Best video/audio formats for converted old VHS Disney movies for DVD (MPEG2) and Apple TV (MPEG4)

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Sailor Guy

Member Location: St. Louis, Missouri USA Joined: Aug 19, 2012 10:23 Messages: 73 Offline

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May 26, 2013 14:56

I have dozens of old Disney and Warner Brothers VHS animated movies from my kids' childhoods that I want to digitally preserve.

I've captured the VHS tapes as AVI files and want to produce two output formats. I'd like to 1) burn DVDs (MPEG2) and 2) create MPEG4 files that I can play on an Apple TV via iTunes.

I've experimented with various resolutions, video and audio bit rates. My MPEG2 DVDs look good but the colors are more muted than the MPEG4 files I created for the Apple TV. But the MPEG4 colors seem "over-saturated" and I have a slight "band" on the left and right side of the video image.

My MPEG2 properties are: 720x480, variable video bit rate 6.00 Mb, 4:3 aspect ratio, audio AAC, Stereo-2 channel, constant 192 Kbps bit rate.

My MPEG4 properties are: 640x480 (or 1280x720), variable video bit rate 6 Mb (or 9 Mb or 13 Mb), audio AAC, stereo-2 channel, constant 64 Kbps (or 192 or 227).

My goal is to get the best acceptable video/audio quality for the DVD and Apple TV formats with the smallest necessary file size. I believe VHS resolution quality is low (300x360 NTSC), so I don't want to "overkill" on the production settings.

Can anyone offer advise or their experience in converting old VHS tapes to DVD MPEG2 and MPEG4?

And I'd welcome any recommendations on specifications for capturing the VHS tapes.

Thank you,

Sailor Guy PD 16 Ulimate 64-bit 16.0.2313.0; PhotoDir 7 Ultra; Win 10 Home 64-bit; Intel i5-2500K @3.3hGhz; 8 GB; NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti (4GB); Pinnacle Studio MovieBox HD 510-USB; Canopus ADVC-300; Sony Optiarc AD-7260S DVD; LG BE14 Blu-Ray

Carl312

Senior Contributor Location: Texas, USA Joined: Mar 16, 2010 20:11 Messages: 9090 Offline

May 26, 2013 22:07

How much money are you willing to spend?

The quality of the Video tape is limited by the original quality and by the capture device you use to convert the VHS tape to a Digital format.

There are better capture devices that do some error correcting. They are a bit expensive (hundreds of dollars).
The native format of a DVD as you may know is MPEG-2 HQ or 720x480 with bit rate of about 8 Megabits.

Commercial made Video tapes are made with the highest quality equipment that is better than the home tape machine. So You want to use the highest quality capture device.

After you have the best quality video you can capture, you can then produce the Apple format video. I would make a custom MP4 profile for a better output.

Edit: Correct a word

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at May 26. 2013 22:11

Carl312: Windows 10 64-bit 8 GB RAM,AMD Phenom II X4 965 3.4 GHz,ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB,240GB SSD,two 1TB HDs.