VHS ripping settings?

D

DisneyFanatic001

Member
I am continuing to rip my VHS tapes but I\'m getting confused. I am using Pinnacle Studio Plus v10 and every time I capture a video, the size is different. I am capturing at 720x480 for DVD quality. For example, today I captured two 43 minute videos. The first ended up being 9.16GB and the second was only 1.28GB. Can anyone tell me what specific settings I should use for best quality (and smallest size)?
 
What format are you capturing to?

BTW, while you are wise to capture at 720x480 res, know that VHS has a resolution much lower than that, like 320x240 or something. Also, know that 720x480 is a 3:2 aspect ratio, and if you convert to DivX or something you MUST encode with a square pixel ratio, so force it to fix 640x480 or something.
 
and if you convert to DivX or something you MUST encode with a square pixel ratio, so force it to fix 640x480 or something.
Click to expand...
you can also encode with widescreen ratios on divx

or did you mean smth else ?
 
SirLamer said:
What format are you capturing to?

BTW, while you are wise to capture at 720x480 res, know that VHS has a resolution much lower than that, like 320x240 or something. Also, know that 720x480 is a 3:2 aspect ratio, and if you convert to DivX or something you MUST encode with a square pixel ratio, so force it to fix 640x480 or something.
Click to expand...

I am capturing in .avi format. I wasn\'t sure about what settings to use so I just went with the default settings (Video = .avi @ 720x480 with DV compression 3600 Kbits/sec Data rate and Audio = PCM Compression 16-bit stereo @ 48kHz). Would it be better if I used custom settings such as:

Video
.AVI
640x480
DivX compression
Data rate: 4000 Kbits/sec

Audio
MPEG Layer 2 compression
48 kHz Sample rate
16-bit stereo

Would that make a good quality video without being several Gigabites in size?
 
No, no.

.avi is not a \"format\", it is only a container. AVI stands for \"Audio-Video Interweave\" and that\'s all it does - syncs the time code of the audio and video streams. As for the audio and video streams, you can throw in pretty much whatever you want. DV just means \"Digital Video\" and is a very mildly compressed video format which can be handled and edited as though it were uncompressed. PCM is just raw uncompressed audio, like what you get on a CD. DivX is a very heavily compressed video format of the MPEG-4 family.

DV MUST be recorded as 720x480. This is what you are recording in. That\'s fine, you should be doing that. My point is that when you choose to encode to DV, the image is skewed to use up the 720x480 video space (your VHS video source is basically being fed as 640x480). When you play back the DV, your computer skews the image to fit 640x480 in real-time. But if you choose to encode to DivX, you as the author must encode the video at 640x480, as DivX doesn\'t support that sort of stuff that DV does. Also, with DivX you can encode many other resolutions combinations if you want to. With DV you cannot, which is why instead it supports pixel ratio distortion.

Note that 640x480 isn\'t necessarily the only correct resolution. Another one may be more appopriate, such as if the outer edge of your video source has image tearing and is best to be cropped. Or, if your source is widescreen (but from a VHS it is probably not.)
 
SirLamer said:
No, no.

.avi is not a \"format\", it is only a container.
Click to expand...

What are my \"format\" options then?

What software do you use and what settings?

I\'ve managed to convert the VHS video to .avi with the following properties:

Type: AVI Video
Duration: 0:43:50
Bit rate: 192 kbps
Dimensions: 720 x 480
Size: 1.28 GB

I captured it using the DivX codec, but was wondering if 1.28GB is a bit large in size? I\'ve noticed that other .avi videos that were posted are between 350-400MB. What do I need to do to get my videos to that size range?
I tried to change the settings to 640x480, but it keeps changing back to 720x480. I was able to change it to 480x480, but didn\'t think it would look right with a 4:3 aspect ratio.

As you can probably guess, I have no idea what I am doing :blush: which is why I usually just use the program\'s default settings. The problem with that is the file usually ends up being several GB in size (The first video I posted originally was 16GB in size!!)
 
I captured it using the DivX codec, but was wondering if 1.28GB is a bit large in size?
Click to expand...

I guess when you captured it in divx then the compression is quite low .. you need a monster of a computer to capture it in good compressed divx right away.. so you should compress it again with the best quality and highest compression (set it up in the properties)
 
Whatever bitrate you have set is what will determine filesize, not the resolution you set it to or the algorithm you use. It\'s just a matter of (audio and video bitrate) * # of seconds in movie / 8(8 bits in a byte) and you\'ll get your approximate filesize.

So you mentioned 3600 kbits/s earlier..let\'s assume your audio is 128kbps, that makes 3728kbps total. 43 minutes worth, so 43*60 = 2580 seconds
3728 * (43*60) / 8 = 1202280 kilobytes which is about 1.2 gb.

It then becomes an issue of how good the compressor you choose is and how small a bitrate you can get it to while keeping quality sharp at the resolution you set. And do you want it to look as close to the dvd as possible, or are you willing to show more compression in the video so that the file doesn\'t end up so big, etc...


I don\'t know what a good bitrate for divx 5.0 is to keep the dvd quality though as I don\'t use it ;)
 
OK. I\'ve given up! I just can\'t seem to be able to rip my VHS videos correctly. I\'ve tried using the following programs:

Cyberlink PowerDirector NE Express
Nero Vision 4
Pinnacle Studio 9.4
Pinnacle Studio Plus 10.5
Windows Movie Maker
VirtualDub 1.6.14

Either the video gets out-of-sync with the audio, or there is some kind of error with the program and I can\'t record. I managed to record 1 file perfectly, but it ended up being 50.4GB in size for a 45 minute video.

I wish I knew what I was doing wrong and/or what audio/video codec settings would work best.

I figured out that my Pinnacle 500-PCI AV/DV board only supports the following (NTSC) video standards:

AVI Capture
Good PIC Video MJPEG Codec 352x240
Better PIC Video MJPEG Codec 720x480
Best DV Video Encoder 720x480

MPEG Capture
Good MPEG1 352x240
Better MPEG2 480x480
Best MPEG2 720x480

So, unless I can figure out how to rip these files correctly and within a manageable size, I\'m giving it a rest for awhile!
 
I had a similar problem to your self when I first started with a firewire. I was told about a small programme caled GSPOT, it is basically a codec analiser.

I found that if I used it on the files I all ready had and those which I liked the format, I could then set my capture/converter software to similar (without really understanding all the ins and outs). For instance I just ran Martins Universe of Energy Tribute and it tells me its DivX 5 using DX50 codec, 25fps, 720x 578 Average bit rate 1303 Audio is MP3 0x0055 Codec 2 channels at 48Khz 160kbs. With a Frame aspect ratio of 5:4.

You can grab a copy at http://gspot.headbands.com/

So Id let your card software grab at its best settings then convert to the new settings.

Hope this helps.
 
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