VHS Tapes to DVD

Thank you very much, your quick reply is very helpfull. again thank you.......................scotty

 

This is a question for PFH. I see that you use the Plextor ConvertX TV402U. I have the Covertx AV100U. I get terrible quality man. What can I do about this? Do I need to just get rid of the AV100U one and upgrade to what you have , or can you help me out with what I have? I have tried other softwares like vegas video 5, and dvd movie factoy 4. Vegas doesn't even see the plextor interface, Ulead dvd movie factory does but there is no sound. I need your guidance man, please help! And I forgot to mention I use high quality DVD and a ratio of 4:3. I don't have very many ontpions in the win interdvd software that comes with it. And I can use Go cap with this particualr interface.

 

I mean't I can't use go cap with the av100U. can you give me any advice PFH?

 

Hi Minion,

As previously stated, I'm capturing with the ADVC300 and editing with ulead video studio 9 and encoding with CCE and authoring with DVDLab. Recently, I've run into a slight problem. When I play the avi that I initially capture on my computer, it looks fine. When I view it on tv as it is capturing from the vcr, it looks fine. When I encode and author with DVDLab into a video_ts folder, it looks fine...but when I burn it to a dvd and watch the dvd on my dvd player, there are problems, but no problems when I play the dvd on my computer. I am getting a very lagging response...kind of like shadowy/slow motion when there's people moving around very quickly. So if there was someone running, it would look as if their shadows are dragging behind them slowly. I don't know why it's so blurry when there's fast action. When there's no fast action, it looks just fine. Is there something that I am doing wrong? I am sure I capture at 29.97 frames per second and continue to keep the 29.97 as I create my dvd. could you help me out?

thanks!

 

newbie - Need help wth macrovision. I just bought a new HP media center PC 920. It came with Sonic Mydvd plus and i am trying to get my home videos stored, edited and burnt to DVD. I would like to use My DVD plus to set the quailty and use it to tweak the dvd menus a little. when i open Mydvd Plus and try to capture my home videos it says macrovision detected capture disabled. i read in some other posts that i need a video stablizer to get this done. other than another peice of hardware what can i do. Thanks and this forum is the ONLY one that has thought me anything so far.

 

jkliam: It sounds Like what you are seeing are Interlace artifacts...

Make sure that when you are encodeing the DV AVI files to Mpeg-2 that you have the "Field Order" set to "Bottom Field first" which is the correct Field order for DV AVI files....

If that doesn"t help then I suggest that you Might try useing the "De-Interlace" filter when encodeing to Mpeg-2...If you are useing CCE SP 2.70 then you just have to put a Chek mark next to "De-Interlace" when encodeing....

Also remember to Burn your DVD"s at the slowest speed Possible....

brent187: If these are Home Movies and not retail VHS tapes then there should not be any Copy protection in which case I would say try different Capture Software but if these are Retail VHS tapes then you will need a Video stabilizer to remove the Macrovision from the Video signal but it would probably be better to get a Capture device that doesn"t detect macrovision as a Good Video Stabilizer will cost you allmost as Much as a New Capture Card...

From what I hear the "Hauppague WinTV PVR-150" doesn"t detect Macrovision and is in the $75 Range which is about the Price of a Good Video Stabilizer like the Facet Video Clarifier or the DVD Red Pro.....

http://www.facetvideo.com/xcart/customer/product.php?productid=83

http://www.xdimax.com/dvd/dvdredpro.html

Cheers

 

aquindtown- Sorry, late on this. I forgot about this thread and surprised it's still going!
The convertx you have is s/w encoding so it's not the best solution. The 402's are actually encoding to mpeg before it hits your drive and Gocap or PlexTools "see" them as a caprture device.
The best part about GoCap is the fact that you can have more control on the encoding parameters and produce a decent looking mpeg. The Intervideo s/w is weak and I only use it as my dvd burning app.
Sadly- driver and or firmware updates for the ConvertX boxes never materialized. Plextor is now hinting at users to try and buy their PlexTools pro program. It supposedly supports a bit more in the way of controling the encode from the Wis chip inside the 402. I guess you can actually change the way it handles de-interlacing for one example. I haven't tried it and last time I looked it cost $40. I've just about finished my transfers. Need a M402U ConvertX ? It's not the tv tuner one. PM

 

Depending on what program or capture card you use try running anydvd or dvd43 in the background and that should help with any program with MV.

 

pfh, I figured out what was wrong with my capturing quality during the waiting period of your response. I have a problem with my factory usb 2.0 drivers so I just plugged it into the extra 2.0 usb pci card I have in the back. For some reason, my drivers are not working properly for high speed reception on my factory usb ports and I am not able to find anything about 2.0 usb drivers on the dell website. But I capture with ulead video studio 9 and author with Tmpeg 1.5 through the high speed usb ports and the quality is great. But thanks for responding man!

 

[bold]Depending on what program or capture card you use try running AnyDVD or DVD43 in the background and that should help with any program with MV.[/bold]


No It Won"t....

 

Thanks for replying Minion. I am almost sure I have the field order correct. I encoded a short clip of the film and use avisynth and made both top and bottom field mpeg2 files, which at that time I found out that it is indeed bottom field. I will try to deinterlace it this weekend. Hopefully this will fix it.

 

agindtown- sounds like your chipset or bios needs updated but at least it's working with the add-on board. Good for you. With your setup the software you choose is important and it sounds like you figured that out....cool.

 

[bold]jkliam:[/bold] you should author with another program. your problems are not file-related, there might a problem with your dvd player. try the discs in someone else's player and also try authoring with another program, like Tsunami DVD Author (i recommend version 1.6 and not 2.0).

 

Hey Minion, got a question for you if you dont mind. I have got the 2006 All-In-Wonder video card and was wandering what the best way to convert them to DVD was? I have a JVC video camera that plays the VHS-C tapes. Camera has only 2 outs. Video card has 2 different adapters with rca outs, s-video, and components outs. I can use my VCR to play tapes and I CAN see them on my monitor but not sire best way to capture. Also have Adpbe Premiere Elemnts software, Windows movie maker, not sure how to use either one or which would do best job.

 

I recently captured 6 hours of video onto my PC. I did not have a VHS capture card, so I hooked up my VHS to my Camcorder, then my camcorder to my PC via firewire. It was a little tricky because, the software no longer controlled the VHS, I had to initiate the capture software first then physically start the VHS & cam & to ensure capture from first frame. I had no problems with the capture, no dropped frames, everything was in sync, pretty good quality too.
The funny thing was that I normally use Sony Vegas, but in this situation it would not capture (probably because of the setup), nor would other programs i had, but ironically it was the free software and one that I used when I first started to learn about video editing, and that was Windows Movie Maker2. The expensive softwares would not capture the video but the free one had no problems, just goes to show you expensive is not always the best. Now perhaps if I had a dedicated VHS capture card Vegas might have done a fine job, but in this situation my setup did the trick. Once I had my AVI files captured I used Vegas to do the edit & encode. used Nero for burn. So I would say try Moviemaker2 and make sure you capture it in AVI mode.

 

here is a link explaining my method. http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/288149

 

Hi Minion, I have finally got around to converting a VHS tape to DVD (work has been keeping me busy)I used Scenalyser Live, MainConcept Encoder and MediaChance DVDLab Pro.as you suggested, this it gives me 5.7GB and of course I need 4.7 to fit my DVD's, do you use DVD Shrink or something else to get it to 4.7GB. Thanks in advance...............scotty

 

what determines how big your DVD will be is the length of the File and the Bitrate used to encode the file to DVD..

So if your "Video_TS" Folder is To big it is because you used to high of a Bitrate to encode the file to Mpeg-2 in mainConcept encoder....

You need to get yourself a Bitrate calculator which will tell you what Bitrate to use based on the Length of your source File...

look for one Called "PowerBit"....

Also make sure you select "Layer-2" audio and NOT "LPCM" because LPCM takes up far too much disk space...

Cheers

 

Sorry to be a pain in the Behind, but, where do I find the info to put into PowerBit i.e., Audio track, Features. and put them into MainConcept where? thanks for your patience and help.................scotty

 

Hi, In powerBit you put in "1' for the Number of Audio tracks and set the audio Bitrate to 224kbs and put in the legth of Minutes that you want to put on a DVD and then it will tell you the video bitrate you have to use in Mainconcept....

I am not at my regular PC right now (My PC is Hooked up to my Recording studio right now) and this One doesn"t have anything Installed on it so i can"t go into mainconcept and give you exact instructions as to were the settings are but I will try to tell you as best as I can remember....

So you run mainConcept and at the Bottom you select "DVD' as the mpeg type and you select "Layer-2" as the audio format and NTSC or PAL and then Click the "Details" button and then click the "Advanced" button and under the "Video" tab were it says "Video Bitrate" you set the "Average" bitrate to the Bitrate you got from "Powerbit" and set the max to about "8000kbs" and the Minimum to say "2000kbs".....
Then go to the "Audio" tab and set the "Audio Bitrate" to "192kbs" (this gives a Little extra space incase the files are Bigger than expected) and then click "OK" and start encodeing and when you are done you should have a Mpeg-2 file that is just under 4.3gb that you can author to DVD....

I hope this Helps....

Cheers