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

Sailor Guy

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

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May 26, 2013 14:57

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

Tim Corner

Newbie Joined: Jan 21, 2013 15:05 Messages: 11 Offline

May 26, 2013 18:25

Hi

I ran across this which may be of help to you. It looks like some the people replying have experience with what your trying to do.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/144659-33-bitrate-tapes

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at May 26. 2013 18:25

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jmone

Senior Contributor Location: Australia Joined: Nov 26, 2010 00:05 Messages: 706 Offline

May 26, 2013 19:01

FYI - Here is the specs that may help
-VHS : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VHS#Audio_recording
-DVD : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD-Video

Couple of notes / suggestions
- NTSC VHS supports the same amount of scan lines as NTSC TV of 480 "Lines". While it has an "equivalent resolution" of 333×480 pixels I'd suggest you capture it in a std NTSC format of 720x480. The rest of you DVD profile looks fine at 6mbps
- It would be very unusual to encode a NTSC DVD with AAC audio. The normal std for NTSC DVD's are DD (AC3).
- MP4 - There is no point creating a files that is "higher" resolution than what you captured in unless it is for some specific device compatibility reason. Also AVC/AAC is more efficient than MPEG2/DD (DVD) so you should be able to lower the bit rate for the same resolution and frame rate.
- Your weakest link will be the poor quality of the source material on your old NTSC tapes. If I was you I'd grab a later release that is already in digital form.

Thanks
Nathan

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