VHS to 1280x720 - is it worth it?

FilmingPhotoGuy wrote on 9/28/2014, 7:51 AM
I feel ripping VHS to DVD is counter productive and is so "last season". Clients are already ripping DVD's to single file movies. Since VHS is so bad , do I render to 1280x720 or 720x576 (PAL)? Would you be able to see the difference between HD 720p and DVD PAL? I think not.

Comments

Former user wrote on 9/28/2014, 8:01 AM
At some point it will be uprezzed, either by the DVD player, or if you render to 1280 x 720 or just watching on a bigger screen.

At the distance I watch my DVDs in NTSC, they look fine playing at standard definition resolution. But to be compatible with Bluray or other HD players, I would probably capture my VHS's to HD if I was doing that. I have pretty much captured all of mine by now though at SD and I don't want to go through that again.
Steve Grisetti wrote on 9/28/2014, 8:18 AM
VHS is only about 300 horizontal lines of video data. That's only about 2/3 of the resolution of 480 line standard def video. Saving it as a high-def video won't give you a higher resolution file. You're still only going to be working with what is essentially a 400x300 pixel video.
FilmingPhotoGuy wrote on 9/28/2014, 8:38 AM
Exactly. You'll only get a high quality video of low res movie. So it makes sense to just to rip it to wide screen (16x9) DVD.
johnmeyer wrote on 9/28/2014, 11:23 AM
VHS to 1280x720 - is it worth it?In a word: no.

I can think of absolutely no reason to do this, and can think of dozens of reasons not to, including:

1. No increase in quality, not even a little bit.

2. Big increase in storage space.

3. Slows down every step of the editing process.

4. Possibly introduces additional degradation (yes, degradation) if re-sizing to higher resolution is not done correctly.
FilmingPhotoGuy wrote on 9/28/2014, 11:51 AM
Cine movies on the other hand is worth it if the original capture is done correctly. The finals on the super 8 looked fantastic.
riredale wrote on 9/28/2014, 1:03 PM
I would tend to choose DVD as the destination based on the fact that DVD will be a "universal" storage format for many years to come. VHS playback is mechanical and fussy and players are going to be harder to find, and file-based storage brings up the question of encoding format.
musicvid10 wrote on 9/28/2014, 1:23 PM
VHS->DVD is bad enough, although some set-top burners do a decent job with noise.
VHS->720p is probably something to stay away from.
videoITguy wrote on 9/28/2014, 5:31 PM
VHS is a tape format of 4:3 frame - in other words SD -even if the movie recorded on it has a widescreen proportion. A good capture of good VHS will produce an acceptable SD frame. Place the SD frame inside of 75% of the area of coverage of an HDV 16:9 frame _ this is a practice of American broadcasting going over HD. Export the HDV 1440 x1080 project format to a Blu-ray standard - burn in DVDAPro on Blu-ray single layer discs. DONE