Capture and compression formats, VHS H.264?

[jeffpeck]

I am embarking on a VHS capture project of around 45 old VHS tapes, mostly from a camcorder from the 1980s. I am awaiting a VCR that I purchased via this site, as well as an ES-10 that I bought on eBay, but I currently have the USB capture device and I have already started experimenting with it using a VCR that I happen to have at the moment.

I am doing this on a 2017 MacBook Pro, with a 3.1GHz Core i7 processor and 16GB of RAM. I am using a Diamond VC500 that I bought on Amazon for around 40 dollars:
http://www.diamondmm.com/vc500mac-di...e-usb-mac.html

I am trying to come up with a strategy of how to initially capture and how to compress afterwards.

The software that comes with the USB device - Empia - has several options for compression including MPEG4, H.264, and several others.

I am thinking however that it makes sense to use Apple Intermediate Codec or DV initially and then compress to H.264 with a tool like Handbrake afterwards.

I am also wondering if there is ideal "frames per second" and "key frame every..." rate. Do VHS tapes have different frame rates? Or can I assume that everything is 24fps? The default is "Best", but I am wondering if there would be an advantage to explicitly setting it to something.

Finally, once the video is captured and I am going to compress it, I would likely go with H.264, but is there any reason to do MPEG4 instead? (Let's just say that I am probably not going to keep the original DV forever after the video has been captured and compressed.)

Will choosing H.264 put me at a disadvantage if I want to burn it to DVD one day?

And is H.264 even any good with transferred VHS tapes that were captured on a handheld camera? (I understand that some of the H.264 optimization accounts for steady camera motion.)

Thanks for any help/advice!

[lordsmurf]

Busy now, but quick reply...

Mac is terrible at video capture, but if that's what you must use, then DV is your only real option. Mac was a DV-only workflow in SD era (and does nothing in HD era). Windows was always the OS for video work. Realize I'm platform agnostic: Mac for photo, Windows for video, Linux for internet/web. I dislike DV, it has drawbacks -- cooks color, over-compresses chroma. But again, DV is the only real choice with Mac capture. Software choices are also pretty miserable, nothing like VirtualDub is available.

I'm not sure that's a good card for Mac or DV. When working in DV, a specialized DV box is best. I think your current card is software DV, and a hardware DV encoder is vastly superior from a dropped frames and stability stance.

Don't use H.264. It's a delivery/output format/codec. Capture to DV, lossless, or even MPEG. DV and MPEG semi-archival, not huge files. Lossless as intermediaries for editing or restoration, usually not ideal as archive due to huge sizes. Of course, only 45 tapes, just a 2tb drive probably all that's needed.

H.264 handles interlace poorly. Most devices expect progressive, most non-pro/appliance encoders encoder it poorly. H.264 only decent when making viewing copy of archival master, and after proper deinterlace (usually QTGMC, sometimes a Yadif).

DVD is set spec of MPEG-2 only, very specific.
Same for Blu-ray, etc.

Do yourself a favor: keep the DV. You'll kick yourself in a decade or two (or your kids/grandkids/family will). Even H.264 is showing it's age, and I'm seeing the beginnings of it being shelved for H.265/x265.

NTSC videotape is exactly 29.97, the end.
PAL is 25.
Nothing is 24fps. NTSCfilm is 23.976.

Hopefully I didn't miss anything.