Losing too much quality capturing VHS

[Ruben]

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

I am wanting to capture VHS home movies with my ATI Rage Fury Pro card. I
am able to capture using VirtualDub, but I am having a problem with
picture quality. When I preview the VHS source in VirtualDub, it looks
decent, but after I have captured the source to AVI, the quality of the
AVI file looks noticably different - a decline in clarity and fuzziness
around the edges of objects. I have read thru some of the capture guides
listed here and have tried different resolutions (352*240, 352*480, 720*
480) but the AVI picture quality remains the same. It may not help that
the source video is somewhat jumpy - it is 8mm film from the 1940s
transfered to VHS, but I had thought that I could get quality that is at
least close to the original, and that is not what I am seeing. FWIW, I am
capturing to AVI so I can edit in Premiere, then I will encode to MPEG2
and author a DVD.

Any tips/guides that you can offer would be appreciated!

System:
WinXP
P4 3.0GHz w/1GB DDR RAM
separate drive for video



--
Ruben

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

In article <R9ukd.7077$zx1.3702@newssvr13.news.prodigy.com>,
psychobuffalo@sillyspamspoiler.gmail.com says...
> Subject: Losing too much quality capturing VHS
> From: Ruben <psychobuffalo@sillyspamspoiler.gmail.com>
> Newsgroups: rec.video.desktop
>
> I am wanting to capture VHS home movies with my ATI Rage Fury Pro card. I
> am able to capture using VirtualDub, but I am having a problem with
> picture quality. When I preview the VHS source in VirtualDub, it looks
> decent, but after I have captured the source to AVI, the quality of the
> AVI file looks noticably different - a decline in clarity and fuzziness
> around the edges of objects. I have read thru some of the capture guides
> listed here and have tried different resolutions (352*240, 352*480, 720*
> 480) but the AVI picture quality remains the same. It may not help that
> the source video is somewhat jumpy - it is 8mm film from the 1940s
> transfered to VHS, but I had thought that I could get quality that is at
> least close to the original, and that is not what I am seeing. FWIW, I am
> capturing to AVI so I can edit in Premiere, then I will encode to MPEG2
> and author a DVD.
>
> Any tips/guides that you can offer would be appreciated!
>
> System:
> WinXP
> P4 3.0GHz w/1GB DDR RAM
> separate drive for video
>
>
>
> --
> Ruben
>
>

Perhaps you runing it through the deinterlace filter?
--
_________________________
Chris Phillipo - Cape Breton, Nova Scotia
http://www.ramsays-online.com

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

"Ruben" <psychobuffalo@sillyspamspoiler.gmail.com> wrote in message
news:R9ukd.7077$zx1.3702@newssvr13.news.prodigy.com...
> least close to the original, and that is not what I am seeing. FWIW, I am
> capturing to AVI so I can edit in Premiere, then I will encode to MPEG2
> and author a DVD.

What video compressor?

 

[Ruben]

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

On 10 Nov 2004, "FLY135" <fly_135(@ hot not not)notmail.com> posted to
rec.video.desktop as follows:

>
> "Ruben" <psychobuffalo@sillyspamspoiler.gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:R9ukd.7077$zx1.3702@newssvr13.news.prodigy.com...
>> least close to the original, and that is not what I am seeing. FWIW,
>> I am capturing to AVI so I can edit in Premiere, then I will encode
>> to MPEG2 and author a DVD.
>
> What video compressor?
>
>
>

I've tried both Huffyuv v2.1.1 and PICVideo MJPEG - same results AFAICT.



--
Ruben

 

[Ruben]

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

On 10 Nov 2004, Chris Phillipo <cphillipo@ramsays-online.com> posted to
rec.video.desktop as follows:


>
> Perhaps you runing it through the deinterlace filter?

If you mean Video->Filters in VirtualDub, there are none. Other than that,
how would I tell if there was a filter running?



--
Ruben

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

"Ruben" <psychobuffalo@sillyspamspoiler.gmail.com> wrote in message
news:Nqukd.40453$QJ3.7697@newssvr21.news.prodigy.com...
> On 10 Nov 2004, "FLY135" <fly_135(@ hot not not)notmail.com> posted to
> rec.video.desktop as follows:
>
> >
> > "Ruben" <psychobuffalo@sillyspamspoiler.gmail.com> wrote in message
> > news:R9ukd.7077$zx1.3702@newssvr13.news.prodigy.com...
> >> least close to the original, and that is not what I am seeing. FWIW,
> >> I am capturing to AVI so I can edit in Premiere, then I will encode
> >> to MPEG2 and author a DVD.
> >
> > What video compressor?
> >
> >
> >
>
> I've tried both Huffyuv v2.1.1 and PICVideo MJPEG - same results AFAICT.

Are you viewing the AVI in the same size window as the preview? If you are
looking at the AVI in a scaled up window then it's going to look fuzzier.
You should go ahead and make the DVD. It should look better when you view
it on a TV.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

In article <Usukd.40455$QJ3.6047@newssvr21.news.prodigy.com>,
psychobuffalo@sillyspamspoiler.gmail.com says...
> Subject: Re: Losing too much quality capturing VHS
> From: Ruben <psychobuffalo@sillyspamspoiler.gmail.com>
> Newsgroups: rec.video.desktop
>
> On 10 Nov 2004, Chris Phillipo <cphillipo@ramsays-online.com> posted to
> rec.video.desktop as follows:
>
>
> >
> > Perhaps you runing it through the deinterlace filter?
>
> If you mean Video->Filters in VirtualDub, there are none. Other than that,
> how would I tell if there was a filter running?
>
>
>
> --
> Ruben
>
>

I'm not familiar with the ATI card settings but there might be a
deinterlace option soomewhere within the advanced settings page of the
drivers.
--
_________________________
Chris Phillipo - Cape Breton, Nova Scotia
http://www.ramsays-online.com

 

[Ruben]

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

On 10 Nov 2004, "FLY135" <fly_135(@ hot not not)notmail.com> posted to
rec.video.desktop as follows:

>
> Are you viewing the AVI in the same size window as the preview? If
> you are looking at the AVI in a scaled up window then it's going to
> look fuzzier. You should go ahead and make the DVD. It should look
> better when you view it on a TV.
>
>

That's the problem... it doesn't look good on DVD. Noticing the
difference between the original source video and the DVD is what has led
me to this point, trying to find out why the captured AVI noticably
degradated from the source VHS. Perhaps I'm being a perfectionist, but I
just didn't expect such a difference between the source and the captured
AVI, and I wanted to make sure that I wasn't leaving out an important
step or adjustment.



--
Ruben

 

[Ruben]

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

On 10 Nov 2004, Chris Phillipo <cphillipo@ramsays-online.com> posted to
rec.video.desktop as follows:

>
> I'm not familiar with the ATI card settings but there might be a
> deinterlace option soomewhere within the advanced settings page of the
> drivers.

If there is such a setting, I couldn't find it. The control panel for my
ATI card has minimal settings, just color and camera control settings.



--
Ruben

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

"Ruben" <psychobuffalo@sillyspamspoiler.gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1cYkd.7923$zx1.1274@newssvr13.news.prodigy.com...
> On 10 Nov 2004, "FLY135" <fly_135(@ hot not not)notmail.com> posted to
> rec.video.desktop as follows:
>
> >
> > Are you viewing the AVI in the same size window as the preview? If
> > you are looking at the AVI in a scaled up window then it's going to
> > look fuzzier. You should go ahead and make the DVD. It should look
> > better when you view it on a TV.
> >
> >
>
> That's the problem... it doesn't look good on DVD. Noticing the
> difference between the original source video and the DVD is what has led
> me to this point, trying to find out why the captured AVI noticably
> degradated from the source VHS. Perhaps I'm being a perfectionist, but I
> just didn't expect such a difference between the source and the captured
> AVI, and I wanted to make sure that I wasn't leaving out an important
> step or adjustment.

The fact that it looks good in the preview window is puzzling. The preview
window is just the YUV data that is encoded, so apparently the card is
capturing the data just fine. The might be a stretch but does the DVD look
bad when there is horizontal motion or panning of the camera. Jerkiness in
that case would indicate field order inversion.