video capture for video tapes, kde, vlc media player

lord_valarian · August 9, 2016, 1:12am

What’s is best settings to convert video tapes (VCR) to digital video? Video tapes can be recorded on various quality setting. 1 hour/tape → 8 hours on a tape.

When digitizing a video tape and “easycap” using vlc → digital video (MP4, AVI). You have quality settings from low to high quality. The screen size can be from 320 to 720p. I need general advice how to use the settings, depending on video quality. Thanks.

gogalthorp · August 9, 2016, 3:17am

Bigger is better but also larger files.

farcusnz · August 9, 2016, 7:24pm

the general recommendation for digitizing vhs video is to use a resolution of 720x480 for NTSC tapes

john_hudson · August 9, 2016, 10:37pm

I use the highest quality I can get using MPEG2 and then use the Kdenlive convert clips option to convert the MPEG2 to a compressed format.

tsu2 · August 10, 2016, 7:07am

Wow,
I’m sure entire books are written on media conversion, video editing and transcoding.

But, some very common, general principles.

For your initial conversion to digital, you want to retain as much information as possible. This will generally mean a very high bitrate, very high resolution and a very raw, uncompressed format. This applies not only for your video stream, but your audio stream as well.
MPEG-2 is an “OK” initial format, it is and was the standard for the first VCDs and commercial DVDs. Even today, possibly for maximum compatibility many streaming services are still using MPEG-2.
You should learn the difference between codecs and containers. A container is something like MPG, AVI, MP3, etc. The container is only that… and has hardly anything to do with the format and compression of the content itself, which is defined by the chosen codec. Popular codecs include h.264 and h.265, Theora, VP8 and FLAC. Experiment with different codecs and understand any licensing restrictions for your use (eg For most private use the “proprietary” h.264 and h.265 codecs can be used legally but if you exceed the 100 device limitation you are supposed to pay fees). Experimenting with different containers is probably a waste of time. Note though how you can use a container format to make it more easy for a specific application to open your media file encoded with a particular codec.

The above only covers some <very> basic ground. Beyond that, you can (and should) design/configure your transcoding to suit your specific need… for example, whether streaming or local play, constant or variable bitrates, filtering, qualithy, compression, enhancing, resolution, more.

TSU

lord_valarian · August 11, 2016, 12:17am

tsu2:

Wow,
I’m sure entire books are written on media conversion, video editing and transcoding.

But, some very common, general principles.

For your initial conversion to digital, you want to retain as much information as possible. This will generally mean a very high bitrate, very high resolution and a very raw, uncompressed format. This applies not only for your video stream, but your audio stream as well.

MPEG-2 is an “OK” initial format, it is and was the standard for the first VCDs and commercial DVDs. Even today, possibly for maximum compatibility many streaming services are still using MPEG-2.

You should learn the difference between codecs and containers. A container is something like MPG, AVI, MP3, etc. The container is only that… and has hardly anything to do with the format and compression of the content itself, which is defined by the chosen codec. Popular codecs include h.264 and h.265, Theora, VP8 and FLAC. Experiment with different codecs and understand any licensing restrictions for your use (eg For most private use the “proprietary” h.264 and h.265 codecs can be used legally but if you exceed the 100 device limitation you are supposed to pay fees). Experimenting with different containers is probably a waste of time. Note though how you can use a container format to make it more easy for a specific application to open your media file encoded with a particular codec.

The above only covers some <very> basic ground. Beyond that, you can (and should) design/configure your transcoding to suit your specific need… for example, whether streaming or local play, constant or variable bitrates, filtering, qualithy, compression, enhancing, resolution, more.

TSU

Thanks for the info. I’ll file that info away into my linux text file.

I digitized a 2 and 1/2 hour movie at the max: highest quality and 720x480 in mswin. The video was as a 7.7gig file. With linux WINFF GUI, I converted it to an avi file with default settings. The AVI was a 1.5 gig file. I still have the original file. I think I can increase the quality so it will still fit on a dvd.