John_Berger
Senior HTF Member
- Joined
- Nov 1, 2001
- Messages
- 2,489
I asked this in another thread that I started a while ago about the best method to VHS-based DVDs in. For VHS tapes I use half-D1 MPEG-2 and the resulting quality is gorgeous -- well, as gorgeous as VHS can be.
Here's the twist.
I've been starting to change my focus to recording favorite shows to DVD after recording them on VHS. The reason why I do this is because the majority of these shows come from digital cable and there is no digital cable box in the room where my video capture system resides. Digital cable uses MPEG-1, not MPEG-2. The issue that was brought up before was that of interlacing and why half-D1 MPEG-2 is better than MPEG-1 when recording from VHS.
Since MPEG-1 has a maximum resolution of 352x240, would it make sense to halve the amount of material that can fit on the DVD for half-D1 MPEG-2? Is there something about the way that digital cable transmits that would make it better to use that method as opposed to creating a maximum-bitrate MPEG-1 DVD?
It just seems to me that the real source material, regardless of being recorded on VHS, is MPEG-1, so it might not make any sense to make an MPEG-2 DVD from that material. The other part of me says that making an MPEG-1 DVD while capturing material from a VHS tape over an analog-to-digital bridge (meaning capture files of 720x480 resolution) could result in further compression artifacts on the final product, thus suggesting that half-D1 MPEG-2 might be the better way to go at the expense of only holding 1/2 the amount of material.
Suggestions on which route (pronounced "root", not "rout" ) is best? Anyone? Anyone? Beuller?
Here's the twist.
I've been starting to change my focus to recording favorite shows to DVD after recording them on VHS. The reason why I do this is because the majority of these shows come from digital cable and there is no digital cable box in the room where my video capture system resides. Digital cable uses MPEG-1, not MPEG-2. The issue that was brought up before was that of interlacing and why half-D1 MPEG-2 is better than MPEG-1 when recording from VHS.
Since MPEG-1 has a maximum resolution of 352x240, would it make sense to halve the amount of material that can fit on the DVD for half-D1 MPEG-2? Is there something about the way that digital cable transmits that would make it better to use that method as opposed to creating a maximum-bitrate MPEG-1 DVD?
It just seems to me that the real source material, regardless of being recorded on VHS, is MPEG-1, so it might not make any sense to make an MPEG-2 DVD from that material. The other part of me says that making an MPEG-1 DVD while capturing material from a VHS tape over an analog-to-digital bridge (meaning capture files of 720x480 resolution) could result in further compression artifacts on the final product, thus suggesting that half-D1 MPEG-2 might be the better way to go at the expense of only holding 1/2 the amount of material.
Suggestions on which route (pronounced "root", not "rout" ) is best? Anyone? Anyone? Beuller?