Go Back    Forum > Digital Video > Video Project Help > Capture, Record, Transfer

Reply
 
LinkBack Thread Tools
  #1  
06-21-2010, 09:08 AM
DeXeSs DeXeSs is offline
Free Member
 
Join Date: Jun 2010
Posts: 14
Thanked 3 Times in 3 Posts
Hello!

I read this statement in the capture cards section:
Cannot do MPEG. DV colorspace is often harmful to analog color quality, especially if converting VHS to DVD. Few options, minimal control.

I'm really interested in the source for this statement. How do I learn more about DV to MPEG colourspace in such a way that I can verify this statement.

I will soon have a job and will be making a donation. Thank you very much for all your help!
This is a wonderful website and thanks to LordSmurf too!
Reply With Quote
Someday, 12:01 PM
admin's Avatar
Ads / Sponsors
 
Join Date: ∞
Posts: 42
Thanks: ∞
Thanked 42 Times in 42 Posts
  #2  
06-22-2010, 05:29 AM
lordsmurf's Avatar
lordsmurf lordsmurf is online now
Site Staff | Video
 
Join Date: Dec 2002
Posts: 13,508
Thanked 2,449 Times in 2,081 Posts
Quote:
Hello!
Hi, welcome to the site!

Quote:
I read this statement in the capture cards section:
Cannot do MPEG. DV colorspace is often harmful to analog color quality, especially if converting VHS to DVD. Few options, minimal control.

I'm really interested in the source for this statement. How do I learn more about DV to MPEG colourspace in such a way that I can verify this statement.
The source of this information is me -- somebody who's been working with digital video for well more than a decade now, and analog for almost a decade before that.

There are two schools of thought, when it comes to analog to digital transfer.
  1. the "good enough" crowd (compression and noise is acceptable)
  2. and the "it needs to be better" crowd (compression is not suggested under certain conditions, noise should be pre-filtered)
Honestly, that's how you separate pros from amateurs. And just to make sure there's no confusion, pros always want the best quality.

Most of the "compressors" out there (referring to the people doing the compression) are willing to jump straight to MPEG-2 or MPEG-4, and to hell with quality. It's about speed, churning out crap as quickly and cheaply as possible -- quality is secondary.

Some compressors are more careful with it, using intelligent settings to get compressed-but-good quality -- but they're the minority. These are folks who seek out the best hardware MPEG encoders, and do their best to pre-filter the analog signal.

The main benefit of compression is size, and therefore ease of use. (DVD-Video, Flash video, H.264, etc)

The "better" crowd goes one further, preferring uncompressed or lossless video conversions, because their footage is needed for later editing. They don't want compression to be re-compressed for a lower quality output.

The main benefit of uncompressed/lossless is quality, but sacrificing use.

DV falls between these two.

While some would say it's the "best of both worlds" -- it's actually just a terrible format at either one. It compresses poorly and isn't portable. But then it also isn't a clean signal for editing, as it generally has artifacts.

Also distinguish "shooting" and "converting" in your head. DV footage shot with a DV camera will be clean, as it relies purely on its sensor for acquiring the source image. Analog-sourced video is much dirtier. And as you may know, noise is what makes compression fail to work effectively. So DV converted video will be noisier.

If you look back at the earlier documentations of the DV format, you'll notice there was never any mentions made of using it as a "all-purpose" video format. It was made to shoot with. Using it for conversion is a backwards hack, if anything, made at a time when Pentium II and 5400rpm hard drives were as fast as tech really got for consumers (the target audience of the format).

Now, to aid in DV compression, they cut an unusual corner -- colorspace.

You almost need to understand how analog colorspaces work. I'd suggest reading VCR Troubleshooting & Repair by Gregory Capelo and Robert Brenner (ISBN 0-7506-9940-X) for help with that. It's a long hard read, but ultimately worth it.

Now then, most analog video is 4:2:2 colorspace. The chrominance is -- in the interest of keeping it quick and simple -- half of the luma. DV further splits it into quarters.

Now this is where the schools of thought start to mush together a bit. Some claim that DV is "good enough" to capture all the bandwidth available on VHS. Others notice flaws in it. Both could be correct, as it's not uncommon for certain issues to vary from source to source, or even hardware to hardware.

Further compounding this issue is that fact that DV is an open format, and several companies have their own ideas of what that looks like. They each have their own codec versions: Canopus, Sony, Canon, JVC, Matrox, etc. Personally, I think Matrox has the best one, and it can be very good at times.

4:1:1 when shooting video is fine, because that's the native recording spec. But converting from one format to another, it can be obvious that something has been lost in the digital translation.

Adam Wilt has gone over some of this on his site, although his opinions are yet again a bit different. I don't think he really likes any of the colorspaces, or its use as a conversion format, but he does seem to think it is (at least in theory) "good enough" to capture everything. Don't let me put words in his mouth, though -- his writings are out there for you to read on your own.

So there's really not going to be anything for you to "verify" aside from the theory. In practice, professionals have differing opinions on whether the theory actually happens.

Quote:
I will soon have a job and will be making a donation. Thank you very much for all your help!
This is a wonderful website and thanks to LordSmurf too!
Excellent! It's how we're able to do what we do for folks like yourself.
http://www.digitalfaq.com/donate.htm

Generally such long answers would be reserved for Premium Members, but it's hard to pass up a great question.

Hope that helps.

- Did my advice help you? Then become a Premium Member and support this site.
- For sale in the marketplace: TBCs, workflows, capture cards, VCRs
Reply With Quote
The following users thank lordsmurf for this useful post: mlongue1 (12-16-2010)
  #3  
06-26-2010, 02:35 PM
DeXeSs DeXeSs is offline
Free Member
 
Join Date: Jun 2010
Posts: 14
Thanked 3 Times in 3 Posts
Thanks for the awesome response!

I'll post some follow up things later but just 2 quick questions:

1) Is this the link to download the Matrox DV codec or is there a more recent version?
http://www.soft32.com/download_179843.html

2) Does this DV codec use the whole range of luma values? (0-255)

I was pissed off to find out that Canopus HQ used only 15-235. I suppose there are corrections that could be used to fix that (AviSynth) but... arggh...

Thanks again!
Reply With Quote
The following users thank DeXeSs for this useful post: mlongue1 (12-16-2010)
  #4  
06-27-2010, 12:06 AM
admin's Avatar
admin admin is offline
Site Staff | Web Development
 
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 4,310
Thanked 654 Times in 457 Posts
Before I begin, please look at upgrading to a Premium Member account, to support what we do at this forum. Questions like this can take a lot of time to answer, especially when screen caps are involved. (We're trying to raise some funds for some new features for the site. Membership fees and donations are how we do it.)

1.

I've got some excellent news for you!
Just last month, Matrox started to share all of their codecs: http://www.matrox.com/video/en/suppo...es/version1.0/

You can now download and use for free, the following Matrox encoders:
  • Matrox DV/DVCAM
  • Matrox DVCPRO
  • Matrox DVCPRO50
  • Matrox DVCPRO HD
  • Matrox MPEG-2 I-frame in SD and HD resolutions, with or without alpha
  • Matrox Uncompressed in SD and HD resolutions, with or without alpha
  • Matrox Offline HD
And then this is available for reading/playing MJPEG and HDV:
  • Matrox M-JPEG and HDV (playback only)
It all comes in a single installer, and I've been testing it in VirtualDub v1.9.8 for about a week now. Yes, you can now encode and capture high-bitrate MPEG-2 I-frame only from within VirtualDub. Isn't that awesome?

2.

Good question. There's been some discussion on this in the past year at the Matrox forums: http://forum.matrox.com/rtx2/viewtopic.php?t=5018

After the codecs are installed, all you have to do is change the configuration.Start > Programs > Matrox > Matrox Codec Configuration, assuming you've not moved the start menu shortcuts (like I do on my systems).

matrox-dv-colorspace.jpg

I'm glad you said something! I've been so busy testing out the HDV and MPEG-2 capturing/encoding functions, that I didn't even think of the colorspace.



- Did this site help you? Then upgrade to Premium Member and show your support!
- Also: Like Us on Facebook for special DVD/Blu-ray news and deals!
Reply With Quote
The following users thank admin for this useful post: mlongue1 (12-16-2010), naripeddi (12-19-2013)
  #5  
06-27-2010, 12:55 AM
admin's Avatar
admin admin is offline
Site Staff | Web Development
 
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 4,310
Thanked 654 Times in 457 Posts
Attached, for your convenience...


Attached Files
File Type: rar Matrox-VFW-Software-Codecs-v10.part1.rar (7.92 MB, 21 downloads)
File Type: rar Matrox-VFW-Software-Codecs-v10.part2.rar (3.59 MB, 17 downloads)

- Did this site help you? Then upgrade to Premium Member and show your support!
- Also: Like Us on Facebook for special DVD/Blu-ray news and deals!
Reply With Quote
The following users thank admin for this useful post: mlongue1 (12-16-2010)
  #6  
06-27-2010, 01:38 AM
DeXeSs DeXeSs is offline
Free Member
 
Join Date: Jun 2010
Posts: 14
Thanked 3 Times in 3 Posts
Thanks!

I will get a premium account but that link did not work.

Thank you very much for all your assistance I really appreciate the helpful advice without all the anger and put downs that come from other forums. The encouragement enough would get me onto a premium membership.

For that codec settings box, I checked off the 0-255 luma settings. What about the other two check boxes, especially for amateur VHS capture.

Matrox Downloads
Reply With Quote
The following users thank DeXeSs for this useful post: mlongue1 (12-16-2010)
  #7  
06-27-2010, 01:48 AM
admin's Avatar
admin admin is offline
Site Staff | Web Development
 
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 4,310
Thanked 654 Times in 457 Posts
Quote:
Originally Posted by DeXeSs View Post
Thanks!
I will get a premium account but that link did not work.
Linked fixed: http://www.digitalFAQ.com/forum/show...emium-321.html

Quote:
Thank you very much for all your assistance I really appreciate the helpful advice without all the anger and put downs that come from other forums. The encouragement enough would get me onto a premium membership.
It's a shame so many other places online are infested with spiteful and crude members. But we're professionals here, and there's no need for those shenanigans.

Quote:
For that codec settings box, I checked off the 0-255 luma settings. What about the other two check boxes, especially for amateur VHS capture.
I don't really have a good answer for you on the other pair of checkboxes. It's been a good amount of time since I really regularly used a Matrox DV setup -- and that was back int he day when you had to have a Matrox DV card to do it.

Just do some tests, and let your eyes be your guides. Try it with some saturated videos with lots of deep reds, pinks, yellows, blues and greens. Then load those files in VirtualDub, and look at the clips slowly.

Quote:
I can't possibly describe how thrilled I am at the Matrox release last month. That's just so awesome that everything is now available like that, for use with VirtualDub.

- Did this site help you? Then upgrade to Premium Member and show your support!
- Also: Like Us on Facebook for special DVD/Blu-ray news and deals!
Reply With Quote
The following users thank admin for this useful post: mlongue1 (12-16-2010)
Reply




Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
Color Tinted Jewel Cases phobaphobia Blank Media 3 01-19-2010 07:23 PM
Color after Encoding on burned DVD Superstar Restore, Filter, Improve Quality 1 08-20-2009 05:36 PM
Questions about a Laserjet Color? markatisu Computers 6 11-09-2006 12:28 AM
Color Corrector issues? wheezer210 Capture, Record, Transfer 1 05-31-2006 09:10 AM
Color Question wheezer210 Restore, Filter, Improve Quality 2 04-18-2006 03:19 PM

Thread Tools



 
All times are GMT -5. The time now is 05:15 AM