#1  
09-07-2011, 04:23 AM
Windsong404 Windsong404 is offline
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I have a relatively simple question, but have been unable to find the answer.

I have a TV program recorded on a DVD+RW in LP mode (disc holds 4 hrs. of recording time). I wish to transfer it to a DVD+R to save.

I plan to play the original in my DVD player in real time, and record it with my DVD Recorder. If I record the LP program in SP (so disc holds 2 hrs. of recording time), will it offer an improved picture quality?

Thank you for your help!
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  #2  
09-07-2011, 07:42 AM
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Quote:
will it offer an improved picture quality?
No. If anything, it may just make it worse.

Ideally, you'd want to copy the DVD in a computer, where copies are 1:1 bit-for-bit exact copies.
Analog copying (DVD player into DVD recorder) will only degrade the signal quality, giving a poorer image than the original.

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  #3  
09-09-2011, 03:41 AM
Windsong404 Windsong404 is offline
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Thank you so much for your information. I'm glad to have it before I attempted to transfer the TV program.

I only wish I had known this information when I transferred several SP to SP recordings, using the method I described above.

I'll look into how to use the computer to do it from now on. Thanks again!
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  #4  
09-10-2011, 10:11 PM
Windsong404 Windsong404 is offline
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Is the same true for copying VHS to DVD? Better to get the VHS footage into the computer and make the DVD that way, than to play the VHS tape in the VCR and record it with the DVD Recorder? Thanks in advance.
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  #5  
09-10-2011, 11:15 PM
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In some cases have taken, crapy DVD's, and re-recorded them to SVHS video, through the use of different filters of my VCR's and external TBC have improved the quality.

Granted the source recordings were pretty poor to begin with. Than the final work was done with software.

However if I had the source recording, would have never had to do these steps.


Re-recording DVD's ?????

Have a few DVD's that I recorded to the computer back in 2005, and didn't like a few things in the picture.

Re-recorded them, with some hardware filters, and got better results than the source.

Have a bunch of pixelated internet videos.

Converted the files to mp4 .264, than created a sound restore software patch (which fixes the audio)

Did a few edits to the videos.....

Than issued the files to DVD....

Played the DVD's on an upconvert DVD player, ran the signal through a TBC, next to a digital tuner, than to my JVC 79000 VCR (Why this last step, no idea, it helps clean up the pixelation for some reason) Finally re-record them to my JVC MV5 DVD Recorder.

Take the recording than do some software cleaning and sharpining. The end results are 100 times better than the bloody horrible source recording.

(Only doing this cause the source videos are damaged internet FLV files)

(The material is rare to impossible to find, and no longer even on the internet)

With these internet files also messed around with converting them to VHS and playing them play with the NR Filter in the JVC VCR, however the picture is not as good as my other method.


Really Bad VHS to DVD copies

In one case the DVD VHS copy has so much random noise, that the only way to fix was to record to the JVC VCR. Than let the NR filters of the VCR help clean up the video. The video degraded a bit, the noise problem on that video was fixed.

One of the restore projects was on a 4 hour mode DVD (VHS to DVD copy).

(This was a nightmare to fix and tried a lot of different methods before using DVD to VHS, back to DVD than to Software)


4 hour recordings

Have a few 4 hour recodings of Digital TV, haven't really had the time or looked in to ways of fixing them.

Personally, never record anything above 1h and 30 minutes per disk, because of heavy macro blocking and low bit rates.

****This is what I need to research if it is possible to fix the damage that was done with using horrible bit-rates****

(Some cases I know the answer is YES, but it is a pain in the a$$, YES the quality has been already WRECKED)

The more times you re-record DVD's the worse the picture gets. Got ok results using a blu-ray player for one of the projects. If you record 3 to 5 times the quality of the picture will go way down hill.

My thoughts are also if you have a DVD player that improves the picture, sometimes re-recording that picture can help.

(Have 12 different DVD players, with different playback specs, so it is a little different, plus some of the players cost a little bit more than the three they are selling at Best Buy these days)


PAL to NTSC


Have used, DVD to DVD method to help fix some PAL recordings with motion problems.

Converted them to NTSC, the results are normally better than the source, but again using a TBC and a digital tuner to help with the video signal.

Have a DVD recorder that soften the picture and cleans it a tad and another recorder which has a sharper picture.

It depends on the recording which one is used......

Last edited by deter; 09-10-2011 at 11:53 PM.
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  #6  
09-11-2011, 02:42 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Windsong404 View Post
Is the same true for copying VHS to DVD? Better to get the VHS footage into the computer and make the DVD that way, than to play the VHS tape in the VCR and record it with the DVD Recorder? Thanks in advance.
No.

There are several DVD recorders that are well known for the inherent abilities to clean up VHS quality. These same abilities are not found in any computer capture cards. These are very specific models, or model series, with the most reliable (best quality) units being from JVC. If you search or browse the forum, you'll notice various models mentioned for their abilities to remove chroma noise, such as the JVC DR-M10 or JVC DR-M100. These models all use the LSI Logic Domino chipset, and had intelligent quality settings, such as FR155 or FR180.

The Digital FAQ marketplace forum -- to buy, sell, or trade video gear -- had some for sale not long ago. Check to see if any are still available.

Now, there are some benefits to using capture cards, with uncompressed or lossless AVI, in order to restore video heavily in software.

It's a system of trade-offs.
- DVD recorders use MPEG hardware encoders. / Upside: Clean-up filters. / Downside: Lossy MPEG encoding.
- Capture cards (lossless AVI) have the opposite issue. / Upside: No compression. / Downside: No clean-up in hardware.

Having a good VCR further complicates the decision, because the VCR can provide some level of clean-up. How much? Well, that depends entirely on the tape. And by "good VCR", I mean something from this list: http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vide...ing-guide.html. Not just the layman's idea of what a good VCR is.

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  #7  
09-11-2011, 02:50 PM
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To give Windsong404 some added commentary...

Quote:
Originally Posted by deter View Post
In some cases have taken, crapy DVD's, and re-recorded them to SVHS video, through the use of different filters of my VCR's and external TBC have improved the quality.
I know a lot of people who used to do that. However, these days, there's been enough advances in Avisynth and other editing software that all-digital, all-computer methods can easily yield superior results. It wasn't that way 5-10 years ago, but it is now.

Quote:
(Only doing this cause the source videos are damaged internet FLV files)
Same here. Newer Avisynth methods.

___

@Windsong404: Ideally, you want to start with a clean analog signal, then further filter it digitally and the analog video was digitized ("captured"). If you don't have access to the analog video, that's where so many problems come in.

Quote:
4 hour recordings
With the exception of a few DVDs (JVC decks), 4-hour mode recordings should never be done. On a good JVC DVD recorder, 4-hour and 2-hour are visually the same, as the compression ratios (bits to pixels) are identical. Not all recorders were using good encoders, however, nor intelligent bitrate allocations. Panasonic is a common offender at making horrible 4-hour DVDs. Early Panasonics had lousy MPEG encoders, while later Panasonic decks have good encoders with idiotic settings (Full D1 @ 4-hour = blocky junk quality).

Quote:
The more times you re-record DVD's the worse the picture gets.
Yep.

Quote:
PAL to NTSC
This is another area where more recent advances in Avisynth work, as well as Final Cut Pro tools, has made PAL<>NTSC conversion quite decent. In the past, such conversion were absolutely horrible to work with. Some of these filters have only been around for maybe 3 years in workable condition. Guides for this are forthcoming, FYI. Several of them, very long and multi-paged.

@deter: I think you'll be excited by some of the new content in development.

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