Help with producing Hi qual renders

Numbat wrote on 10/27/2003, 12:34 AM

Hello All,

I would really like some advice on how to produce the best quality renders of my captured video. First my process: I capture 4:3 Pal VHS from a VCR using a Datavideo DAC-100 and TBC-1000 to firewire. The DAC converts analogue to standard DV I am told. I then edit out unwanted frames and render using VF to Pal DV. I then encode to a compliant DVD file using TMPGEnc then author and burn using TMPGEnc DVD Author. So far all results have been very average. The strange thing is I have captured using another program called SceneAnalyser Live and the footage looks interlaced, but the capture using VF doesn’t. Why would this be?

I am also trying to find the best method of rendering to preserve quality. I have contacted VF support and asked about some of the render settings (such as pixel ratio, interleave etc) but they didn’t answer my question at all. So I was after some advice from the wise ones here.

Could someone please explain to me the best settings for Capture and rendering to preserve the quality of the original material, and explain to me the Video settings such as Pixel Ratio, Interleave every frame, Motion Blur etc work?

Thanks for your help and cheers!

Comments

JohnnyRoy wrote on 10/27/2003, 12:01 PM

I use the Noise Reduction filter in VirtualDub to get out some of the noise that’s inherent in the VHS signal. It works quite well on the default settings. There are lots of filters available for VirtualDub that will fix VHS problems but I find the Noise Reduction works well. You want to get the video as clean as possible before doing the MPEG encoding. I really don’t think you will get much improvement by tweaking the encoding. You will get better results by trying to clean up the input quality to the encoder.

You also have to set realistic expectations. VHS is not that great to begin with. Converting it to DV is not going to improve that. It will never look any better than VHS quality. The Noise Reduction filter will help make it look better but there is only so much you can do. It will never look as good as DV.

~jr

Numbat wrote on 10/27/2003, 11:33 PM

Thanks for the reply JohnnyRoy, I have experimented a bit with Virtualdub and the noise filters in TempEnc but with limited success. The original video tape does look quite a bit sharper, but the noise reduced Mpegs do have a cleaner look. I find that the results tend to over smooth my pal material with the various filters (even at very small settings). I did read that most filters were written with ntsc in mind, don't know how true this is but might explain something? Don't know what though :-)

I was after some advice on what are the best settings to use in VF to render that will result in no (or as small as possible) loss in quality. I really am only using VF to cut out unwanted portions of capture at this stage, no transitions yet. As I maentioned, I haven't found any decent info on the settings found in the advanced render option of VF.

If any one has any advice on what software, methods they have used to successfully capture pal (using a DAC with VF or something else) I will try it out. I am new to capturing (but read many guides on dvdrhelp, doom9 etc) but I have a bit of experience with TmpgEnc to back up dvds into svcd and cvds. Just bought my dvd burner the other day and was expecting better results, but my svcds were just as good! I know that it is pretty difficult (if not impossible) to improve the quality of the source, but I want to keep it as close to the original as possible. Thanks for your help..

SonySCS wrote on 10/28/2003, 11:52 AM

Along with dvdrhelp and doom9 that you mentioned, does this help http://download.sonypictures.com/manuals/mpeg_overview.pdf ?

Suzan

Numbat wrote on 10/29/2003, 7:08 PM

Thanks for the link Suzan, there is some good info in there. I was under the impression from reading here and in dvdrhelp forum that TmpgEncPlus was the best mpeg2 encoder for the price. Has anyone compared it to Mainconcept?
I also thought that the best way to render to preserve quality was to keep the same format out as in (ie:dv in, dv out). That is why I thought that it would be better to render from VF as PalDV and encode in TmpgEncPlus. If so, what are the recommended settings for a PalDV render? Input 4:3 pal vhs vcr converted to palDV by a datatvideo dac-100 (very similar to the Canopus avdc-100) to view on a widescreen tv?