question on size capture vhs

wondering if anyone knew how much hdd space i will need to capture uncompressed (as i do not want to lose quality) 1hr of video because i believe 1hr is the most you can fit on dvd at the highest quality 98000kb? and also if i can capture directly to mpeg-2 will nero vision express take that video and burn directly to dvd or will it still need to re-encode because if it still re-encodes i might as well do uncompressed. my system is a AMD-64 3500+ 512mb ram, will i have any problems doing this? thanks for all your help

 

Lot of space.. use Huffyuv codec for compressing, it's a lossless codec and you don't loose any quality with capturing. What 98000kb? You can fit on DVD more than 1 hour with quality enough you need. If you can capture DVD compliant mpeg-2 files, then you need only to authore them to DVD structure without re-encoding.

 

If Nerovision Express will capture to mpeg-2 without any dropped frames, then do it that way.
You can then author and burn all in one app.

 

thanks for telling me about Huffyuv codec. and i was asking if i could only fit 1 hr of video with the highest possible bitrate as i want to refrain from losing quality, i know i have to lose quality doing a dvd but i want to lose as less as possible (98000kb?) this will be my first project and i am doing about 7 vhs home movies, also could anyone tell me if there are any good programs to remove humm, filter out staticy effects, and generally remove the crap from a vhs tape so it will look better, thank you

 

Virtualdub for editing avi video.
Goldwave for editing audio.
Both have numerous filters for fixing video and audio noise respectively.

 

Edsloter: Useing a Bitrate of 9800kbs doesn"t nescessarilly mean the Quality will be any better than if you used say 6000kbs or even 4000kbs....

There is a Point were the Image has reached it"s peak Visual Quality in releation to the Source that any Bitrate after that is Just a waste....

That is basicly the whole Point behind useing VBR encodeing...In VBR encodeing only the ammount of Bits that are needed are used to encode each frame so you can Achieve the same Quality as useing CBR encodeing (Even better if useing Multi-Pass) while achieveing much smaller File sizes which means more Video on each DVD...

As there is No need to encode Frames that for instance have Credits or are Black or are very Low Motion Low detail frames useing a bitrate as high as 9800kbs because it doesn"t take that many Bits to encode such frames....

If getting the Best quality is your Goal then i would Focus your attention on trying to Filter out Noise and color correction and other Filters that can help filter out Imperfections in the Video and Try a Multi-Pass VBR encodeing Method as opposed to a High Bitrate CBR Encodeing Method as this will help you achieve as good or Better quality with a smaller File size....

It is a Very Good Idea to use a Noise Filter when encodeing because the encoder will waste a Lot of Bits trying to accurately encode every detail of the Noise and other Imperfections so if these are Filtered out then the encoder doesn"t have to waste Bits trying to reproduce them...

With an encoder Encoder Like CinemaCraft Encoder SP it uses a Multi-Pass VBR method that not only analizes each Frame so it knows how to best distribute the Bitrate to get Lower File sizes but it also analizes the Frames so it can Optimize the Picture quality above what most Multi-pass encoders do and it can also do up to 9 passes which is 3 times as many passes as any other encoder can do....

Also "Canopus Procoder" on "Mastering Quality" in "Multi-Pass VBR" mode Produces stunning results and Like CinemaCraft encoder uses a Method that analizes the frames to achieve Optimal quality and can achieve better quality than many other encoders while useing as low as Half the Bitrate of other encoders....

Many encoders have there own Built in Filters for Filtering out Noise and Sharpening ect so they can be used while encodeing Or you can also use something like "Virtual-Dub" to clean up the Image and to Frameserve it to the Encoder as Opposed to rendering it to a New AVI file in Virtual-Dub...
I actually use AVISynth to do most of my Filtering as it has some of the Best filters there are but most poeple don"t use it because it is Quite Complicated to learn to use....

Good Luck with your project......Cheers

 

you sound alot like a puppet for these companys you talk about and yes i know the point behind vbr but honestly i dont trust the computer to make decisions for me, it may think that certain parts of a video dont need that many bits but what if i dont think that way. thanks for your help i will check out the programs mentioned if they have trial versions

 

This is exactly why we use VBR when we encode something.

 

is there a way to set a minimum vbr bitrate just like you would with an mp3 encoder. i dont see that type of setting in nero vision express and i would like to use that program as i dont want to go thru the trouble of authoring the dvd myself but if i have to i will also as for my original question does anybody know how much space a 1hr video will take up with the Huffyuv codec

 

With VBR Encodeing (Multi-Pass) you select the Minimum ,Maximum and Average Bitrates..There is Probably No multi-Pass encodeing in Vision Express as it uses a very Basic Encoder...

I wouldn"t use it if your Goal is the absolute best encodeing Quality as the very few Times I have tried it I didn"t like the results compared to the good standalone encoders I was used to...

An hour of HuffYUV Compressed AVI at full Resolution and Frame rate(720+480/576,25fps/29.97fps) will use about 30GB of Drive space per Hour which is about half of What Uncompressed AVI uses with absolutly no quality differance....
If you don"t think you will have enough drive space you might also consider trying the "PicVideo Mjpeg Codec" as it produces Near lossless quality when set to 19 or 20 Quality and uses about half the Disk space as HuffYUV Files and also uses less CPU for Compression.....

Cheers

 

thanks, i read on here many times that Mjpeg doesnt look that well on dvd or doesnt re-encode to dvd well and i also want to avoid transcoding as everyone knows it is terrible... ill have plenty of space once i backup burn all my stuff to dvd.. altho probably going to need another 30gb for editing the video, also i have been looking around at getting a good video capture card price range $50-$100 any suggestions

 

i just learned by doing some small video testing that using the HuffYUV in nero vision express IS NOT LOSSLESS, it produced a video considerably fuzzier to the original uncompress avi... i also compressed that same avi in virtual dub with HuffYUV and the results were identical as they should be... i dont know what is wrong with nero but DO NOT use it with HuffYUV

edit: i could post pictures of my results to prove my findings... i was surprised to say the least. i thought for a min everyone was lying about HuffYUV, but its just nero

 

Your getting very good expert advice here regarding quality but IMO, if you settle for a card in the $50-$100 range you'd be defeating that quality. A large part of the equation, of course, is hardware. Higher priced hardware will ususally include higher quality software. The low cost solutions usually include software that may not meet your needs in terms of quality. Thus you may find yourself spending more money for better software that you wouldn't have to spend if you buy good hardware to begin with.
Trouble with all this is the subjective nature of this "art" of digital video. This leaves us end users seeking advice yet still needing to do our own experimintation to meet our subjective needs.
Again, this is my opinion but I would give myself a higher budget to work with. One thing you've done is the cpu spec you have will really work to your advantage and provide a great base to work from! An AMD-64 is certainly on my wish list! I'm jealous!

 

Nerovision Express does have 2 pass VBR. You have to look for it, in the Config. You cannot set max and min, but you CAN set average bitrate, which is all you need in NVE to get the output size you want.
It's not huffyuv that's the problem, it's the converting to mpeg-2 in Nerovision Express that's causing all the quality loss.
Take your captured video, at 320x240 (probably, or similar small aspect) with Huffyuv, using the YUY2 colorspace, and a pixel size ratio of 1:1
Now Nero is taking that video, and converting it to RGB colourspace, and also resizing every pixel in it, to get 720x480 mpeg-2. 320x2 does not equal 720, thus the actual pixel size must be increased, as well as the video dimension aspect.
If the video quality sucks, it's time to use a better encoder.
Until you can get a grasp on the whole process, and why things do, or don't, work the way you expect, tools like NVE, VSO, WinAVI, and others, are going to produce mediocre DVD's.

 

to jim: i did not create an mpeg with nero i output an avi file with huffyuv in nero

to pfh: i do not need any software just hardware as i will be using virtual dub for capturing and Canopus ProCoder 2 for encoding... i have all my software needs, just looking into hardware, any suggestions

 

You just said you're using virutaldub to capture. Then when does Nero come into the picture at all?
If you want the best quality avi, use the filters in virtualdub to help clean up the source. Use Huffyuv. Picvideo mjpeg is slightly less quality, but half the filesize of huffyuv.
If you want to get a DVD out of it eventually, then I would suggest you get a good standalone encoder, and authoring app.

 

How about the Canopus ADVC-50? It's in your price range. What are you using now?

 

to jim: i said i WILL be using virtual dub for captuing, i just created an avi with nero vision express for testing purposes using the huffyuv codec and results were awful, using the same source and method the results were perfect in virtual dub, there is something wrong with nero; is the Canopus ProCoder 2 a good choice for stand alone encoders?, i have this program.

to pfh: where can if find the Canopus ADVC-50 for less than $100, i have not been able to, and i am using a very cheap very useless card... looking to upgrade, bigtime

 

IMHO Canopus Procoder is simply the best software standalone encoder there is. Mainconcept comes a close second.
If you already have Canopus, capture in virtualdub with the picvideo mjpeg codec, Q 20, then encode.
Vdub will nicely do 320x240 YUV2 colourspace captures, which make really nice DVD's. Huffyuv will be slightly better quality, with double the space needed.
Nero's encoder sucks. Period.

 

i am planning to capture at 640x480 or higher if i can, will the extra space required and time to encode be better off this way than 320x240