Hello Smurf,
I have several VHS tapes of various qualities, mostly home movies that I would like to capture in the best quality possible, then burn them to a DVD. I have used several different methods with various results which I will explain later in this message.
The equipment I have is an ATI All in Wonder 8500DV card, a JVC VCR/DVD combo with S-video out for both VHS and DVD and a Sony Digital Video Camera DCR-TRV 38. My computer is a P4 with lots of hard disk space and 512 megs of RAM.
My software is Womble Video editor,
Adobe Premiere 6.0, ATI MMC 8.7 and
Nero 6.
First, I connected a VCR to the ATI card and captured the video tape using the guidelines for a composite capture on your web site, saving the file as a mpeg 2 using 720 x 480 resolution. In an effort to improve quality, I bought a new JVC VCR with S-Video output and connected it to the S-Video port on the ATI card, also saving it as an mpeg 2 and using 720 x 480 resolution. I read that if you run it through a video camera it would improve the quality even more. So, I bought the necessary cables and connected the S-Video out of my VCR to the S-Video connection on my Sony camera to the fire wire port on my computer using the Sony software for the capture. The problem with this is that the Sony software only allows 10 minutes of capture at one time and you have no choice as to the resolution, saving it as 320 x 240. The good part of the Sony software is that it is in a format that both Womble and
Adobe will both open. Next, I tried using Adobe Premiere for the capture, again using the video camera, saving the file as a AVI with 720 x 480 resolution. The quality is good but the files are very large and Womble Video editor will not open them.
I would very much appreciate your opinion, giving the equipment and software I have what would be the best possible capture. I prefer using Womble over Adobe but will use which ever gives the best quality.
Nero 6 has been able to burn both formats to DVD’s with no problem, although the AVI files take much longer to burn. My editing really only consists of cutting out the bad parts but thought that I may use some of the filters in Adobe to help improve them. In a perfect world I would like to capture in a format that will open in both Womble and Adobe at a 720 x 480 resolution. Is this possible?
Thank you in advance for your help.