[Richard Mamary]

Dave, thanks for the response.

I imagine your :30 spots are filled with lots of effects, 3d renderings, animations, etc., and are not straight footage with color correction.

I hear you about more gigs.

Just curious, what kind of system + specs, are you using for your renders?

[Richard Mamary]

UPDATE

As a test, I deleted all but the Photofilter effect, just to see how this would affect render time.
With only this effect, the render time still says 6 hours.

This also seems to me to be a bit long. Am I wrong? Is 6 hours normal for a two hour piece, with Photofilter?

Is 16 hours for all the effects normal as well?

[Richard Mamary]

Thanks for that good advice!
Cheers.
Richard

[Richard Mamary]

Thanks for the responses.

The tapes themselves, look like they are in pretty good shape. I have run an 8mm head cleaner several times, and it seems to make no difference.

I guess if the tapes collected moisture, there might be a way for a layman, such as myself to dry them out?

As I have no equipment for that purpose, do you think it would be dangerous to put them near a dry heat radiator, or near an oven at low temp?

I had to step out and will try some of the other tapes as soon as I get the chance. If it’s only one or two of them, I could get through the 2 minute at a time, capturing deal.

What gets me, is what good does the air spray do, if there is nothing in there to spray out? Why does it help, when simply ejecting and reinserting the tape results in the breaking up?
It is so weird.

But, I have had good results with the Sony Player before, and like I said it’s immaculate inside.

[Richard Mamary]

Rennie and Rafael, thanks for your help.

Unfortunately, the straight Vhs to DVD dub won’t work this time, because I have already shown a split screen test with color correction on one side, the original on the other, and was praised for the work.

So I can’t get away from digitizing it twice without having some serious egg on my face. I have to plod along. But, I will pick up one of those set-top Vhs-DVD boxes, for when all I need is a straight dub.

As to these set-top boxes, I know I can spend a lot or a little. Do you have a recommendation? Is there any brand I should avoid? No worries if nothing comes to mind as I will do an internet search, and try to find some reviews. I just figured if either of you have one and are thrilled with it, you might mention it.

And, thanks for the clarity regarding the DVCPro50 codec.
But, for the future, would any digital footage, that I can directly import with firewire into FCP, benefit from this? DVCam? MiniDV, etc. That sounds like a great trick to use if it could work.

I need a little clarity regarding amount of time recorded on a DVD.
Until this project, I have been under the impression that you could burn 2-hours of nearly DV quality footage onto DVD. Apparently, I have been completely wrong on this.

So if I want to make the highest quality DVD, I can have no more than one hour of footage on it? Is this based on the format I am starting with? Does it matter that I am only starting with Vhs, as opposed to DV?

Rennie, you noted you can fit 1 hour of DV quality, or 2 hours of S-Video quality footage on one 4.7GB DVD.

To fit 2 hours of Vhs footage on one DVD, as I mentioned, I have to encode with Compressor at 4.7 bitrate. How much of the original Vhs picture quality am I losing by doing this?

Does two-pass, vs. one-pass VBR affect quality? (I’m sorry I am asking such inane questions.)

I know, Rafael mentioned, I can encode 1 hour instead at 7.0, (with original audio), and double up the amount of discs. But will there be a marked, (naked eye), improvement in quality?

I am roped into this thing, and have over 40 hours to do, (no deadline thank God), and though I have to get on with it, I just want to make sure I am doing it right. And, learn my lessons for the future.

Thanks again for all your help.

[Richard Mamary]

Thanks Rafael,

Any extra info you have for me, whenever you have a chance is greatly appreciated.

As to preparing M2v’s in Compressor.
Does bitrate affect quality? And if so, how much?

The original two hour tapes captured in DVNTSC were 25GB.
In order to get them to fit on a 4.7GB DVD, I had to encode them at a 4.7 bit rate. And make the audio AC3.

if the DV50 capture is going to be 50GB per two hour tape, will I have to encode at an even lower bitrate?

Will two one hour DVD’s at 7.0 bitrate have a visible difference in quality, to one two hour DVD at 4.7 bitrate?

Regards,
Richard

[Richard Mamary]

Thanks for that advice Rafael,

Just so I’m clear.

Capture the Vhs footage with DV50 preset, thereby saving more of the color information.
Use Compressor to convert to MPEG2 for DVD burning.

Also, in your opinion…
If I export the DV50 as DV, will it then retain the color info?

And, would capturing as DV50 and then printing to tape, say to DVCam, provide a better copy than going straight with component and s-video cables, from Vhs to DVCam?

Regards,
Richard

[Richard Mamary]

Hey Dave,
I appreciate you getting back to me.
I though that doubling up was way too long, and that something must be wrong.
Thanks for the confirmation.
All The Best,
Richard

[Richard Mamary]

Ok, were getting somewhere! Thanks so much for hanging in here with me.
I made a test composition set to DV Widescreen Preset. Brought in some of my 3:2 photos. Fitted them to the composition height, with black bars on the sides, rendered it as animation, brought the file into DVDSP, marked the track as letterbox, encoded to 16:9, and Voila, produced a DVD that opens wide in DVD Player, and letterboxed on a 4:3 set.
The only problem left is there were also bars on the sides of the image on the 4:3 set. I would have liked it to have been flush on the sides of the 4:3 set.
Is this fixable, or is it a byproduct of being able to show it in both formats? If not, I will certainly live with it.
Thank you again.

[Richard Mamary]

I wanted to add that I also created a custom composition that was 720×405 with square pixels and rendered that as an animation and encoded it as 16:9
It also played squeezed in DVD player in a 4:3 window. I don’t know why DVD player doesn’t open it up widescreen.
However, I opened it in VLC player, and it opened it up widescreen!
But, VLC also opened up the 720 x 480 widescreen version you suggested in a squeezed 4:3 window.
getting closer….