Hi, Can anyone tell me how to get the best quality conversion of 2nd & 3rd generation VHS tapes to DVD? I have 10 or twelve VHS tapes of a Dutch pop music group (BZN) that are impossible to find anymore. A contact I had in Canada made me copies of their copies. The original tapes were made in the Netherlands (PAL format), copied for the Canadian, then converted to NTSC. I probably have at least a 3rd generation copy of these tapes. They are viewable, and the audio is very good quality stereo. There is significant color bleeding, faint ghost images, etc. I am assuming that there is no way to enhance the quality of these tapes, but is there some way they can be converted to digital (DVD)without any more loss of what quality there is left? Our system is as follows: Sony VAIO VGC RA-710G (1 year old); 3.2Ghz P4 processor; 1.75GB RAM; NVIDIA GeForce 5200 video card; SB Audigy 2 card; Sony DCR TRV-30 Digital camcorder w/ RCA in/out & Firewire & USB connections. Also have 2 Sony DVD burners (internal) and 2 Hard drives (1=200GB & the other= 250GB. Hope I didn't leave anything out. Many thanks for any and all help you can give me. Gunship
Well there will allways be some Quality loss when Transfering Analogue to Digital and How much Loss Depends on the Capture device and the Format Captureing to and how the Captured files are encoded to Mpeg-2/DVD Format.... Try Useing the Analogue PassThrough on your DV Camcorder to Transfer the Video to Your PC in DV AVI format and the Quality Should be Fairly good....Then you have to encode the Captured DV AVI file to Mpeg-2 DVD format useing a Good Quality Mpeg encoder Like either "Tmpgenc Pluss" or "Canopus Procoder" or "MainConcept Encoder"... Tmpgenc has a Lot of Filters for Cleaning up Video Like Noise Filters and Ghost Filters and Color Correction and Sharpening ect but these Filters Make the encodeing Take a Really Long Time but the Quality should be Fairly good.... AFter you have encoded your Files to Mpeg-2 DVD Compliant Format you would use a DVD Authoring Program Like "Tmpgenc DVD Author" or "MediaChance DVDLab pro" to add your Menu"s and Chapters and to Author the Files to DVD.......And that is It!! Good Luck
to gunship-keep in mind that if you start with a fairly good vhs tape tou will get a fairly good dvd.vhs tapes tend to loose quality over time.
Depending on how much you are willing to spend getting a JVC 9000 series VCR, full frame TBC and a proc amp can clean up a video very nicely but expensive (if you had to choose get quality VCR). If money is a big issue then just using TMPGEnc's software filters to clean it can help also. One good thing is that when you are done these hardware items almost sell for full price on eBay.
To: Destra & Permatex--Thank you very much for the info. Color bleed is prevalent in these copies, especially red & yellow. I can adjust the picture fairly well with the TV settings. Are these adjustments, i.e. Color, COntrast, Brightness, Sharpness, etc., available with TMPGEnc? Gunship
