If I digitise to AVI (codec is DV PAL) and then try playing back in Quicktime (7.5.5) I get this : http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j126/Karel_Bata/Superman_quicktime.jpg

However using ancient 2006 Winamp (WMP won't allow stills capture!): http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j126/Karel_Bata/Superman_winamp.jpg

Obviously Quicktime doesn't de-interlace, but it looks like the degradation is more than that. Any ideas on getting QT to work as it should..?


p.s. those captures are not the full frame.

If I digitise to AVI (codec is DV PAL) and then try playing back in Quicktime (7.5.5) I get this : http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j126/Karel_Bata/Superman_quicktime.jpg

However using ancient 2006 Winamp (WMP won't allow stills capture!): http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j126/Karel_Bata/Superman_winamp.jpg

Obviously Quicktime doesn't de-interlace, but it looks like the degradation is more than that. Any ideas on getting QT to work as it should..?


p.s. those captures are not the full frame.

Is the "Use high quality video setting when available" preference checked? I think the default is "off"

Ah! I tried that. Didn't work, but it does now. Strange it's not on by default.

Do you know if that will affect how well other applications that use QT work, particularly for rendering?

I think it's just a quicktime setting, I wouldn't worry about it effecting you renders. The real problem is that if you give a video to someone else, they will think it's crap unless they know to check high quality, but some video types are always in HQ, like h264 for example. Also, just below the high quality check box in the QT properties (not the preferences) is single field option for viewing it de-interlaced. It doesn't seem to effect all video files for some reason, but give it a try if interlacing is bothering you.

If you are digitizing to play something in quicktime, why are you doing it to AVI when Quicktime's native container is .mov? May not be the source of your problems, but it certainly isn't going to help.

-P

If I digitise to AVI (codec is DV PAL) and then try playing back in Quicktime (7.5.5) I get this : http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j126/Karel_Bata/Superman_quicktime.jpg

However using ancient 2006 Winamp (WMP won't allow stills capture!): http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j126/Karel_Bata/Superman_winamp.jpg

Obviously Quicktime doesn't de-interlace, but it looks like the degradation is more than that. Any ideas on getting QT to work as it should..?


p.s. those captures are not the full frame.

I have a ADVC300 (http://desktop.thomsongrassvalley.com/products/ADVC300/index.php) which I use for digitising stuff off VHS and DVDs. I have no choice over the output format with it. However AE and Premiere import the avi files quite happily so it works well enough for what I want to do for now.

However the files are HUGE, so I'm looking around for something to archive my old VHSs in one step with more compression to a smaller size - any ideas?

However the files are HUGE, so I'm looking around for something to archive my old VHSs in one step with more compression to a smaller size - any ideas?

I bought a machine that you put a VHS tape in, and a DVD in, and it makes the copy. Simple and easy. Doing it with the computer allows more control, but with a requisite increase in complexity.

I suppose you could do some kind of "frameserving" but others users here will know more.

However the files are HUGE, so I'm looking around for something to archive my old VHSs in one step with more compression to a smaller size - any ideas?
How much smaller? You can compress an hour of video to about the size of a CD (700MB) as mp4/h.264. The quality will be certainly better than VHS! But I would still import as DV-AVI and clean up VHS-originated material first, only then go to h.264.

If you really need to do it in one step, I'm afraid your only solution is hardware.

Think I've found a cheap way to do it: Ez Grabber designed to capture video source from VHS (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Grabber-designed-capture-source-editing/dp/B000S0QIPI/) Scroll down here to see available settings: Technical Support (http://www.tvstick.co.uk/support/default.asp)

For me this is perfect: VHS (s-video out) to my Canopus AVCD (which cleans up the picture immensely) to the 'EZ-Grabber' to my PC's hard drive. Thus VHSs get saved in an easily archivable format with little faffing around. And no-one on that Amazon page reports stuff going out of sync, which used to be a frequent problem with archiving VHSs via external boxes.

I don't trust CDs or DVDs for long term storage. And what do you do when you've got hundreds and you want to find something? Or decide it's time to transfer them all to some format yet to be developed? Like perhaps a video i-pod ten years hence. It has to be hard drives. As long as there's two copies (and no nuclear war generating an EMP!) they're safe and easily accessible (provided you label them sensibly!). But if I want to copy a VHS at hi-res I use the Canopus box on its own.

I'll post how well it goes.


p.s. If any of you XP users thought that DirectX10 was only available to Vista users, do a Google for "dierctX 10" +XP. Someone's hacked it, and it's working fine here so far! Look out for Fix 3 - it comes as a simple installer. But you do need a compatible graphics card. If you want to know which DirectX you currently have installed: Start/Run/dxdiag

So if I got this right, you go analog into the ADVC, analog out, and into the Grabber, right? And Grabber is basically a hardware compressor, correct? I am wondering, what format do you use, as it offers MPEG1/2/4 options.

I always used my old D8 Sony camcorder to digitize to DV-AVI. I would capture a few tapes during the day (unfortunately this part has to be done manually) and set Procoder to batch encode overnight to whatever format I want, usually DVD compliant MPEG2 set to about 4MBps, it really makes no sense to go any higher. If needed, Procoder's built-in filters can be used to clean up the video.

And you are perfectly right about hard drives. Even external RAID1s are inexpensive enough now to where it makes more sense to archive to them. I bought a 2TB WD eSata/Firewire800/Firewire400/USB drive http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/552322-REG/Western_Digital_WDH2Q20000N_2TB_My_Book_Studio.html for just over 300 USD (price in free fall, now only $264) - gives me 900+ GB in RAID1 mode. At 4MBps an hour of video file size is just under 2GB, so 450 hours can be stored on this drive... that's almost for free at 66 cents per hour of video - about the price of a blank DVD, but without the fear your DVD will go bad in a few years.

So if I got this right, you go analog into the ADVC, analog out, and into the Grabber, right? And Grabber is basically a hardware compressor, correct? I am wondering, what format do you use, as it offers MPEG1/2/4 options.
I've only just ordered it from Amazon! It'll be S_Video all the way to the grabber. I'll try a few settings and see how it goes. Obviously it's of no use for pro work (it can't possibly be!) or maybe just for sticking something quickly up on YouTube, but what I like is that it's minimum fuss (once set up) and is in real time. No - yawn - rendering to another format. Dunno how they manage that, but you do need DirectX 9.0.c (with a compatible graphics card) and a USB2 port that's not being shared (I had incredible probs with a hard drive until I realised it was sharing the same USB bus with a printer).

It may well have a tendency to screw up on tape glitches, but the TBC in the Canopus box will smooth those out.

As for safe storage, have you checked out the Drobo? Data Robotics, Inc. (http://www.drobo.com/) Again, that looks too good to be true.


p.s. I do so like the way this forum "Automatically retrieve titles from external links" Very neat.

Heh! Just realised - most people here won't know what a TBC is. I was in a pro edit suite in Soho the other day and the guys there had no idea what the switches on the back of an old u-matic were for!

Timebase correction - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Base_Corrector)

This is what you need to get the best quality digital conversion from old analog tapes. It's why I bought the Canopus box. It comes with extra goodies like adjustable color comb filters, Y/C separation, etc. If I ever knew what that stuff meant I forgot it long ago, but my VHS tapes have never looked so good!

:-)