DVD Recordable - Acceptable quality?

As the proud owner of the Phillips DVDR80 DVD Recorder, I find that it is an excellent stand alone machine and, in my opinion, far superior to the DVD-R drive which is part of my PC set-up.

Although I find recordings made from off-air broadcasts, laser disc or even other DVD's are fantastic (far exceeding any quality expectations)I find that digital transfer of VHS tapes is a big disapointment.

The resulting DVD discs are no worse than the VHS masters, but they are not much (if any) better either. (By comparison, it is a bit like like transfering vinyle to CD)

My point is... that if the DVD looks exactly like a VHS tape, for some reason I find that unacceptable.

Now, should I continue to archive rare Queen recordings (which psychologically) look shit on DVD - or - just keep the old VHS tapes which by comparison, look fantastic?

The quality won't automatically improve when copying from VHS to DVD so you will be stuck with VHS quality, but it is worth continuing to archive your stuff because in the long run it's better to have a DVD that contains watchable VHS quality than an old VHS tape that may wear out and eventually become unplayable.

Over time - the VHS tapes and quality will eventually wear down (even without playing them). So, yes I would definately transfer them to DVD for archival purposes.

Plus...if you are creative, you can create DVD menus and such, and make nice little pretty personal DVDs....or if you are practical - you could have all the DVDs stored at a fraction of space than VHS.

Simple. You get what you put in. A VHS will not improve when transferred to dvd. In fact, if a VHS tape is quite bad, then it could possibly come out worse than the actual tape. This is because of the way the picture is digitised. Unfortunately, it's a system that will not tolerate bad tapes. It won't cope well with jitters. Something that we probably don't ever see because of the frames per second.

But, if it's a really good recorder, it'll have a system to prevent bad tapes from not working and actually improve the transfer. But I can't remember if that's something that's in the current batch of recorders or not. It's supposed to be a pretty expensive component.

Peace,
Adam.

It's kind of like saying "Darn, I've transferred all of my vinyl to CD but it's still got those scratches!" :-P

I had a Panasonic recorder for a couple weeks once. An early model which had been a display model. I was actually quite pleased with the results from VHS. I think I did about 10 DVDs, made sure they would play on my Pioneer player (all of them worked except one which I tried in the mode which automatically gave best quality for a certain length rather than 1 hr, 2 hr, etc).

This one just did simple menus.. a title for the disc and a title for each separate title were the only options. And it automatically did chapters every 5 minutes, wouldn't let me choose my own. That combined with the fact that I couldn't really afford it led me to return it.

I'm going to wait until some decent brands drop a great deal in price. Wal Mart already has a DVD + R for $250 but it's not a name brand. I'm hoping a big name DVD - R model becomes available under $300, then I'll give it another try someday :) I didn't get around to my home videos... just porn (in highest quality, one hour per disc) and a few favorite movies.

If you want to even slightly improve or "restore"
your vhs tapes quality wise, before putting them to
a DVD medium, then standalone recorders
are not the way to do it, then again I have no idea
if they contain any NR features that might be of use.

Analogue capture to PC (decent card, composite input or svhs)->frameserve using noise filtering
(such as Virtualdub's "Smart Smoother High Quality")->colour correction if necessary->etc->Cinemacraft, mainconcept or tmpgenc encoder->mpeg2.

Tmpgenc encoders noise reduction feature is usually enough for decent sources, and faster than "Smart Smoother".

These methods however take a few days at worst to finish, depending on the material and what equipment is being used. No pain, no gain.

Essential reading...

http://www.lordsmurf.com/
http://www.dvdrhelp.com/forum/

That's a good point pma.. you would certainly have more opportunity to clean up video on a computer :) Plus you can do lots more stuff like audio enhancement and cooler menus.

I do like the idea of a stand-alone recorder though, not sure why. I always wanted a CD recorder too, but ended up getting a writable drive instead. I'm glad I did now. So much more can be done with files rather than direct recording.

I've recently transferred most of my Queen VHS tapes to DVD-R using a Pan E100 and I was very surprised in how good the quality was (as some QZ members will verify), Identical to the tape. And that's sometimes going via RAM disk.

However it does help if you have a decent VCR, which I do and it has a built in TBC (Time Base corrector) which can make all the difference.

Your capture software can make a big difference aswell.

I use WinDVR3. I get better results from VHS with this than any other program I have used.

Check out http://www.dvdrhelp.com for a huge amount of tutorials and guides on how to achieve the best quality when capturing.

Btw, here's something I haven't tried. If you have a recorder and tape a vhs or camcorder tape onto a dvd-r. You can then put that in your pc (etc.) and then copy the video for editing. Of course, then you need a writer in your computer to get the results back out. But it would be worth it if you didn't want to capture all your footage via an expensive capture card. Just a thought...

Adam.

P.S. Btw DF, was the $250 dvd+r called a Lite-on? I've been hearing good things about that one!

"I've recently transferred most of my Queen VHS tapes to DVD-R using a Pan E100 and I was very surprised in how good the quality was (as some QZ members will verify), Identical to the tape. And that's sometimes going via RAM disk."

Consider yourself verified Kevo. :-)

Thanks ogre :)

Adam

That's exactly what I do without any quality loss...

VHS > RAM (DVD Recorder)

RAM > DVD-R (PC DVD Writer).

You need a PC/DVD Writer even if you want to do the most basic of DVD editing, authoring, menus etc.

The main adventage of the DVD format in the Queen area is preservation and the ability to divide the setlist.

The noise reduction feature in TMPGEnc added 6 hours (!) to my encoding time once (of a bad video), but I couldn't spot any kind of improvement. The power of this feature is too over rated, I've tried it quite a few times.

I bought a NEC ND-2500A DVD-RW drive 2 weeks ago and I'm very happy with it. I only make DVDs for my own comfort, not to improve the quality at all.

So, it all comes down to "How it looks on VHS" vs. "How it looks on DVD". It's not like it'd matter that much if you had an unwatchable VHS or an unwatchable DVD... Right? :)

[QUOTE][QUOTENAME]Guy wrote: [/QUOTENAME]The noise reduction feature in TMPGEnc added 6 hours (!) to my encoding time once (of a bad video), but I couldn't spot any kind of improvement. The power of this feature is too over rated, I've tried it quite a few times.
[/QUOTE]

Overrated? Oh, please. Depends on what source you use it on and what settings.

You know, it does have a preview window for the setting that does clearly show how much the new image will differ from the old after NR.... and because of this you have the simple choice to easily judge before encoding if the resulting video will benefit from the use of NR or not, and avoid adding un-necessary encoding time...

I've encoded quite a few videos in my short life, and the feature hasn't worked for me like I think it should. If it did for you - goody goody.