My Classic Disney Christmas VHS collection now on DVD

[mvealf]

Sir Hawkins,

would you be interested in trading for copies of your "Walt Disney Christmas" and "Jiminy Cricket's Christmas" dubs??

I have both of these on laserdisc. Making DVDs from the laserdiscs would look MUCH better than the VHS tapes. I really like Jiminy Cricket's Christmas, which is just a re-titled version of "From All Of Us To All Of You".<p><img border="0" src="http://www.geocities.com/disney_laserdi ... a-1295.jpg" width="200" height="200"></p>

[Sir Hawkins]

I have both of these on laserdisc. Making DVDs from the laserdiscs would look MUCH better than the VHS tapes. I really like Jiminy Cricket's Christmas, which is just a re-titled version of "From All Of Us To All Of You".<p><img border="0" src="http://www.geocities.com/disney_laserdi ... a-1295.jpg" width="200" height="200"></p>

Ahh yes, Laserdiscs had come across my mind. However I do not have a LD player, and buying one would make the project only that much more costly. But you know, if there was any way you could digitally transfer those to me (as an uncompressed DV .avi file would be best) than I would have some serious material on my hands.

[deathie mouse]

Why does everything I create end up being lost? Ah phooie.

Cus you're an elusive artist?



The paper for the DVD has to be at least 11 inches long
The glossier the paper the sharpest most saturated contrasty the images will look. But i woudn't know if super glossy paper would stick to the transparent plastic cover or not

Good to see all of you working in the lab preserving things on the slab
____________

For all of you that have asked about if VHS (or Laserdisc for that matter) to DVD can look as good etc etc.

Technicaly if you do everything right you lose very little. And if you have the tools you could correct and improve the apparent image too, especially for tapes that are a little off.

Here's my "little" check list

First thing is to have a good playback machine of course not all machines are equal
One that has good auto tracking (and for really screwed tapes, manual tracking)
One that has S-VHS outputs (even if your tapes are not in S-VHS, the color signal is recorded on VHS separatedly so keeping it separate when dubbing is good )
(on Laserdisc try both RCA and S-VHS outputs, depending on your set up's comb filters (3-line motion adaptive ones are best ). One output may give better results than the other.)
On VHS, S-VHS connector is besto. (Theoretically )
DVD as you may know uses separate color components too.
If you have Hi Fi tapes, or VHS stereo, or Dolby stereo ones of course you need the appropiate tape machine with those outputs. I think very few decks these days may only output the (non Hi Fi) linear track in anything other than mono... (I only have ONE vhs tape in dolby stereo (A GoGos out of print tape ) so mm I need to rent a pro deck for 2 hours one day to transfer that, otherwise i'll get mono)
If you can, check that both sound channels are being recorded equally high (unless of course that section of the soundtrack is going left or right) For example something that you know goes in the middle, like a mono soundtrack or dialogue centraly recorded should be at the same level on both recording channels. This is important for when you put that soundtrack through you ProLogicII Dolby decoder on your 5.1 receiver (one way you could test this is hearing for leakage on the surround channel but thats for another day another topic )
A built in video stabilizer is good, or you can get an outboard TBC (Time Base Corrector)
If you want to tweak things before recording you need a ProcAmp (Proccessing Amp) that has the standart color controls (brigthness/black level, contrast/while level, color/saturatoion/chroma, tint. Some advanced ones could have more stuff like gamma and sharpness/detail) If you can do stuff in the computer you can do all that (and more!)there, but you'll be doing it to the already digitized into 8 bits data, so if you know what youre doing, a proc amp before digitizing would give you a fuller"transfer" for any mayor changes before yuou'd start tweaking the digitized data.
A good test VHS tape (one with SMPTE color bars) (and i mean a REAL test tape ) is a good thing cus you can measure those video IRE levels to ensure youre recording 100 white as 100 white, etc etc. (100% IRE white should end on level 216 on a DVD) (and that level 216 should be watched on a computer in level 256) If you don't have a real test tape maybe some prerecorded movie tape might have it but those might not be too trustful. You could also record color bars fron tv station, that (supposedly) lets you calibrate that station's signal (i say supposedly cus some stations are out of whack! ) so i wouldnt trust them much neither. On my cable, Disney channel always looks kind of good tho (oh Raven!)
All this procamp/levels stuff is also useful to play/raise the 0 IRE black level of Japanese Laserdiscs into the USA 7.5 IRE standart too for those making spot-on Laser stuff.
Once you have everything calibrated (and looking at it on a calibrated computer monitor if you have one) you can decide if that old Song of the South tape would look better with a little more color or a small twist of the tint or sharpness knob or if it would need to be a little brighter or darker before recording it. (but be sure of what youre doing )
So in a sense you can improve a little how it LOOKS. the aim is to capture onto discrete digital samples the best available look. Then AFTERWARDS, you can also do a little more tweaking on the computer if you have the software to do it (like 16:9 matting/widescreen enhancements from your Open Matte 4:3 videotapes. etc, etc)

ok now were ready to record

3 technical issues here:

First, Analog NTSC video is 486 Luminance (b &w) lines tall and so is VHS so when you go to Digital consumer video which has 480 (unless you have expensive pro gear) 6 vertical lines go bye bye (6 lines are cropped out) . Btw many VHS VCRS have video head switching errors at the bottom: in an underscanned TVset or computer you could see a displacemet distortion of the image on the bottom 6 or so lines (ideally the 6 that are cut off would be this same bottom 6 but that doesnt always happen, some of the top are cut instead ) if you dont watch on tvs with underscan you have never seen this and wont see them if they are recorded on dvd I wouldnt worry about this but im just telling ya so you know it's there

Second., NTSC VHS, like Laserdisc and broadcast video, has also 486 vertical lines of color resolution. It's one of the few things that VHS has equal to all the other analog formats, in all other deparments is worse. BUT mpeg2 video (like DVD) has ONLY 240 (half of the 480 Luminance ones) So when you record color video onto DVD you lose half the vertical color resolution . (On prerecorded movie DVD this is also hapening but DVD's have so much better *horizontal* color resolution than any other consumer analog format and since they do the transfersdirectly from movie negatives and prints the color is always shraper overall) So that's one point where you might notice a degradation, the color migh look "fuzzier" on close inspection on the dvd copy than in the original tape. But on the other hand maybe some of the chroma noise might be cancelled by the halving the color resolution. I'm just telling ya so you know 'bout it. Maybe some of you would like to know that before recording those precious baby/vacation/wedding tapes and throwing them through the window as they do in the commercial

(So you say but what can we do? that will happen anyway if we record to mpeg2 so what can we do 'bout it. Well you can record anything superduper essential onto DV format (be it on DV tape or onto computer HD or DVD-R's) DV video preserves the full 480 vertical color stuff. (of course that's more expensive as DV occupies more space and is less convinient as it's not poppable DVD that goes anywhere) But I thought you might like to know before preserving and discarding anything precious. (Oh my precious) Don't say the dethi didn't tell ya

3rd technical issue, VHS has very low horizontal resolution (around 200 to 300 pixels more or less in most cases, which is less than half of DVD's 720) Sooo supposedly you can compress lots of it ("Record 6 hours on one DVD-R!" and other dvd recorder ads etc ) but it also has a lot of analog noise which is also hard to compress. unless your proc amp or some of your analog to digital gizmos have NR (noise reduction) well the mpeg2 compressor (or the DV format compressor if ya go that route ) will look hard to preserve the noise (it thinks it's "detail") and use a lots of bits for it so you could get a lot of extra compression artifacts than you'd expect if you compress like crazy. So make some test if youre gonna try to record at different compression levels. (i know some of you have thousands of hours of soap operas and stuff that you wanna compress into a single disc) just check how the quality holds up if not recording at the maximum quality one hour per DVD-R speed. Also remember that menues and stuff can take up a little of the space in that regard.(less bits left for the movie: more compression artifacts)

Talking about noise reduction and other manipulation, also remember not to go crazy and overdo those things like NR if you do them, use a light touch. NR can look pretty spiffy at first . look ma! i got rid of all the noise! but mm you could afterwards, when careful leisure viewing it, note that: where has the quality of my image gone? there's no noise but theres no good definition neither!!

Ok thats more or less it to get the most out of your tape (or LD) preservation.

Some of you may not have all the tools to do everything and thats ok. You can record the best you can and if in the futuere you get extra stuff (like Blu-Ray DVD recorders! ;P) and do another version if needed and warranted. At least your tapes wont wear. till that time comes


there's one more secret stuff, but if i told you, i would have to dethi you

_________________
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

[Disney Guru]

u_u[/code]

[Sir Hawkins]

Wow deathie! That's quite alot of info, but it did help me alot! I have the conversion process down to a tea, but the exact mechanics and specific details of it I haven't much bothered to find out about. That really clears it up. Also the pointers regarding vhs transfer will be helpful for my next transfer.
I have something to add also that you might find useful. When you connect non-computer electronic equipment (such as a VCR) to a computer for transfering analog video, there's a good chance you will get a very noticeable hum in your audio. This is because of a phenomenon known as "ground looping". I don't know what all it involves, but basically it's because a computer doesn't have the same type of circuitry/power setup and thus it creates some kind of interference. I noticed this when hooking up my VCR to my DV cam to transfer these Disney Christmas tapes to DVD. After capturing and then viewing the .avi file, there would be a hum/buzzuing throughout the entire thing. So I had to use a "ground loop isolater" (below) to be had on eBay or Radioshack for about $15.


What it is is a device that goes between your non-computer device and your video capturing hardware. THe name pretty much describes it all. It isolates the ground loop that causes the hum, and you have clean, artifact-less VHS-quality audio to go with your transfer.

I know I'm getting pretty techie but I figured since deathie started it I might as well add my 2 cents.