Outputting VHS conversions for DVD and LCD TV
 

Hi all,

It's been a long summer, but thanks to lots of help from people on here, and a natty TimeBase Corrector from Lord Smurf, I'm now amassing quite a collection of raw AVI (Lagaraith or Huffyuv) capture files. The time has come to start sorting them out, and I'm after some more advice.

The files in question will end up in two formats - MPEG2 for authoring onto DVDs to be sent back to the original tape owners, and H264 MP4s so they can be played on a Kodi box that accesses my home media server.

The sum total of editing required is a fade in (video and audio) and a fade out (video and audio), plus some chapter markers so I can jump to various points in the video on DVD (and, ultimately, on the MP4 files).

I don't believe that VirtualDub can do audio fades and I have a sub to Adobe Premiere Pro anyway, so I'm trying to use that for this editing and Adobe Media Encoder for final output. And this is where the confusion begins.

Here's the question, therefore. These files will almost certainly end up being watched on a widescreen LCD television (in the case of my MP4s, they definitely will). So do I edit them and stretch them to that aspect ratio etc in Premiere Pro and output them that way? Or do I keep them in the original aspect ratio during editing and then use Adobe Media Encoder to stretch the image to fill a widescreen ratio during final output? I am aware, of course, that there is a bit of a penalty in quality by doing this - but I'd rather have the footage filling the screen instead of big black lines down either side of the picture.

Any advice gratefully received, as always.

Discy

I'm very happy now using Davinci Resolve, This video editor is free, but the free version does not include an de-interlace function.
Keep 4:3 just in 4:3.... it's full frame on a 4:3 screen, and when playing on a 16:9 screen the viewer can make it full frame the way he likes it, or not, on his player.(stretching will bring down the resolution ,which is not needed in advance, and makes the image small and with bars on a 4:3 screen)
In davinci resolve you can make easy fades, with the GUI, also for the audio, and even decrease or increase parts stepless where needed, all edits/adjustments you see live on-screen, you can encode compressed or uncompressed, depending on what your system can handle, if you want to de-interlace you should do your MPEG encoding externally

You mean you want to distort 4:3 videos belonging to someone else and encode them at 16:9? No way. Anyone who would do that to a client should be put out of business. If you did that to my videos, I'd sue.


On the other hand, if you want your own copies on mp4 and you enjoy watching distortion and lowering quality, that's your business. Just don't make a mess of someone else's property. If they want their stuff distorted, they can always use their own tv controls to do it. What if I encoded your videos to 2.24:1 Panavision so that they always play letterboxed no matter how you view them? I don't think you'd enjoy it.

Good point, well made! :)

In the end, I've done them in 4:3, based on the retouching via AVISynth that you helped me with. So if the end user decides to stretch them to 16:9 they can, but the original format remains.

Discy