Does a 2 hour VHS tape fill a DVD

For those of you that have seen me posting about getting my father-in-law set up to copy his VHS tapes to DVDs, I have some more questions about time and space.

I just found out that he has over 100 VHS tapes, most 2 hours long (color, w/audio, if that makes a difference).

Would a 2 hour VHS tape fill up a DVD.

How long would it take him to transfer the tapes directly to DVD assumming use of something like the Hauppauge cards (2 hours?).

What about copying to a hard drive with something like a Canopus converter and then back out to the DVD from the hard drive (formatting and burning). Is that 4 hours, or more.

And are there any problems doing 2 hours at a time. Can you just fire things up and let-her rip -- without encountering any problems (I keep seeing a lot of unstable software comments on these forums.)

Thanks.

 

You cannot copy/digitize faster than realtime, so a 2 hour tape is going to take 2 hours.
What you do with it after that, can significantly add to the time.
If you capture directly to mpeg-2, then you don't have to encode. If you want a simple autoplay dvd, then authoring takes only a few minutes, and another few minutes to burn.
If you want menu's and chapters, you'll add proportionate time to the process.

 

rebootjim-

Thanks a lot for your response. Yes, I know I have read that you can get 2 hours of video on a DVD, but I thought I saw (can't find it now) that you could get 6 hours of VHS tapes on a DVD -- hence my question of will a 2-hour VHS tape fill up a DVD.

Was I imagining that, or was that only if you used some additional compression, which questionably could affect the quality of the video.
--

 

Yes you can get 6 Hours of video on a DVD but you have to use the SIF/Cif DVD standard and the Correct Bitrate....

The SIF/CIF DVD Standard is Mpeg-1 or Mpeg-2 Video at 352x240 for NTSC or 352x288 for Pal with 48000hz Audio...To get 6 hours on a DVD you would need to use a Video Bitrate of about 1500kbs and an audio Bitrate of 192kbs....also the quality will not be nearly as good as a standard Resolution DVD.....

You will also have to use a DVD authoring program that supports authoring SIF/CIF Formated DVD"s as Many Consumer oriented programs will not support that DVD Standard ....You can Use "MediaChance DVDLab Pro" or "Tmpgenc DVD author" both of Which will support that DVD Standard......


Cheers

 

Despite what the bigbox companies tell you, the time limit for a DVD is based soley on the bitrate of the encoded mpeg-2.
Because VHS isn't the greatest quality to begin with, 6 hours is about the max you can use, with acceptable quality.
If you want to play with it, you can get around 16 hours per single sided disk (using something like the KDVD half D1 template), and still be watchable.
Because blank disks are relatively cheap, 6 hours (of VHS) is the max I would put on a disk.
Remember that the time involved is going to be 6 hours to get the video, and then another hour (at least) to author a disk with a menu, and burn it.
You'll have to try a capture and author a disk, to see if the quality is what you expect.
Use a bitrate calculator. http://www.videohelp.com/calc

 

OK, Minion, rebootjim -- every little tidbit you give me helps a lot. I think I sort of understand the bitrate stuff now, after looking at the bitrate calculator you referenced me to. Playing with it makes me believe the max video length you can get on a DVD, at the max DVD bitrate is 1 hour, 2 minutes.

Is there an acceptable minimum bit rate that one can use that will get you a somewhat quality movie -- one that doesn't make you look at it and comment, "gee, that quality isn't very good".

Or maybe another way to look at it is, given the quality of a VHS tape, what would the bitrate to use to get pretty much the same quality on a DVD.

And does the quality of the VHS differ depending upon the speed (length of tape) it was shot at (i.e. I know you can make 2 hour VHS tapes and 6 hour VHS tapes on my VHS recorder -- and I can't really tell a difference in quality when I play them back. So at 2 hours, I assume they shoot more frames, which means that they must play back more frames -- so where does this standard 25 frames per second fit into all of this).

ADDED VIA THE EDIT: I am starting to see that the education here, although excellent, will as take me a long time, as well as your time. In order to speed things up and to keep from learning this one question at a time, I think I need to:
1. get some capture device and start using it (pretty much think I want to try the Canopus 110) -- any other thoughts here.
2. just get some of this software and start using it -- even if I don't get the perfect piece to start with -- any suggestions for starter encoders (is the TMPGenc stuff somewhat easy to use, since I have seen it referenced a lot, I think by both of you).
3. find some good educational information to read (particularly on this codec stuff and conversion -- books or Internet (I have been trying) -- videohelp seems to be excellent, I think I should spend some more time over there -- any other suggestions here.

Thanks again.

 

Exactly why I recommended no more than 6 hours of VHS per DVD...actually 3 movies, which is usually less than 6 hours, but more than 4.

Quality is subjective. If your 6 hour VHS looks the same to you as a 2 hour VHS, then you've probably got a very good VCR. Most 6 hour VHS tapes are crap (IMHO). It's up to YOU, how good it looks, and how much you want to put on each disk.
A VHS tape has a framerate (and aspect ratio) based on where you live. The standard (25fps is PAL for Europe and a few other places, 29.97fps is NTSC for north america), is your digitizing/recording rate.
The speed at which the tape is run across the heads (or more accurately, how many times the head passes over the tape, per second, determines the amount of time on each tape, not "framerate".

This device cannot bypass macrovision copy protection on commercial tapes. I don't know if this is an issue for you or not.
It also records in DV-AVI format, so all your captures will then need to be encoded to mpeg-2, adding between 2 and 40 hours per 2 hours of video (depending on encoder used, and quality settings, etc.)

Tmpgenc is popular. It is not the best, and is probably the slowest. It is extremely powerful though, given the right settings.
Mainconcept, Canopus, and Cinemacraft also make extremely good encoders. If you do choose the 110, Canopus Procoder would be my choice, otherwise Mainconcept. CCE runs a distant 3rd or 4th. It's a good encoder, but in order to utilize it's ability fully, you should also learn avisynth scripting. Probably not what you (or father-in-law) want to do.

Videohelp is OK. Can get extremely technical and opinionated.
Try reading a few of the multitude of "VHS to DVD" posts in this forum. There's nothing terribly complicated about this process, especially if you have a hardware mpeg-2 encoder/capture card.

FWIW, here's MY method of VHS to DVD:
Capture with Hauppauge PVR-250 and/or PVR-150/500.
These cards do hardware mpeg-2 capture, so you don't need an encoder such as tmpgenc.
Edit if needed in any basic editor. Even the bundled Nanopeg editor works, although cumbersome at times.
Author with DVDLab Pro. Extremely versatile, yet easy enough to make menus for multiple videos per dvdr.
Burn with Nero (or any other good DVD burning program, probably included with your burner).
Total time per 2 hour video, about 2.5 hours, depending on the complexity of the menu.
This is not linear, meaning a 6 hour dvd would take about 6.5 hours, a 4 hour dvd, about 4.5 hours, etc.

 

rebootjim, great post

1. Using the bitrate calculator you referred me to, I see the bitrate for a 6 hour video is 1464 -- sounds low when compared to the max bitrate of 9570 -- but am I doing that right. Will 1464 give us a pretty good picture.

2. So at the higher tape speeds on a VCR or camcorder, the recorders are just stuffing more bits into the 30 fps being recorded on the VHS tape, is that right.

3. Well, my father-in-law is just doing home movies, so copy protection will not be an issue. However, if I am backing up tapes for my wife's organization, this may be an issue. I guess I missed that point somewhere because I thought I saw someplace that the Canopus would/could bypass the copy protection. Maybe I will have to rethink -- but it sounds like you are saying the Hauppauge approach will/can bypass the copy protection. I don't plan on any illegal usage, but it would be nice to not have to worry about that issue.

4. Whoa, what is this 40 hour encoding figure -- how do I get to 40 hours -- why would a 2 hour tape require a 40 hour encoding process -- do I have any control over that.

OK, I do remember seeing comments about TMPG being slow -- what makes these things so slow (the source being encoded or the target settings or something else).

5. And finally, about MPEG-2 editing -- I assume that the MPEG-2 file is not broken up (guessing here), but the menus are just pointers to places in the file that you can jump to. Is the Nanopeg considered a MPEG-2 editor.

And yes, I will take you advice and spend some more time just perusing these forums -- before I tear off to Videohelp.

Thanks for the help.

 

Remember if you are Going to Put 6 hours on to DVD that you will also have to use a Lower resolution that the Standard DVD resolution because at such a low Bitrate the Image would not be Watchable in the Slightest if you used the standard DVD resolution......

For Bitrates below 2000kbs you should use the "352x240 NTSC 352x288 Pal" resolution and for Bitrates above 2000kbs you would use the "352x480 NTSC 352x576 Pal" Resolution and for Bitrates above 3500-4000kbs you should use the Standard Resolution of 720x480 NTSC 720x576 Pal.....

Tmpgenc is a rather slow encoder but if you have the Resolution set to 352x240 like you should and not have it set to 720x480/576 then the Encodeing of 6 hours of Video should only take at most 2-3 hours as Long as you are not encodeing useing the "2-Pass VBR" setting and you have a Fairly fast PC......

As For editing Mpeg files Tmpgenc Pluss has a Basic I frame editor built into it if you go to "File" to "mpeg tools" to "Merge & Cut" but there are also a Few Freeware Mpeg-2 editors Like "Cuttermaran" and "Mpeg2Cut" and "Chopper XP" and some of the Best Pay for Mpeg editors are "Womble Mpeg2VCR" for more Basic editing and "Womble Mpeg Video wizard 2005" for Full featured timeline editing of Mpeg files with effects and Transitions.....

After you have your Files encoded to Mpeg-2 at 352x240/288 you Just Load them into a good DVD authoring program Like "MediaChance DVDLab Pro" which will let you add your menu"s and Chapters ect and format it all into a "Video_TS" folder which it then burns to DVD for you or you can Burn it to DVD yourself useing something like"Nero" in "DVD Video" mode......

Cheers

 

Hi,
Am I going over the top with my bitrate?, I'm capturing at the maximum bitrate (12000), with the PVR 250. Maybe thats why its take over 2 hours to actually author the dvd? Is this correct? that the higher the bitrate the longer it will take to author?

Why do you want to fit 6 hours onto one dvd? Personaly I would use more dvds to to get a better quality video output.

I have noticed that if I use a lower bitrate then quality degrades a lot. I'm currently transfering my Hi8 camcorder footage onto dvd with some simple editing. With the highest quality bitrate setting I can fit a 90min tape onto a dvd, but thats because I'm simply after the highest quality possible with my hardware.

Try to go for quality and look at it as a long term project, because I'm sure one of your reasons for the transfer is because the tapes may already be degrading slightly?

Thanks
Pez

 

Pez - thanks for the thoughts.

Well, the reason for the 6 hour DVD is that the source is 100-200 VHS tapes -- and I (actually, I'm doing this research for my father-in-law) was trying to keep everything under control. However, I don't want to give up a lot of quality either -- in fact I don't want to give up any quality -- some of the VHS tapes are rather old and may be of questionable quality -- so I would like to maintain something close to the VHS quality.

I noticed you mentioned you used a Hauppauge -250 for your capturing. I just opened another thread, asking exactly how those cards work. How much of an option do you have over the capture resolution. Is the data written to the hard drive first, and then to the disc. Do you go directly to MPEG-2, or is that all that is offered. And how do you do your editing, and burning.

Thanks.

 

The capture resolution can only be within DVD spec.
Either Full, Half, or 1/4 D1 resolutions, unless you want to add some postprocessing for some odd reason.

Capturing Hi-8 at 12000kbps is a total waste of time, and space.
There's NO WAY a hi8 tape has commercial DVD quality. 6000kbps should be plenty.

In theory that's correct. Tape doesn't have a framerate. It simply passes over the head of the recorder. The faster it moves, the more space the data has to retain the magnetism. More space=higher quality=less time per tape.

There is a "hack" that is supposed to work. It is NOT from Canopus.

A 2 pass VBR encoding, with motion search set to highest quality in Tmpgenc, could take up to 40 hours per 2 hour movie, depending on the speed of your computer.
If you do choose the Canopus, and need an encoder, get the Canopus encoder to go with it, or Mainconcept.

 

OK, if tapes don't have frame rates, what do they have.

I have started basing my thinking around the 30 fps idea -- and it was helping me get things into perspective -- now, you have me all messed up again. I thought I was seeing frames in my video editors I have been messing around with. I have been thinking in terms of fps for AVI, MPEG-2, etc. files.

Where does fps apply and where does it not -- and how/where do I do the translation in my mind.

 

VHS Tape is analog. It's just a bunch of magnetically charged particles on an acetate base. It runs at various speeds, over a head that turns at a given rate to charge or read the alignment of the magnetic particles.
Everything on the computer is digital.
Digital has framerate.
Standard is either 29.97fps or 23.976fps in north america, and 25fps in Europe.

I think you're confusing framerate and bitrate.

If you look at a 6 hour VHS tape, it's quality is roughly that of a 2000kbps digital 480x480 video (SVCD). A 2 hour VHS tape is roughly that of a 3000kbps low quality dvd (720x480).

Commercial DVD's have a bitrate of between 4000kbps and 9000kbps (including audio bitrate).

 

The reason I capture at the max bitrate is because i noticed quality difference when i captured at a lower rate and i'm trying not to loose any quality at all. But i think I'll have another look at it and try a bitrate of 6000.

Thanks for the feedback
Pez

I will try capturing on dvd standard quality, which I'm pretty is what I tried before.

 

If you want to maintain better quality, without going overboard on bitrate, or filesize, try changing the GOP of the recordings to 5 (nicely divisible by 25, and nearly divisible by 29.97 and 23.976), so you end up with an I frame (the best quality type of frame) every 5 frames.
This helps quality a lot, without increasing filesize that much.

With a standard GOP, a good recording quality would be 8500kbps VBR (plus audio of 224kbps). This is high enough to burn directly to disk, and not exceed the players max bitrate capability (usually about 9000kbps video/audio combined).

 

dupe, delete me please.

 

I debated on whether to open another thread or use this one -- and since this has so much information in it, I decided to resurrect this one (senior guys, is this good or should I have started a new thread?).

I want to start of with an earlier comment by rebootjim:

I thought I knew what was going on here, until I tried to set the bitrate as suggested in the above referenced calculator. I figured I would just adjust the bitrate in the Nero burning phase, but I don't see any bitrate settings there -- so where is the spot that I play with these bitrates, resolution sizes, etc.

[Edit: typo error.]

 

You can Not select the Bitrate in the Burning Phaze, By then the Files are allready compressed and are basicly just a DVD image....

You set the Bitrate when you are Compressing the Video files to the desired format....

Cheers

 

So in the case of my Hauppauge card, is the bit rate pretty much set when I first collect the video (i.e. Extra Long, Long, Standard, 2 Mbps, 12 Mbps).

But for my Canopus card, is the bitrate determined when the DV-AVI files are transcoded to MPEG, like in NeroVision.

Minion, your comment made me go back and look at Nero and I found some DVD-Video Quality settings in the drop down Video Options menus. Would those Quality options have meaning when transcoding the AVI to MPEG. That sort of makes sense in the AVI-MPEG operation, but if the source file is an MPG file, I guess it doesn't make a lot of sense (i.e. if the bitrate is pretty much already set when the input is initially encoded to MPG).

And can I look at this as bitrates being set mainly where the encoding to MPEG takes place.