16mm film to Betamax to DVD to MP4?
 

So here's the story... I have a set of DVD's that -- to the best of my knowledge -- are a product of the following workflow:

16MM Film > Tape Format* > DVD

(* The tape source was probably 3/4" U-matic or Betamax. This was a semi-professionally filmed church class from the 60's that was originally distributed on 16MM film, then on 3/4" U-Matic, then on Betamax as technology progressed through the 70's).

My goal is to take the DVDs and create MP4 files to facilitate online streaming, etc. To answer some questions ahead of time... I do not have the 16MM film available to me (I wish!), I'm not sure if it even still exists. Also, I do not have the 2nd-generation tape source(s) available to me, and I don't know who performed the tape-to-DVD transfer (in 2004 based on file timestamps).

What is my best option for creating the highest-possible quality files from an IVTC and/or deinterlacing perspective? I have some experience with QTGMC for deinterlacing, and I've been very pleased with the results; but, I know for a fact in this case that the material was telecined (I even verified using DGIndex and MEGui and stepping through frames). Should I do something simpler/faster like TIVTC?

Thanks in advance!

I wouldn't waste time with IVTC. That ship sailed. It's not film anymore, or even close to it.

- Rip (DVD Decrypter IFO mode, guides at this site)
- Restore color/noise if needed
- Crop/mask overscan and film edges
- QTGMC deinterlace
- Avidemux to x264 in MP4 container in Constant Quantize of about 16-18.

Samples need for specific problems (probably in their own threads), but that's basically it.

Great, thanks LS, I'll give that workflow a shot.

There are nearly 30 hours of video, I'm not even going to bother with color correction or noise reduction, it would take forever (fortunately the color isn't too bad anyway). I really just want to minimize making things worse in the process of converting to MP4 :)

Sometimes you can cheat, and use Yadif instead of QTGMC. Don;t try it on animated, or anything with lots of fine details or linear shapes. But for general live-action content, it can be hard to tell the difference between Yadif and QTGMC unless huge. Aliasing is the main difference. Yadif slightly aliases, QTGMC mostly does not.

I don't use Yadif often, but I'd never say never.