Hi Barry

What's your workflow now, if you do use the standard 64-bit PD editor?

If the imported clips look good and the main issue is that the bundled DVD codec isn't up to snuff, I imagine you could produce to a higher bitrate format then use something like VDub2 to "finalize" (i.e. convert) the vid into a higher quality DVD format.

Have you looked at whether making a custom produce profile would make any difference? I'm pretty rusty on DVD/MPEG2 specs.

I imagine you've already looked into things like these and are just looking for a way to mix and match 3rd party tools. That would certainly make life easier!

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Quote Hi Barry
What's your workflow now, if you do use the standard 64-bit PD editor?

Oh my god, Ron, it's all over the barnyard sometimes. I think I experiment more than edit!
I capture in PD12 32bit or Vdub, always Huffyuv.
I then do processing in Vdub and/or Avidemux, using the same Huffyuv, and then export a nice interlaced MPEG2 at 9,000 rate max from Avidemux. I need to go through Avidemux because PD can't seem to avoid interlacing artifacts straight from an uncompressed AVI, but uncompressed AVI for old tape capture avoids loads of compression noise, and allows for more processing without quality loss. Having fun yet?

Quote
If the imported clips look good and the main issue is that the bundled DVD codec isn't up to snuff, I imagine you could produce to a higher bitrate format then use something like VDub2 to "finalize" (i.e. convert) the vid into a higher quality DVD format.
Have you looked at whether making a custom produce profile would make any difference? I'm pretty rusty on DVD/MPEG2 specs.
I imagine you've already looked into things like these and are just looking for a way to mix and match 3rd party tools. That would certainly make life easier!

The files I capture and edit make very nice progressive streaming files so that is OK, it's getting a decent DVD burned that seems to be where the trouble is. Going to disc it just seems to get messy, the burning engine or something. Of course a 42" TV with the content from Analog 8 or VHS, it's never going to be wonderful, but I was thinking access to a different codec or something would stop the obvious quality loss from timeline to disc. Maybe I'm chasing unicorns. Video is moving forward and I'm going backward! 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.
https://www.facebook.com/BarryAFTT

Barry, I think you have maxed out your quality, you just can not make a HD video out of a very low defination source, which most home VCRs are.

You are lucky if the VCR can do 400 lines, most don't.

For myself, most of my video tapes were recorded at EP mode, (about two hours on a 60 minute tape). A few were recorded at SP mode, They are much better, but it takes twice the amout of tape. 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.

Quote Barry, I think you have maxed out your quality, you just can not make a HD video out of a very low defination source, which most home VCRs are.

You are lucky if the VCR can do 400 lines, most don't.

For myself, most of my video tapes were recorded at EP mode, (about two hours on a 60 minute tape). A few were recorded at SP mode, They are much better, but it takes twice the amout of tape.

Hi Carl, the videos look fairly acceptable as progressive MP4 files, and even though the MPEG2 renders are a little softer, they're not bad, it's the act of puttng it on a DVD for TV playing where so much compression becomes visible. You are correct, though, it isn't HD and never will be, though I have a pretty robust work flow and equipment for capture. JVC-S-7800U, Panny ES-15, Datavideo-1000TBC, and a Sharp S-VHS for tapes that won't play in my JVC. Chasing unicorns. 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.
https://www.facebook.com/BarryAFTT

Quote
Oh my god, Ron, it's all over the barnyard sometimes. I think I experiment more than edit!
...
I then do processing in Vdub and/or Avidemux, using the same Huffyuv, and then export a nice interlaced MPEG2 at 9,000 rate max from Avidemux. I need to go through Avidemux because PD can't seem to avoid interlacing artifacts straight from an uncompressed AVI,
...
it's never going to be wonderful, but I was thinking access to a different codec or something would stop the obvious quality loss from timeline to disc. Maybe I'm chasing unicorns. Video is moving forward and I'm going backward!

Can you post a link to a captured HuffYUV clip, the matching MPEG2 clip, along with a DVD rip of what PD's burn-to-disc looks like? Having all of those might help me figure out if there's a way to save a step or two, or even (semi-miraculously) see if PD can burn sharper/crisper video to disc.

This may take some time, but it looks like an interesting challenge!

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While I'm waiting for some sample clips, I did a quick comparison on converting a 20 minute HD 60p MTS clip into both HuffYUV (v2.1.1 from 2003) and MagicYUV (v2.0.0 from 2018) using VDub2.

Obviously this test resulted in much bigger files (and longer conversion times) than you're likely to ever get with an analog tape source, but the differences are very stark and I'm wondering if there's a reason you've chosen HuffYUV over Magic (and/or any other lossless codecs).

To start, the MYUV conversion whipped along at over 200fps and created an 85.9GB AVI file in under 6 minutes. (The source file is 3.9GB in size and was located on an internal HDD. The target disk in both tests was an internal SSD):


The HuffYUV conversion was much slower, taking well over an hour to produce a 206GB(!) AVI file


Maybe I don't have something optimized for HuffYUV, but the conversion performance alone is poor enough that I wouldn't really consider using it. Especially with HD or above clips.

When I brought both clips into the full 64-bit PD17 editor, I ran into a serious preview performance issue with the HuffYUV clip, but not anything you'd likely run into with lower resolution clips. As you can see from the MediaInfo tabs, the only real difference between the two converted clips is the overall bit rate:



Since HuffYUV's overall bitrate is more than double MYUV's, the file size also has to be more than double, but I think it's the bitrate itself that leads to the performance issue in PD17. Actually I think it's a system issue, because even my Samsung 860 EVO SSD can't keep up with an almost 1.5Gbps bitstream. Lowering the preview resolution had no effect at all, which is why I think the bottleneck is in trying to get all that data off the SSD every second.

Again, that's not going to impact any lower res clips, but it's the end of my HD HuffYUV testing. The MagicYUV clip, as you might expect, ran smoothly even in Full HD Preview Resolution and with a second full screen monitor. The source MTS clip was mostly useable in the same configuration, but it skipped 1 or 2 frames every second.

Once I get some sample clips, I can look at the editor performance with a more realistic setup, and see what I can find about improving the burned disc video quality. One step at a time, though!

YouTube/optodata

DS365 | Win11 Pro | Ryzen 9 3950X | RTX 4070 Ti | 32GB RAM | 10TB SSDs | 5K+4K HDR monitors

Canon Vixia GX10 (4K 60p) | HF G30 (HD 60p) | Yi Action+ 4K | 360Fly 4K 360°