old recordings looking and sounding their best for my DVD sets. Enjoy!


It depends on the recording, but I'll give you the basics:


The Wonderful World of TBC

The most important thing I do is use time-base correction when transferring videos. A time-base corrector (TBC for short) will lock down and stabilize the video signal, effectively reducing or eliminating generation loss. Even a first generation recording will lose its signal strength over time, since the magnetic particles on a tape drift over time. With a TBC, you can re-lock the signal, removing any "waviness" or "jumpiness" in the picture. This is especially important when transferring to digital, as digital wil take any errors in your original recording and often make them look even worse. But if you're capturing a properly TBC'ed signal, it can reduce or eliminate such problems. The end result is a clean, stable video signal ideal for capturing. This is why a lot of my DVDs actually look BETTER than the original recordings they came from. I cannot possibly stress enough how important this is. It makes SUCH a difference.

I use my Digital8 camcorder as a pass-through TBC, and it works beautifully (and is MUCH cheaper than getting a standalone TBC unit, whihc can be several grand for a good one). Transferring from VHS, I find the camcorder's built-in TBC does the job quite well. Most of today's digital camcorders have this feature, and you can usually find older models on ebay that also have that feature (and cost considerably less than a new model!)


DV and why you should use it

For capturing and editing, I work STRICTLY with DV format. It takes up a ton of disc space, but it is by FAR the most reliable format for video editing. Editing in MPEG can be a pain, since the computer has to RE-compress everything every time you make a change. This can actually REDUCE the overall quality as you go. DV doesn't compress anything, it's just a straight video stream. Which means you can edit and re-render all you want in DV and your umpteenth copy will look identical to your original master capture. Yes, DV is true lossless editing folks! MPEG ain't.

Additionally, don't be surprised if you run into some major audio sync issues if editing in MPEG. DV rarely, if ever, has these problems. MPEG should only ever be used as the ifnal delivery format, and never as an editing format (unless you're working with HD, which is an entirely different beast that I won't go into here...). SO - Once I have all my editing and restoration done, I then (and ONLY then) convert the final video to MPEG-2 for burning to DVD.


MPEG - why bigger is better

A good rule for DVD authoring is - if you're using single layer discs (which most people do because they're so affordable), don't put more than about 90-100 minutes of video per disc. Anything higher and you start to lose quality because of the higher compression required. This is why my sets never contain more than 3-4 episodes of a half hour show or 2 episodes of an hour show per disc.

The minimum bitrate I use is 6000kbps, although I often go as high as 8000 for disc with 3 episodes. My commercials compilation are all done at 8000-9800kbps. And I always use 720x480 resolution. Some people think it's okay to use 352x240 mode for VHS recordings. They're wrong. Yes, VHS has 240 lines of resolution, but that's 240 lines of ANALOG resolution. Analog and Digital are not the same. For the most accurate capture of the video, you MUST use 720x480, period.

Simple rule of thumb: Low bitrate = low quality. High bitrate = high quality.

Most consumer DVDs are encoded at around 6000kbps. High end titles (such as Criterion Collection or SuperBit titles) often go as high as 9500kbps. Basically, KNOW the rules of the format you're working with. Yes, with compression algorithms such as DIVX and XVID you can easily cram 13 half hour shows on a DVD, but despite what anyone tells you, neither of those formats are up to DVD standard for quality. You CAN cram that much on a DVD in mpeg, but only if you use 352x240 MPEG-1 (or VCD quality, in other words...gag!) Nobody who is truly serious about maintaining quality will EVER work with that format. If yo

Nice article! This should be stickied!

Stickied to the max.

Heh, and I didn't know EP did that (at the time), and I used to do all my recordings in EP/SLP.

You may also wanna change every instance of EP into EP/SLP, some VCR's had SLP, which iirc is the same as EP, just reworded.

Noted and updated! Shoulda thought of that one... :) Thanks for the sticky! I hope this helps out some folks who wanted some of the mystery taken out of making nice encodes of stuff. :)

- Sean

Can you explain what DV is?

With my capture card and program, all i can use is divx or mpeg.

Now that's a name I haven't heard in a LONGGGG time.

DV is the video format that all Digital8 and Mini-DV camcorders record in. It's about as close as your going to get to broadcast quality with consumer equipment (in fact, there have been numerous benchmark tests which show it to be almost bang-on broadcast quality - standard definition, of course, there is no DV format for HD. HD uses MPEG-2). When transferring to computer, the format is referred to as DV-AVI.

DV format takes up about 12 gigs of space for every hour of video, because of the low compression used. The advantage to using it is that despite the size, it's a very easy format for the computer to handle - little to no compression = less processing time required when editing/rendering. It is also true lossless quality. Because it doesn't need to re-compress the video eveyr time you make a change (as is the case with MPEG and DIVX), the quality of your edit will be identical to the original capture.

DV is a pretty standard capture format, I would be very surprised if your card didn't support it. I don't use a capture card at all - I just use a straight FireWire connection from my camcorder to the computer, then handle the capturing with the editing software I use (I find the majority of capture cards gimicky and unnecessary - UNLESS you're recording TV via your computer, in which case you need a card to properly input the cable and get a pure digital off-air capture of the show).

FireWire capturing in DV will give you the best results every time - little to no dropped frames, and a clean, accurate capture of the original source material. I've even been able to get clean captures with this method on an old P3 system, whereas it choked whenever I tried to do on-the-fly compression in other formats.

- Sean

I have a Question for you sm2000. Does the version of Directx that you have on your system reflect the playback of DV Video's in Applications like QuickTime and Real Player? i'm asking because i'm running on an older systen that only has a 1.6GHZ Processor and it has Direct X 9.0C Installed and whenever I play a DV Video in QuickTime it can barely play it at all and i'm running QuickTime Version 7.1, So basicly what i'm asking is do you think uninstalling Direct X 9.0C and Installing an Older version will solve the problem?

Could someone explain to me what all this means. I always use a USB Dazzle Video Creator 80 with a VCR hooked into it via audio/video cables. I capture it with Windows Movie Maker. Can't afford a fancy movie editor.

I'm pretty sure I have the same version of DirectX you do, I've never had a problem with DV files. My previous computer (up until a couple of months ago) was a 1.3ghz Celeron, so if THAT could handle it, there's no reason why your system should have trouble with it. (My computer before that was a 750mhz P3, and even THAT could handle it...)

The thing to remember is, DV isn't really a PLAYBACK format, it's really just an editing/archiving format. I also have trouble playing DV in regular video players, but my editing software handles it just fine (better, in fact, than MPEG - which my players have no trouble playing). As I described above, I recommend using DV strictly as a capturing/editing format because of the lossless quality, then downconvert it to the format of your choice for playback when you have all your editing done. If you're going to DVD, your final output format should be high bitrate MPEG-2.

Basically you just want to be using a decent editing program and you shouldn't have any problems using DV. DV is actually a lot LESS hard on the CPU than other formats, simply because of the lower compression (the CPU doesn't have to work as hard to decode the data).

- Sean

I also have one of those Dazzle capture devices. I never use it anymore because I found the results were mixed at best. Dazzle is pretty much the low end of the video capture world, fine for beginners but not nearly stable or reliable enough for serious use. They tend to capture the image too dark, and they don't have any kind of built in image stabilization. It can be used with fairly clean video sources without too much trouble, but hit a tape glitch and it can ruin your capture. Or worse if you're capturing from a multi-generation recording, it can turn out almost unwatchable. Using the method I described above (using a digital camcorder as a pass-through time-base corrector and capturing via FireWire), all of these problems are reduced/eliminated. I guarantee you'll never go back to using Dazzle products after you try it and see the difference for yourself.

Windows Movie Maker is fine for beginners, it's basically a no-frills editing program. But if you want to get into any serious editing, then you'll need to upgrade at some point.

If your system doesn't have a FireWire port built in, you can get a low-cost PCI card (usually with 3 or more FireWire ports) for around 30 bucks. For editing, Ulead Video Studio 10 starts at around 60 bucks. They even have a trial version you can download for free to give it a test spin. So for under 100 dollars, you could give your capturing/editing capability a major upgrade.

- Sean

WOW! Thanx for this post, looks like alotta good information. I have some VHS tapes I really love & in the future I wanna transfer them to DVD....thanx!

My pleasure, tomstoyz! Glad I could help! :)

- Sean

sm2000,

can you point us to a good PC Card (the kind for notebooks, aka PCMCIA, etc) version of a firewire card ?

If you want video immediately, but without best quality, connect via red/yellow/white (RCA Video/Audio cables).

Aw man, if I knew that before then I never would have extended my tapes, I have a couple tapes recorded in 2004 (I know not retro, :( pretty sad though) and I got another VCR so I would change them from SP mode to EP mode. But I found out with my other VCR (built into TV). Well at least I have some Dexter's Laboratory episodes in SP with others in EP. Also a friend of mine has a recording of the Donkey Kong Country episode, Speak No Evil Dude. I'm not sure if it's in SP, LP, or EP mode. If SP or LP (I don't know if LP works) then maybe I would transfer them. However I would have to get the equipment for that. Oh yeah and also if I do get equipment for all of this then maybe I would transfer these: Donkey Kong Country: Legend of the Crystal Coconuts, Super Mario Bros Super Show: Count Koopula VHS tape episodes (well possibly but possible not because I would have the DVDs), Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers (possibly) Tiny Toon Adventures: How I spent my summer vacation, Alvin and the Chipmunks: Alvin's Christmas Carrol, etc.

Hey I made a sad face.

Say sm2000, when you burn them onto DVD does the screen get more stretched out or is it the same exact broadcast screen.

edit by adventure_of_link: triple post I didn't catch before D:, please use the button next time.

Not sure what you're referring to, sounds like an aspect ratio question. If it's a "full screen" image, then there is no difference. If it's a 16x9 widescreen show, I convert it to anamorphic widescreen whenever possible (meaning it is technically "stretched" on the DVD, but it is encoded in such a way that a DVD player recognizes it as an anamorphic cip and corrects the aspect ratio accordingly when playing back on a regular or widescreen TV). I don't make any changes to the aspect ratio - when I convert something, I always leave it in the original format.

- Sean

Well the reason why I asked that is because when I put a downloaded file onto DVD the screen would look more stretched out then on TV. But I use a video editing programming to make it look smaller so it wouldn't look like that.

Ah, okay - then it is an aspect ratio issue. What you need is a program that will recognize the aspect ratio and format it correctly as a 16x9 widescreen image. Check some of the preferences in your burning software, it may just be a matter of clicking a button. Some programs require you to "tell" them to format a video that way, otherwise it will re-format the widescreen video as full screen, stretching the image as you describe. I use NeroVision Express for quick assembly of downloaded videos, and it automatically recognizes when a video should be formatted as a 16x9 widescreen image.

- Sean

Now I want to get a camcorder with a built in TBC, not just to upload videos but also film some videos that I'm planning on filming. Like a fan-based series of Captain N.