Hi, Gretel,

Welcome to the Forum! Probably the best format to save your video production would be MPEG2. To keep the file size in gigabytes down, perhaps MPEG2 in DVD-SP would be your best bet. As you get more familar with Power Director, you'll gradually learn that there are ways and means to "spruce up" those old analogue VHS-sourced videos. I do quite a bit of it myself(I often convert old analogue content to DVD for friends or family). This can be quite an interesting hobby, and a lot of fun as well!

Cheers!

Neil.

Thanks so much! I appreciate you taking the time to help this newbie!!

Quote: I've edited my old video and now need to produce it. This video (formerly tape) is almost 2 hours long. What format should I use to produce it?

All DVDs thast play on DVD players are mpg2 so Neil gave you the right answer.

VHS tapes- originals are really not very good when you are looking at it with modern equipment. So that you don't reduce the quality further, make sure you use a good quality double layer DVD. .
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BoilerPlate: To posters who ask for help -- it is nice to thank the volunteers who try to answer your questions !
Anything I post unless stated with a reference is my personal opinion.

Hello, Gretel and SteveK!

I'm glad we were able to help, Gretel, but I need to caution you in relation to the use of dual-layer DVD blanks, Many domestic DVD players will quite happily play the commercially mass-produced dual-layer discs carrying the latest Hollywood blockbuster, but will "spit the dummy" when it comes to playing "home-burn" dual-layer discs. That has been my experience in any case, that's why I've included you in this post, SteveK.

Seems to me I get chided sometimes for suggesting people burn discs at DVD-SP grade, but I stand by my suggestion as it allows a single-layer disc to hold up to 2 hours, 25 minutes of content AND single-layer discs far more readily compatible with domestic DVD players anyway, and the picture quality is not as bad as it has been made out to be, actually it's quite watchable! And in any case, the fix/enhance feature provides the necessary tools to "spruce up" the content of those old tapes! A tweak of the contrast, add a touch of video denoiser and, hey, the video clips are almost as good as if shot digitally!.... Okay, that's an exaggeration, but still.... the fix/enhance tool is very useful in sprucing up those old VHS or Beta, or camera tapes(VHS-C or Video 8/Hi-8 tapes). I know because I put fix/enhance to good use when processing such content on behalf of friends or family. Oh, by the way, the phrase "spit the dummy" means throw a tantrum in Australian slang, a Dummy is an infant pacifyer.

Cheers!

Neil

My opinion.
I disagree with you Neil regarding using DVD-SP.

For those that remember VCD and SCVCD, the frame size of the former was visually a quarter (half the scale) of a DVD and of the latter was a squashed frame expanded by a TV display. DVD-SP lowers the video quality to fit more data into the available space, note here is it "lowers the video quality". When a VHS tape is digitalized, you need to retain the maximum quality on ones system and when showing to friends and family. I would
a) retain the max quality on your computer, Create a duel sided DVD.
b) I would look to create an mp4 version by overlaying the captured VHS video onto a 16:9 background. An mp4 is likely readable via the disc player, if not, one could also look at a using a USB connection and memory key.

VHS quality is about between VCD and DVD.

Use colloquial phrases carefully as they often get lost in translation or just not knowing what the heck you mean. When the BBC TV program was popular and it is often repeated, "Only Fools and Horses", the phrase "what a plonker" was used. Another is Dinky, after a now defunct toy maker. Whereas an American using the term "thanks a bunch" means they are extremely grateful where as in Britain it is a sarcastic comment.
Plonker, Plonk = Person with Little Or No Knowledge.
Dinky = Double Income No Kids Yet
There are many such abbreviations and slang terms around, some no longer in general use. Be very careful when using them.
Dafydd

Looks like you may be able to 'squeeze' as much as you can onto a DVD Neil - but Dafydd has a point - at the cost of video quality.

So it seems it's a decision of what 'you' want - put all the stuff you can onto a DVD or you make more DVDs with as good a video quality as possible.

My opinion would be to view stills and video with the best quality - but hey, if someone really just wants all they can put onto one DVD, then you squeeze as much into one DVD like you say Neil.

CS PD13 Ultimate - Build 3516, WIN 8.1, 64 Bit, 16G RAM, Intel Core i5 4460, CPU @ 3.2GHz, NVIDIA GeForce GT720, Graphics Memory(total avail.)-4093MB
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One can always break up the 2+ hours of video into 2 separate projects and burn to single layer DVD.

What does a single layer DVD cost now? About 15 cents US for the best quality

The one hour per disc could be a nice place to have a US term (pit stop". .
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BoilerPlate: To posters who ask for help -- it is nice to thank the volunteers who try to answer your questions !
Anything I post unless stated with a reference is my personal opinion.

To CS2014, Dafydd B. & SteveK!

It appears you three still don't really understand my intentions! I tried once to burn a DVD at DVD-HQ grade, but the result was a disc that stuttered and froze in spots throughout the duration of the video as it played on a domestic player. When burning again the same clip in DVD-SP, the disc played smoothly with NO GLITCHES! It appears you'e always running down DVD-SP because of YOUR perceived loss of video image quality. I see no such loss, to be quite honest - AND I'M NOT BLIND!(I'll get that in quickly before someone else makes that comment). A DVD, burned in SP, when viewed on a typical flat-screen TV at a normal distance across a room, really doesn't look as poorly as you try to make it out. And, quite frankly, you're selling a product short by saying that.

One of you mentioned using dual-sided discs, I've only seen commercially-made feature movies put on such, but have, as yet not seen dual-sided blanks, either in DVD+R or DVD-R, they're not that widely available. As to dual-layer(DVD-9, 8.5Gb discs), these are okay to store data, but for burning videos they are NOT compatible with a great number of domestic DVD plyers, even the most-recently-manufactured ones! So it's pointless to suggest them! I'm looking for overall compatibility plus trouble-free playback, even on early model players(and yes, provided they are single-layer, a lot of earlier model players can cope with home-burn discs). So now I hope the three of you, and anyone else who has likewise criticised my methods, finally get my point!

It's no good making a DVD of 2 hours on a dual-layer disc if a domestic DVD player won't accept it(and most won't!) and it's a futile excercise burning a one-hour DVD-HQ disc if it's going to stutter and freeze at verious points through the "movie", such behaviour ruins the presentation.

Now I've had my say!

Neil.

Neil,
There is no need to shout your opinion with higher case text.

DVD-SP is ok for you. It isn't if the user wishes to retain the maximum quality of the video they have digitalized. You may not be able to see the difference but others are likely to.

The other options for the Original Poster:
1. Video sharing sites, Vimeo, YouTube etc. One can upload a video at full res and these can be streamed in. Mpeg2 would be fine, mp4 would be better, max the frame size to the captured video.
2. Using a USB connected memory device. These are great and mean you or who you give the video file to can watch the video at full res. Use a USB/Memory key. This method is reliant on the viewer having an uptodate TV.

Dafydd

The OP is what format to use for video tape. I think we all want the OP-er to get the best quality they can wiorking with whatever video material they have.Didn't mean to get you all riled up there Neil! Was only expressing my opinions and I stick to them as first posted.

I do understand your point/s though and if someone only has old equipment that is not compatable with playing dual sided or dual layered discs - I can see that may be a problem.

I'm much more focused on video resolution/clarity/sharpness than trying to get as much as material possible from old VHS tapes - onto DVDs. Oh I will do some of this soon, but I'm satisified if those captured moments span several discs.

They're just my opinions Neil - we all have them eh?

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LG WH14NS40 Blu-Ray Drive

I would NEVER capture tape at less than maximum available quality, it's what you do AFTER the capture, and what medium will be used in viewing, that can have a few variables. HP Envy Phoenix/4thGen i7-4770(4@3.4GHz~turbo>3.9)
Nvidia GTX 960(4GB)/16GB DDR3/
Canon Vixia HV30/HF-M40/HF-M41/HF-G20/Olympus E-PL5.
Tape capture using 6 VCR, TBC-1000, Elite BVP4+, Sony D8 camcorder with TBC.
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From a quality perspective, wouldn't it be best to edit the digitized footage, and save the edited video in the same format of the original. Then no transcoding will take place and your edited video will be as good as the captured footage, where you can't get any better than that.

Then you can take that edited video and share in as many formats as needed to meet your viewers' needs, whether that be DVD, Youtube, Vimeo, mp4, etc. You will always have the original footage and edited master. I would store these on multiple hard drives, backed up, offsite, etc. I don't consider dye based DVD's archival quality.

Im also interesting to know the best capture option for VHS.

The capture format I currently use is AVI in PD14.

It creates very big file. Can you confirm it is the best option for archives ?

All my VHS captures were done through a Canopus analog to digital converter. I can't remember the model, but it provided a Firewire interface to the computer, and all captures were done in the DV-AVI format, about 13GB per hour. I kept all my archives in that format. Hard drive space is inexpensive comparatively, IMO. Again, in my opinion, that is the best archive quality. Some people will say that MPEG2 DVD quality is more than sufficient for storing VHS captures, which is fine, but I tend to over-do things (at least that's what my wife says )

The VHS.PNG screenshot show AVI at a capture resolution of 320x240 @29.97 fps with pcm audio. That would be bad for both ntsc and pal. You have to decide what system France uses. I would expect a vhs capture of 640x480@29.97fps for ntsc and 640x576@25fps for pal and both being interlaced. 720 resolution capture may be available depending on your capture device. 1/2 DV captures are available with a resolution of 352x480/576 mpeg-2 are available again depending on the capture device.

Thank you for your comment.

Vhs is 352x288. So you confirm that this is better to use higher resolution like 640x576@25fps ?

Should I continue to use avi lossless format or is it better to use mpeg2 ?

Quote: All my VHS captures were done through a Canopus analog to digital converter. I can't remember the model, but it provided a Firewire interface to the computer, and all captures were done in the DV-AVI format, about 13GB per hour. I kept all my archives in that format. Hard drive space is inexpensive comparatively, IMO. Again, in my opinion, that is the best archive quality. Some people will say that MPEG2 DVD quality is more than sufficient for storing VHS captures, which is fine, but I tend to over-do things (at least that's what my wife says )

Hello, jklein!

I've tried rendering once to AVI(either DV-AVI or Windows-AVI) and, luckily for me, did not go ahead with the render when I saw what the likely file size might be. You've just recently learned that DV-AVI will gobble up 13 gigabytes per hour of content from your old tapes.... that's quite a hefty chunk of hard-drive space. My capture card has been set to capture at DVD-LP in MPEG-2, which keeps the file size down to manageable levels. You can set the file type in which you wish to capture content from analogue sources using the preference(click on the cog wheel, near top left of screen). I chose DVD-LP quite deliberately, in spite of criticism by others on this site, because I noticed some strange, unwanted effects which plague the capture at settings of DVD-SP or higher.

Once captured, I can spruce up my video content using the Fix/Enhance settings, this usually entails a tweaking of the contrast, brightness(if and when required) and applying video denoise. And because the aspect ratio of this capture is 4:3, I apply the CLPV effect to bring the content out to 16:9 wide-screen aspect ratio. Not everyone wants that, but I do, the difference made is certainly an enhancement to the clip.

Cheers!

Neil.

Quote: You have to decide what system France uses.

Hello, Tomasc!

The colour system used in France was of their own making, SECAM! And to be brutally honest, it was rubbish! It was so bad it could not be used in the stations' studios because it could not cope with switching from one to another camera(typical news bulletin - switch from one newsreader to another, or to the sports or weather presenter) without loss of synchronisation or screen colours going "negative". It's because of the problems plaguing SECAM that French TV stations were kitted out in PAL equipment and the signal was sent as PAL to the transmitter and transcoded to SECAM only at the transmitter. Perhaps the French finally decided to abandon the system and adopt PAL when they went digital. The SECAM option just isn't available these days when dealing with video, either shooting with digital cameras or lifting content from old analogue tapes, it's all either PAL or NTSC.

Cheers!

Neil.

Quote: Vhs is 352x288. So you confirm that this is better to use higher resolution like 640x576@25fps ?

Should I continue to use avi lossless format or is it better to use mpeg2 ?

Analog vhs tape is about 240 lines in horizontal resolution. In the pal system it has 576 scan lines where each field is 288 scan lines. If you capture 352x2888 then you get the full horizontal resolution but effectively deinterlaced the capture video to a progressive format in which one of the two interlaced field is discarded. Your vertical resolution is effectively cut in half. This is the pal vcd resolution and not the pal vhs resolution. It would be better to capture in the ½ DV resolution formats which is 352x576 mpeg-2 which is interlaced if you want to save on disc space. There is no need to use a avi lossless format. I don’t recommend any avi lossless format for vhs as it waste disc space in my opinion.

Again I do not know if France use the pal format for vhs tapes. I cannot get a clear answer on what is the vhs tape recorders format sold in France are from searching the internet.