Resolution questions (1 Viewer)

[Kriszi]

I'm trying to compare the quality of recording a VHS tape versus a hard drive set at highest quality. From what I understand a VHS tape can record 240 lines out of the 333 (am I right about this?)broadcast. A hard drive Recorder should be able to record all 333 lines and then burn those to a DVD which will then be able to display 333 lines (even though it is capable of displaying 480 lines using different source material). Since the only thing I'm interested in doing is archiving some regular NTSC programs onto DVDs would I be just as well off recording them on a super VHS tape(I can buy a super vhs recorder for next to nothing) and then transferring that material to my computer through my digital camcorder and burning a DVD there? Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[Allan Jayne]

Yes you are right about the resolution of regular VHS, what is happening is that the process can't preserve consecutive juxtaposed horizontal details smaller than 1/240'th a span across equal to the screen height.

Can you record directly with your computer? Or at least record onto the tape in the camcorder skipping the S-VHS VCR you just bought or decided not to buy?

As you described it (record onto S-VHS, then copy (analog)to camcorder, then copy (digital I hope) to computer you are doing multiple generations of copy and the quality worsens with each.

If you used the hard disk recorder, there is just one copy (digital) to the burned DVD. Much better than the multiple generatios I just described.

(There is stil some loss in the digital copying I described, since the menthods are probably not one for one pixel for pixel.

Finally the use of the VHS VCR (S or regular) is inferior to the hard disk recorder in that the former has mechanical jitter generally consisting of time base errors, or the slight difference in where each scan line starts that in turn causes a perfectly vertical line to be irregularly jagged.

Video hints:
http://members.aol.com/ajaynejr/video.htm