ACEDVio VHS tranfer to DVD with Vegas 4

Adam_in_Sydney wrote on 7/21/2005, 7:00 AM
Hi everyone,

Is there anyone out there who uses Vegas 4 with Canopus ACEDVio?

My problem is VHS capturing to DVD-RW or -R

The problem I am having is the Video & audio quality from a retail VHS Tape is no where near the same quality as the produced DVD.
The VHS is better??????? Yes that's why I'm here (help!!!!)

(I have the full copyright permission for re-authoring to DVD)

The produced DVD from the VHS is less sharp, the audio is about 1/2 the quality & volume of the original VHS tape.
(Yes the DVD IS worse....yes it's not a typo)

When the produced DVD-RW is played back on an external TV, with a separate VHS-VCR & DVD player, (all PALS) the difference is very noticeable between the VHS & DVD played on the same TV???

I have changed the default setting to best quality on video & audio in Vegas. (I must be missing something stupid somewhere)

Does anyone have any preferred setting for VHS to DVD (PAL) or any advice on settings I can try.....the canopus forum was not much help from my searches on there.

I had just recently re-installed my xp pro & Vegas 4 & ulead DVD movie factory 3 back to my software drive (seagate 60GB 7200rpm)

I'm thinking of dump the whole project into the trash & re-capture it tomorrow...the client would like it tomorrow, but it doesn't look like it's going to happen :(

Any ideas or help would be most appreciated

Adam in Sydney



Comments

ScottW wrote on 7/21/2005, 7:16 AM
You've left out a lot of information about your workflow, but reading between the lines, I'm guessing that you are capturing the VHS tape to your computer, then using Vegas to render the video to an MPEG file that you are then using in DVD Arch to create your DVD?

First step, how does the video look in Vegas? Next, what template are you using to render with? Don't use the default template, use one of the DVD Arch PAL templates.

--Scott
farss wrote on 7/21/2005, 7:18 AM
Basic thermodynamics really, things always run downhill and video is the same as the rest of the universe. You'll never copy video from one format to another and make it better, period.
You can correct some of the defects with gear that isn't in consummer VHS VCRs but it's never going to get better. DVD is a way better format than VHS, put a Hollywood movie onto a DVD and a VHS tape and sure the DVD will look way better, copy the same movie to a DVD and it'll look worse than the VHS tape.

So how to make it as good as possible. Well firstly you need to work on it in the analogue domain and that measn time base correction and noise reduction. Starting with a pro VHS deck may help too but they're pretty hard to find today.

Once you're over that hurdle and get the best possible signal going into the A->D converter you then need to deal with another issue.

VHS has a LOT of noise and that's the worst thing for mpeg-2 encoding as it uses up heaps of bandwidth for nothing. You may need further noise reduction or to encode at high bitrates so the system can cope.

First suggestion, get an ADVC-300 or a D8 camera/VCR, all of them have timen base correction and digital noise reduction.
Then if you have the space on the DVD encode at 8MBits/sec CBR, you might also benefit from Mike's noise filter, it's a freeby.

Bob (also in Sydney)