Video capture from LaserDisc - realistic? (1 Viewer)

[Rob Gillespie]

Yup, that makes sense Jeff. Thanks.

Buzz, thanks for that info. A problem with ordering something like this from the US is the import charges I'd have to pay. There would be VAT at 17.5% plus additional handling fees. That £321 is more likely to be closer to £400. Still cheaper than buying it over here, but not that much. That's an expensive proposition just to tranfer a handful of movies. I can get the ADVC-1394 for about £240 here or for abour £320 with Premiere (not sure I'll really need that to be honest).

 

[Wayne Bundrick]

Rob, what do you have for a CPU? I've got a 2.4 GHz P4, and software MPEG encoding with it is fast enough for me. Encoding jobs that used to run overnight on my Pentium III take just a few hours on my P4.

Anyway, if you're going to encode movies then TMPGenc can remove the 3:2 pulldown and encode it as progressive frames with field repeat flags, plus the two pass encoding is the best way to put a two hour movie on one DVD-R. On the other hand, both of those add to the encoding time.

 

[Rob Gillespie]

I run three machines here Wayne, that fastest being an XP2000+ (1.66ghz). In all honesty the speed of processing isn't really a problem. I'm quite happy to leave it for however long it takes to get the best results. I've done MPEG1 (VCD) encoding jobs with all the high-quality stuff on on TMPGENC and it's taken 30-odd hours. I don't mind.

I am concerned about spending too much here. I don't have any VHS material to transfer nor have I ever been into camcorders and such like. If I spend to much I think it might end up being wasted.

 

[Ken Chan]

You might consider something like a WinTV. The Radio model (#401) has S-video input, $99. You ignore any capture software that comes with it (I have not been impressed with Hauppage software) and use VirtualDub with Huffyuv (both free). I have not used that particular card, but it is well-supported by other video projects like Dscaler and MythTV; it has a well-recognized chipset. Buy it from somewhere with a good return policy And you can watch TV on your PC.

//Ken

 

[Jeff Kleist]

Rob, an idea that may be a little sneaky, but save you money:

Order it to a friend's house in the US, have them ship it to your as a present. Save VAT and get the cheaper price

 

[Rob Gillespie]

Well fellas, I've gone for the ADVC-1394. I did put serious consideration into the higher-priced models (and thanks for the offer there, Buzz). Thing is though, capturing these LDs is my main purpose for buying right now and the increased speed of conversion isn't a big concern for me. I also don't actually *need* Premier to do what I want to do (though I could have had it for another £100 with the 1394). The price was a big factor here and I couldn't really justify spending that extra £100-£200.

So the card should be with me within a few days. No doubt I'll be back here asking for advice

 

[JeremyFr]

Ok I didn't see anyone bring this up but it is possible to record the 5.1 content you'll need to have a soundcard with digital inputs ie. SB Audigy/audigy 2 and others. Simply hook up the 5.1 output to the digital in on the soundcard either optical or coax in. Next start up a wave recording program and record the bitstream as a wave file, next change the extension to .ac3 from .wav and tadaa 5.1 audio.

 

[Rob Gillespie]

Jeremy - is this something you've tried with LaserDisc?

I could possibly see that working with LD DTS but Dolby Digital on LD comes out through an RF coax output and would have to go through a demodulator first.

 

[JeremyFr]

well yeah it would have to be demodulated but it should work I've done it before for audio only recordings. works with dts to, but with dts you just leave it as a .wav and it will play fine through a decoder.

 

[Wayne Bundrick]

Yep, laserdisc AC3 has to be demodulated first. But I don't have a separate demodulator, I depend on my A/V receiver which has it built-in. I'm not sure but I doubt the receiver will pass the demodulated data to its digital out. Then, it wouldn't be easy for me to capture digital audio to my computer. Also, I'd want to capture it along with the video, because I don't want to have to go through the pain of synchronizing it.

 

[JeremyFr]

as long as the software lets you record in 44.1 stereo format wav along with the video then you should be fine. and in all reality you would only need to title the audio if it was a wholy seperate file or you were doing audio only. but really you just need to make sure you're audio is set for 44.1, 16 bit,stereo in your video software and then hook up the dolby out to a digital in, mind you it will just sound like constant pink noise while you're dubbing once you pop that into a player hooked up to your receiver you should be fine.

 

[Ken Chan]

More and more programs can convert to 5.1 AC3 -- the problem is having the 5.1 sources and mixing them properly. For Dolby Surround (matrixed 2-channel PCM) on LDs, you're better off just converting to 2.0 AC3.

I also don't actually *need* Premier to do what I want to do

Are you getting the software bundle with the card? I dunno about Vegas 3.0 LE, but 4.0 is nice. It has more built-in features than Premiere 6.5, and I prefer its look and feel. On the flip side, there's a lot more third party support for Premiere.

Never used WinProducer. The problem with many of these "easy" DVD programs is that they suck.

//Ken

 

[Wayne Bundrick]

Oh, I know how to do it Jeremy, but I said it wouldn't be easy for my computer to record digital audio. You're assuming that my video capture setup records its audio from any SoundBlaster type card, and it doesn't.

 

[Rob Gillespie]

There is software with the card and I seem to remember Vegas being mentioned plus a couple of others. I'll be doing very little editing of the video which is why I'm not too concerned about it. Once I've got the video and audio streams I can encode and create a basic DVD using the software I already have here (mostly freeware). Anything else will come later but it'll do for now.

 

[Philip Hamm]

I'm thinking of doing similar work in the future. I have a firewire card and have a DVD-R unit on order. I plan on making DVDs of home movies transferred from 8mm and DV home movies. My VideoCD productions have been a success so far. If I had some way of capturing analog I'd like to do some irreplacable LaserDiscs as well.

What's up with the "Dazzle" card that goes for something like $79 at Best Buy? Is it total crap? My sound card has a digital in, can I capture the video from the analog capture device and the audio from the sound card simultaneously? I'm using Scenalyzer Live for capture and Pinnacle Studio 8 for authoring.

 

[Rob Gillespie]

Yeah, I'm looking forward to trying all of this. I don't suppose we'll ever see the REAL Star Wars films on DVD so it'll be nice to have a durable version of them. Once I've got the hang of things I'd like to try and capture a few DTS LDs too - Titanic, Schindler's, Casper

 

[Rob Gillespie]

That's a good point Buzz. However I think at least with DTS on LD or CD it is possible as it's stored as a PCM track. I've ripped DTS from CD before and edited it in SoundForge. Of course you can't hear the audio (well, unless you're into FZSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSH sounds) but I was able to perform basic cropping of the files which is probably enough for syncing with a captured LD video signal.

 

[Wayne Bundrick]

There were early demo DTS DVDs before DTS-capable DVD players came about, and they used the same PCM disguise trick as laserdisc and CD. DVD authoring software won't know that the wav file isn't really PCM.

But DTS on laserdisc can't transfer directly to DVD because laserdisc PCM is 44.1k and DVD PCM is 48k. You'd have to decode it to six channels, convert the sample rate, then re-encode it.

 

[mattCR]

This topic went around the HTF forum for years... and then as rules changed, we stopped discussing it. While this doesn't impact as many people now, I'm willing to put up guides if we have people who are still interested in this subject.

I still have quite a few titles that only exist on LD, never came to DVD.. and some I have preserved for posterity sake (ahem, Star Wars 4-6?)


For the most part, to be honest, when I capture to keep, I just capture the Digital Audio (which is fine for most cases). There are methods to capture DTS (which is time consuming but not bad), and AC3 (which is both time consuming, annoying, and requires different hardware and so far my results have sucked... I all the time get "slightly out of sync" issues)


But like I said, the unfortunate part is that Laserdisc Rot is real. And quite a few of the titles I had will never be re-issued on DVD or Bluray. Partly because they weren't popular enough, partly because they are just minor releases.. in one big case it's because the studio has decided to pretend it doesn't exist or something..


The process is pretty straightforward, no matter how you do it if digital audio capture is OK. Who knows, maybe it will inspire me to finally convert my Art of Tom and Jerry laserdiscs..


The easiest method is simple: hook up your Laserdisc player to a set top DVD recorder. Then, you should be able to make this into MKV files for storage on your local network or media server.

IF you are interested in preserving AC3 Audio, you'll need an AC3RF Demodulator and a SPDIF capture, using a PC (possible)

Capturing DTS Laserdiscs is far more of a trick - not impossible, but a whole lot of work. I did this ONE time just to prove it could be done, and I don't think I'd do it again, as I can't find anything that was released in DTS on LD that has not since been released on DVD or BD.

 

[Spencer Draper]

How did you manage to capture LD DTS? I've considered obtaining DTS LDs for some theatrical mixes but could never figure out how to go about getting the whole 5.1 converted properly.