VHS digitizing question

[pretzelb]

Been a while since I've been here. Everything has been working well for me with respect to BeyondTV but I have a related question.

I recently tried to record some VHS tapes using my pvr250 and the results were very dissappointing. I used the Hauppage program to record the stream and set it to the longest DVD setting. The image quality wasn't that great and it sounded like sound was straight mono.

I have the catv cable going into the vcr then out to the pvr250. Recording using BeyondTV works fine so I don't think it's a bad cable or anything.

I'm wondering if this is as good as it gets. Maybe I'm using the wrong connections or software?

[jfroebe]

the problem really isn't Beyond TV as it wasn't meant for this kind of work.

Virtual Dub http://www.virtualdub.org will nicely do the job for you using the VHS filters. Don't worry, VirtualDub is free


Description from website:
VirtualDub is a video capture and processing utility licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL). It is designed to be a general utility that can trim and clean up video before exporting to tape or processing with another program. It does not possess the editing power of a general-purpose editor such as Adobe Premiere, but is streamlined for fast linear operations over video. It has batch-processing capabilities for processing large numbers of files, which you can extend with third-party video filters. VirtualDub is best at processing AVI files, although it can read (not write) MPEG-1 and handle BMP image sets.

[Cayars]

For doing this type of thing, why don't you try the WinTV program that came with the PVR-250. It's pretty good for this type of thing.

Carlo

[pretzelb]

Sorry, I guess I didn't make myself clear.

I am using the WinTV app that comes with the pvr250. I'm not using BeyondTV. I just thought that I could get help from my fellow BeyondTV users.

Mostly I wasn't sure if I should even expect good results. Since I'm not getting good results I don't know whether to look at my connections, my software or something entirely different.

[TLBruno]

You'll get much better video quality, I believe, if you use the S-Video out from your VCR and connect it to the S-Video in on the pvr250.

[scud69]

Hi all

Ive got the same sort of problem......

Ultimatly what i want to do is copy my old VHS videos to DVD so i bought a pakage called wintv which i gotta say was rubbish so i took it back and got somthing else called Dazzle its a little blue thingy that plug's into my USB and has 4 connectors 2 audio a S-Video and a video.

Ive connected the 2 audio and 1 video and im using Pinnical studio 9 however i cant register it cos im only on-line @ work so i can only make AVI files and i have to burn them with Nero but however qualitys still rubbish, any ideas on how to make it better?

If i used the S-Video connection would it be a lot better? If so do i still need the audio leads connected or does the S-Video carry it all ?

Please help guys im new to this ????????

[Rich A]

Here some information that may help you. It's from my web site where there is some dated information about the ATI All In Wonder Cards. This particular page discussed all the pros and cons and how to make a good VHS to start with, as well as information about encoding it.

http://www.pcphotovideo.com/quality1.htm

You may find some information there to help, or at least explain why so many people get mixed results when trying to convert a VHS tape to Mpeg.

Remember this .. VHS has a resolution of only 210 lines. No matter what format you use to read / copy it, (Composite, S-Video, etc) the original source is still only 210 lines. (for comparison DVD has 540 lines of resolution) You can't make a copy of a source any better than it already is. But at least if you use S-Video for your input to the PVR-x50, then by nature of that cabling you at least won't introduce any more noise as opposed to say composite or RF. S-Video has no audio by the way. You'll need to bring that over as well.

The biggest tip I can give you is to remember that when you watch those VHS tapes on your TV, you are watching it at TV res. Plus your eye-brain communicatlion takes those 29.97 frames a second and renders it into motion.

Any encoder engine you use to encode that sourse works a whole lot better than your eye-brain rendering. The encoder is going to examine every single macro-block of every single frame one by one to encode it to some other format. So the encoder will see ANY imperfections and magnify them which will make the final rendition not as pleasing as you thought it should be. It's like you were to turn that home made video into a frame by frame slide show that you could view one at a time. Then as your eye-brain were examining each frame you would see the problem.

There ARE ways to get a final rendered (say mpeg) to at least be as good as the original .. buy you have to start with something decent.

FWIW, this is why when I wanted to play with home made VHS type videos, I chose to use a cam corder that was S-VHS. Regular VHS has a resolution of 210 lines. S-VHS is 420 lines. Of course thiis was years ago, before the even higher res mini-dv camcorders came out.

Lastly many people confuse the terms S-VHS with S-Video. S-Video is a transporting medium .. ie a type of wiring. It breaks down the video in separate types and then transmits each over it's own cable. That's why an S-Video cable has so many pin connections. S-VHS is a "type" of recording. Like VHS, S-VHS, DV, DVD, AVI etc. You can feed any "type" of video down an S-Video cable. The reason for S-Video cables is that they are less prone to noise and other things that are natural by-products of say plain old Composite cables. Most inexpensive tape recorders are only VHS. And those types usually only have composite type cabling.

Some tape recorders are S-VHS. (that are capable of recording and playing back 425 line S-VHS as well as 210 line VHS. THOSE recorders usually have the S-Video cable connects as well as the normal composite connections.

If you have S-Video cable type available from your playback device use that rather than Composite. In short the S-Video cabling is a better quality cable than composite. And since you are already starting with a poor (210 line) resolution, you really don't want to add any more noise or other interference to that original source by using a poorer quality transmission medium .. (like composite cables).

Read my page on the web site for more insight. Good luck.

[scud69]

Thanks a lot ill have a read and give it go !!!