Hauppauge, Canopus vs. Stand-alone DVD recorder

Sorry to wait so long to ask this question, but could soneone explain the advantages of using the Hauppauge card or a Canopus external converter over that of one of these stand-alone DVD recorders, where you can just feed your VHS analog signal in and record directly to a DVD.

Is the compression to DVD not as good as what you would get with a Hauppauge card, or with a Canopus file (compressed with something like TMPGEnc).

Is the DVD created by the stand-alone device editable -- i.e. can you read the DVD back in and then edit it with a good MPEG editor, and then burn another DVD. Will the re-burn be as good as the original stand-alone DVD (doubt if it could be better).

I'm suppose I am guessing, but it seems that there must be a good reason that everyone is going the Hauppauge or Canopus route over that of just buying a good hardware DVD recorder.

Could you please respond quickly as I will be one a plane in about 16 hours (the reason I am not adding this question to my Hauppauge thread) heading for Wisconsin, to purchase whatever one needs to do a lot of VHS-to-DVD copying.

Thanks.

 

ease and quality=dvd recorder also more expensive JUST GET BOTH

 

Capturing analog video to your PC, as opposed to capturing straight to a standalone DVD Recorder, has the advantage of versatility. You decide ahead of time what you want to do with the video and then choose exactly the format you want for the video when it gets converted to digital.

On your PC you can choose to capture as uncompressed .avi, capture as .mpeg, capture with whatever settings you want for the audio and video. If you plan on editing the video, as you've mentioned in your other posts, then capturing to your PC gives you the control you want and lets you edit the video with minimal or no quality loss.

Standalone DVD recorders give you some control over the compression of the video but you have much more control capturing to your PC. Yes, the DVD created by the standalone DVD recorder is editable, any DVD is, but that means ripping it to your hard drive. If you capture with a standalone DVD recorder, then rip to your hard drive, then edit the video and then author to DVD again you will definitely sacrifice quality.

If all you want to do is convert VHS movies to DVD without editing them then a standalone DVD recorder can be a good choice for that job in terms of time and convenience. If you plan on editing the video before burning to DVD then you are better off capturing to your PC.

 

what format ( mpeg?) comes out of the dvd created by the recorder and does it stay that format when imported to the pc for editing ? sorry if that's too basic.

 

Most standalone DVD recorders will write the same kind of files you see on a commercial DVD, .ifo, .bup and .vob files. The video is in the .vob files. These are basically mpeg2 files. Some recorders use dvd-ram discs which write .vro files and those are a little different.

If you wanted to edit the video you'd rip the video files to your hard drive with DVDdecrypter (there's an option in there somewhere where you can tell it not to split the vob files into 1 gig chunks, that way you end up with 1 big video file which is easier to edit than 3 or 4). I think DVDShrink will also let you rip 1 big video file as well.

Then you'd edit the video with an mpeg2 editor, like VideoRedo or whatever you like, then reauthor and burn.

 

moonrocks- you said:

Why is there a sacrifice in quality. Is the DVD file re-rendered or something like that.

(In Wisconsin with my father-in-law -- but haven't copied any tapes yet -- just seting up our system).

 

Whenever you re-encode video you're going to compromise some quality. If you do it properly what you hope for is to minimize the loss. If I was going to edit captured analog video my first choice would be to capture as uncompressed .avi then edit, 2nd choice would be an mpeg2 capture with settings tweaked for the best quality possible, I'm not even sure the DVD recorder option would even occur to me, but if it did, it would be the last choice.

By letting the DVD recorder do the first re-encode for you you're losing some control of the encoding. DVD recorders only give you certain choices for quality. If you were to capture with your Hauppauge card with optimal settings, or your Canopus, then the video is landing on your hard drive in better condition than letting a DVD recorder do the re-encode and then ripping the files over to your drive. But that's just my opinion.

I'm not saying you couldn't do it with a DVD recorder. Use the best quality setting and give it a shot. Then rip the video to your hard drive then edit and burn. If you're happy with the quality at that point then that's all that really matters. Really. Even if in theory there was a "better" way of doing it.

There's always more than one way to do a project, and if you're doing something for the first time, besides doing your homework and getting advice, *experiment* with the different options, see for yourself how things come out one way vs. another. Capture 5 minutes
of video with your Canopus, again with the Hauuppage, and then with your DVD recorder. With all three, author and burn. In less than an hour you'll know for yourself which one is best.

 

If you are really in to it buy and try everything you can afford. Each has it's own value and purpose. You can make just fine dvd's with a recorder or capturing. Only having one way to do it is the only limitations.

 

thanks for the feedback.

while wer're on the subject of coding, maybe you can clear something up for me. i captured dome video from my digital camcorder on my computer in dv avi. edited on windows movie maker. saved the result in dv avi.
wanted to burn a dvd. the first time i went to do this i had a 9.6 GB file and a 4.7 GB dvd-r. didn't know whether it would be compressed somehow ( by sonic mydvd ) as part of the burn, and fit on the dvd. someone ( from best buy )suggested that i use dr. divx to recode ( encode) the file, so that it would become small enough to burn to a 4.7 MB dvd.

i downloaded DR. DIVX and ran it, recoding to something called Home theatre DV certified video, i think the best quality other than HDV. the encoding took some time. the resulting file was less than 400 MB!

i then used sonic MYDVD, which came with my computer, to burn. sonic spent a long time " transcoding" . the burn was successful. the resulting dv shows a size now of 2.94 GB !!

so what's confusing me is (1) did the video get (re) encoded twice? Into what? (2) why did the file on the dvd end up larger than the Dr.DIVX output file that I burned? (3) could the 9.6 GB file have been burned ( that is, would the burning process have converted and/or compressed the file to less than 4.7 GB? ) (4) when is DR.DVIX appropriate? what is it for? should i have used it?

 

Note: I meant to say "captured SOME video " not " captured DOME video ". Just a typo.

thanks for any advice you can give.

 

If you do a search on moviemaker you will see it's buggy and your files captured even though they are the same format some programs won't reconize them. GOOD advice read and learn which programs or hardware capture and encode their own files to raise the odds in your favor for success. Good luck Bud

 

thanks budberner. will do some research. meanwhile, can you tell me if the following is accurate? ( some of this info ( that which relates to divx ) was gathered from divx .com) :

the avi files that you get when you import using the movie maker program are a bit buggy, but they are avi.

dr.divx compresses files with minimal if any loss of quality.

dr. divx output is or can be an avi file.

if that compressed file is burned to DVD it is converted to mpeg-2.which would explain why the burning process involved recoding.

if the last point is true, does the dvd ( resulting mpeg-2 file on dvd )somehow have a size larger than the divx.avi file that was dragged to the dvd burning program??? why would that be?

if you don't mind answering, that would be great? meanwhile should I probably post this query as a separate thread in a more appropriate section on this site?

 

moonrocks-

Thanks for the responses above. My WI trip was a bust -- I barely got to first base with my father-in-law. It turns out he was farther behind than I thought -- I spent most of the week there trying to teach him how to use Windows Explorer (in my opinion, probably the most basic and important piece of software in Windows).

And to make matters worse, I on-line ordered a Hauppauge WINTV-PVR-150 card for him and had it shipped to him -- BUT I ended up purchasing a Windows Media Center system (without tuner card) for him at Best Buy (80%-90% of the systems at Best Buy are now Media Center systems). Anyway, I messed up because I forgot that the Media Center computers take a different Hauppauge card -- and the card I ordered wouldn't work.

We did one 5-minute run with the Canopus-110 device I took up there. It went OK, but we were running out of time and there just wasn't enough time to get into the VHS copying stuff -- so I guess another trip to WI is in order next year sometime, with the correct Media Center Hauppauge card.

And now back to the original thoughts, and although I do not have enough experience yet with this stuff, I agree that the hardware DVD recorder is not the way to go and I plan on sticking with the Canopus or Hauppauge approach -- probably the Hauppauge.

I gotta mention that the 1 minute files I captured with the Canopus at max resolution are really huge -- over 200 MB -- which is 12 GB for an hour -- but I guess that is about what I was warned.

 

Floydo
That DivX AVI is a compressed file. As compared to uncompressed AVI which is huge depending. The file could have been burned to 2 discs as data. You could burn the DivX file but would need a player capable of playing it. How did the project turn out.

 

@rnsmithad

Well, your Wisconsin trip may have been a bust as far as PC's and digital video but hopefully you had a good Thanksgiving

Standalone DVD recorders still are a great choice, as long as you don't want to edit the analog video before converting to DVD. 12-14 GB per hour is the norm for DV-AVI transfers, plus the subsequent re encoding time to mpeg2, but that's the price you pay for quality!

For time and convenience a good hardware mpeg2 card still has it's place, so it's good to have a couple of options available, depending upon the project you're looking at.

 

budberner

so far so good. the sonic dvd application accepted the divX file. i guess it recognized it and recoded it........ to .vob or mpeg-2 based on what moonrocks said above about format of files on DVD. since the resulting file on the DVD was larger than the DivX file, i guess the recoding by sonic decompressed the file. make sense??

 

I'm a newbie regarding this forum, but for years I've been looking for the best and easiest solution for capturing VHS and coverting to and burning to DVD. My finding so far is using Canopus 100, Nero 6 Ultra (with upgrade) and Mainconcept encoding, is working best for me so far. You'll need at least a 150 gig hardrive however and a fairly fast PC. Presently I'm using a AMD 4000, 1 gig ram, 300 gig hard drive with a motherboard that supports firewire (you need that for the Canopus 100). I captured using Nero (2 hours equals 150 gig AVI files), encoded with Mainconcept (I can give further details if anyone is interested), and burned back with Nero and have come up with as close as identical DVD from the original VHS source that I can see, and I'm picky when it comes to video. I've tried ATI AIW 9800 Pro, and had no luck, mainly because of the many different software for burning, encoding etc... it's hard to come up with the perfect combo. Some software, as many of you all know, just don't work right together. I've managed to burn a few DVDs using the ATI AIW... but wasn't happy with the quality. Canopus puts the best raw AVI onto your computer hard drive from what I've witnessed so far although the files are huge. Mainconcept is a great encoder and I found it on ebay for 25 bucks. Nero 6 worked fine with this combo for capturing and burning. Now I'm not saying this is the only combo that works best that's out there by any means. I'm only saying that being new to this converting VHS to DVD, finding the easiest and best solution was difficult and I'm only trying to help others like myself who spend hours upon hours trying to solve this VHS to DVD mystery successfully without going to night school to learn programing, coding etc. This combo was simple for me and I'm excited about the results. Anyone who needs details for the settings that I used for Nero and Mainconcept, feel free to ask. Thanks to rebootjim and Minion for giving me some of the advice that I implemented to make nice DVDs.

 

also a newbie.

was it really 150 GB for 2 hours avi??

all i've used so far is the windows movie maker in sp2, and i think about 45 minutes of DV from my camcorder, captured as avi with movie maker was 10 GB.
was i getting a compressed avi??????

 

Could be, I have read many of these forums and Windows movie maker is not the best way to go. The key is to get the best uncompressed data first onto your hard drive to get the best results quality wise. I used Nero to capture using the custom setting downloading AVI. I was also surprised how many gigs I used up. But the end result was what I was looking for, an intelligible copy from original to DVD

 

starting with that large a file, can you tell me at what points there is compression so you can get it on dvd? what does mainconcept encode to and how much compression? then what happens with encoding and compression when you use nero again to burn??

I've got a 60 GB laptop and a 120 gb western digital external hard drive ( usb 2..not firewire ).
what do you think would be the way to go for me for capture through burn??

thanks