I'm just curious what is the lowest value you would go to transfer, say, a 2 hr vcr recording in sp mode. Do you just fill the disc with the contents from 1 cassette? Is it unreasonable to hope to squeeze 2 programs (2 hr + 2 hr) onto one disc, while retaining reasonably decent quality?

So far, I have only been able to squeeze 1 sp vcr tape to 1 dvd disc. That's with 2 passes of noise reduction, too.

Well with the Panny's if there is not a lot of fast motion, I've been able to get (2) 2hr VHS's on one DVD. That said, 3hrs/DVD is much better with motion, sure cuts down on the macroblocking. Of source depending on your material, it may not be convent to split the second tape in the middle, in which case I'd use SP and get one VHS/DVD. Now with most of the other brand DVDR's I've used, I would only use the SP mode on the DVD. Anything more than 2hrs reduces the resolution too much for my liking. JMO

Given that I pay $.20 - .25 per disc, I don't see any reason to record in less than SP. If it is a matter of taking up space, get DVD cases that hold two or more DVDs. Of course, it also depends on your display. I have a 56" DLP. Some day, I may have a bigger set. Probably most people will eventually have better TVs, and regret lower quality bubs...

Good point Kjbawc, with the cost of blank DVD's, and the amount of time necessary to do the conversion, is it really worth the $.25 savings going with one DVD? Since you had the foresight to use SP on your VHS's, you obviously care about PQ, so I would have to agree, unless your source is longer than 2hrs, it probably makes sense to go with the one DVD per 2 hr. VHS. I doubt you will ever regret getting too good a quality dub. LP Panny DVD's exceed SP VHS's in resolution, but other factors also come into play, macroblocking being the main one I can think of.

I get what you all are saying, but the thing that bugs me is that it is always hammered into our heads that vhs has such low resolution. Aside from the noise, you should be able to compress the piss out of it and not encroach on the ultimate resolution of vhs.

The "1 tape/1 dvd" best practice seems reasonable to me, as well, but the curious part of me still asks why can't you go as far as 2 tape/1 dvd w/o undue compromise?

The inconsistency that happens for me is when I see how good a picture 4-5 Mb/s can preserve given a high performance source (hd tuner or direct videogame feed), putting a vcr tape into the same "space" just feels sloppy.

Aside from the noise, you should be able to compress the piss out of it and not encroach on the ultimate resolution of vhs.
The inconsistency that happens for me is when I see how good a picture 4-5 Mb/s can preserve given a high performance source (hd tuner or direct videogame feed), putting a vcr tape into the same "space" just feels sloppy.

It's XP all the way for almost all of my transfers for the reasons stated here. Cost of media is not an issue anymore, so why skimp?

Even though VHS is a "low performance" source, the resolution of your source is only one factor. Many people will argue for instance that LP looks fine for VHS transfers. While the resultant resolution from LP may more than capture the resolution of the VHS source, it doesn't address the issue of artifacting/macroblocking at lower bitrates. What good is a recording that has captured your source without the visible generation loss of analog dubbing, but has now added annoying artifacts that didn't exist on your low-res VHS master?

Given today's climate of big-screen fever, unnecessary artifacting in SD recordings is magnified significantly since LCD and Plasma displays already add processing artifacts to any input source.

I have to agree with JeffWld; although I originally would have thought like Mr. Hanky. I haven't been transferring old VHS tapes yet, but I have been recording old syndicated shows off of TV Land etc. There is definitely more to it than just the resolution. The quality of the MPEG encoder and how it compresses the video has been a major factor in my decision to record at the best record quality possible; XP if possible. Just the slightest hint of analog noise can throw the MPEG encoder for a loop resulting in all kinds of weird artifacting/macroblocking at the lower bitrates. I have recorded some old TV shows in 6hr EP mode that are almost unwatchable the encoding is so bad. Remember, you are not "copying" the tapes to DVD but rather "digitizing" them into a compressed MPEG2 encoding of them.

Mr Hanky, Yes the resolution of Panny's LP does exceed the resolution of VHS's SP, but I believe the problem is not with the resolution, but rather the Noise or S/N ratio. Assuming you had a good 4 head(preferably 80 micron heads) VCR, they were capable of very good S/N ratio recordings. Now with DVD's things seem to be different with compressions. While a stationary image might look good, motion sure does a number on MPEG2.
I have several recordings I did early on in the LP mode, only to later regret my choice. Now I haven't really noticed a big difference in XP speed, but if that speed works for your source material, it sure wouldn't hurt(that is unless you have a old DVD player, like my Apex, that refuses to play any XP speed DVD's). But I sure wouldn't limit recordings due to an old obsolete player, but it is a consideration.

I'd have to agree with excessive macroblocking when using long recording times with DVDs.
Panny's use the same full resolution in 4 hr mode as they do in 2 hr mode, however they have to reduce the bit rate. And macroblocking is sometimes obvious in motion scenes when using 4 hr recording, and this is when recording HD Clear QAM channels.

See that's why I specified I was running 2 passes of dnr in my earlier post to combat noise (I fully agree that the presence of noise incurs a heavy bitrate penalty all by itself). Now I realize that noise reduction is the antithesis of detail retention, but I am just playing around with stuff here (and how much "real" detail can really be left on a vhs tape made back in the 90's, right?). ;) I can take a big chunk out of the noise, while still leaving some that is still visible. I figure that should be worth some "bitrate savings", but I have yet to really put it to the test.

This weekend I plan to experiment with some lower bitrate encodings with the noise reduction. I am hoping that 2 tapes/1 dvd shouldn't look too bad with the extra dnr factor, but maybe I am only removing enough noise to keep 1 tape/1 dvd scenario looking decent?

My earliest trials actually did involve initial capture of the tape at high-ish bitrate settings- 7 to 8 Mb/s. At that level, I agree it does capture the content quite accurately, right down to the noise. However, you can imagine putting down a 2 hr program at that bitrate on a single dvd presents a real problem (and blowing away 2 dvds for one tape recording that is not exactly stellar in detail and carrying a lot of noise, just seems impractical to me). I suppose from a purist archival standpoint, you got to do what you got to do, but my own uses seem to suggest a less demanding (more reasonable, in my estimation) criteria. So I guess that lead me to get some feedback for this scenario from you encoding gurus! :D

Mr. Hanky - I have noticed, in my recording experience, that I can drop down the bitrate when recording the same channels/shows from my digital cable STB via S-Video rather than analog cable. Presumably, someone already transfered the old analog show to digital and it has already been compressed on some professional equipment.

On my Samsungs, which half the resolution from SP - LP modes, I have been able to record the same shows in LP mode with comparable quality to SP mode. Recording the shows from analog cable in LP mode would result in weird compression artifacts.

I would still point out that there was still a noticable difference in resolution when doing this. It was just that the noise, absent in the digital cable feed, did not create any artifacts in my recordings. 240 lines of resolution in analog terms is not quite the same as encoding at 352x480 in digital terms. How the MPEG2 encoder decides to compress the pixels can still eliminate "real" resolution.

What I mean by that is, even in modern primetime broadcast recordings, I loose detail in my recordings on my Samsungs when dropping from SP to LP modes. Walls loose their texture, faces loose detail, etc. although it is a "clean" image. My Panasonic EZ17, which retains full resolution in LP mode, retains this detail but can add macroblocking in fast motion. I prefer the Panasonic b/c the Samsung is giving up resolution throughout the entire recording whereas the Panasonic is only macroblocking if there even is any fast motion in the scene.

There are many shows I record that I can clearly live with these compromises. That is for you to decide. However, I have already recorded movies off of TCM on a DVD+R DL on my Panasonic from my digital cable STB just so I could record the whole thing in XP mode. IMO VHS was so poor to begin with, I would not want to compromise the quality of the recordings any more. I am actually waiting until I get my PC setup so I can record to harddrive at the best quality mode and recompress to a bitrate that exact suits that recording. But that may be a bit extreme.

That is a good point about the 240 lines vs. pixels. I did have those numbers in mind, but forget (as I often do with this particular distinction) that the units are not directly comparable.

I'm just curious what is the lowest value you would go to transfer, say, a 2 hr vcr recording in sp mode. Do you just fill the disc with the contents from 1 cassette? Is it unreasonable to hope to squeeze 2 programs (2 hr + 2 hr) onto one disc, while retaining reasonably decent quality?

So far, I have only been able to squeeze 1 sp vcr tape to 1 dvd disc. That's with 2 passes of noise reduction, too.From reading this thread, I'm not sure exactly what you want to do and what equipment you are willing to employ. If you are only interested in using a DVDR for the transfer then I would recommend you not record your VHS tapes any lower than SP mode - regardless of what speed you have recorded the original VHS at. I have (and continue to) transferred innumerable VHS recordings to an E-85. We find there are a number of shows we want to record that all come in the same timeslot. So in addition to my E-85, we have 2 VCRs for recording the conflicts. I then transfer the taped shows to the E-85 for ease of viewing. I find SP faithfully preserves the image on the tape without artifacts etc. The SP average bitrate is ~4.5Mbps, at full resolution the 4-hr LP mode would be about half that. At full resolution you are just skimping too much on the bits when using LP mode. Furthermore, if using a Panasonic recorder use the composite input. The composite in seems to have some signal processing that cleans up VHS tapes; S-video in does not. In this scenario, recording at XP has never shown me any noticable visual improvement over SP.

Now if you want to employ a PC in the process, my opinion differs. For VHS videos I really want to keep -- i.e. camcorder footage of my daughters dance shows -- I use a different process. In this case I will transfer the VHS video to the E-85 in XP mode. XP mode has an average bitrate of ~8-8.5Mbps. A bitrate of 9Mbps is considered the threshold for "lossless" encoding (a higher bitrate won't result in an improvement you can see). I then offload the video to RAM for transfer to my PC. So, starting from this near lossless encoding I'll then use a multi-pass transcoder to squash it down so I can put 2-3hr on a single DVD-R. Using a multi-pass transcoder reduces the average bitrate while greatly expanding the dynamic range of the encoding. So even though the average bitrate for a 2-3 hr recording is lower than for an SP recording off the E-85, the dynamic range of the 2-3 hr recording is large enough that it looks just as good. But even using this method, I never go over 3 hr.

I then transfer the taped shows to the E-85 for ease of viewing. I find SP faithfully preserves the image on the tape without artifacts etc.

I was just curious, how do you find the quality of these VHS transfers compared to if you had recorded them on a DVD recorder in the first place. I ask b/c I did much the same thing early on. When I only had one DVD recorder, I used two VHS decks to supplement my recording capacity. Using fairly recent (2001) Zenith (Samsung) VCRs, I found the PQ quite acceptable for VHS; closer to vintage Beta quality. I would akin it to recording in LP mode on a DVD recorder but with better resolution although the image had analog composite video artifacts and was less "stable".

I was dissappointed to find I preferred recording on VHS at $1 for modern quality 8hr VHS tape vs $1.25/disc DVD at 4hrs in LP mode. In fact, I might still be OK recording with VHS over LP mode on my Samsung DVD recorder if it were not for the amount of room all of those tapes took up. Cheaper media and Panasonic's LP mode have conviced me otherwise.

My guess is your Panasonic is running the composite video input through a TBC and then extracting the chroma with a 3D adaptive comb filter. If you follow me, would you say your transferred videos look as if they were recorded in SP mode on your recorder, LP mode or no better/only as good as your original VHS?

Thank you all for your responses and suggestions. They are greatly helpful to demonstrate how different people arrive at the best techniques that they have.

I was just curious, how do you find the quality of these VHS transfers compared to if you had recorded them on a DVD recorder in the first place . . . would you say your transferred videos look as if they were recorded in SP mode on your recorder, LP mode or no better/only as good as your original VHS?My recording is strictly analog OTA. The VHS decks are a pair of vintage Sony's from around 2001. The tapes are recorded at SP on the VHS deck and encoded at SP mode on the E-85. There is no question that a primary recording direct on the E-85 looks a lot better than a VHS recording. The VHS recordings are acceptable and pretty good quality to start so there does not appear to be any enhancement upon transfer to the E-85.

Yes I would say the VHS recordings look like an E-85 recording in LP mode. This is especially true of the E-85 since it cuts the resolution in half for LP mode (to keep the bitrate up) which approximately matches VHS SP resolution.

This arrangement will serve me for the coming months until the dual-tuner TR-50 is released. This summer, I will pull the trigger on a 1080 Plasma; buy an HD TR-50 and make it my primary recording device and retire the VHS decks. This will also allow me to semi-retire the E-85, which will let it last longer. Upon the digital switch-over, I'll only need the E-85 for the occasional burning from the TR-50. So for as long as the E-85 lasts (I've already replaced 1 HDD), I don't forsee buying another DVD recorder.

Boy I think lots of people(at least here on AVS) will be looking for that TR-50. I have an almost identical setup as you, except I have a 32" Panny LCD which I really enjoy. Also keep an eye out for the TR-40 tuner for your E-85. From what I've read it will contain a timer schedule witch will automatically change channels at specific times. It will be real handy for my older Panny DVDR's, so I can record HD lite PQ. Now maybe your E-85 has a IR blaster, which should also work. It will be free with the govt. coupon, at least the first 2 anyway.

Boy I think lots of people(at least here on AVS) will be looking for that TR-50. I have an almost identical setup as you, except I have a 32" Panny LCD which I really enjoy. Also keep an eye out for the TR-40 tuner for your E-85. From what I've read it will contain a timer schedule witch will automatically change channels at specific times. It will be real handy for my older Panny DVDR's, so I can record HD lite PQ. Now maybe your E-85 has a IR blaster, which should also work. It will be free with the govt. coupon, at least the first 2 anyway.Yes, I will hopefully get a pair of TR-40's. I say hopefully because it might be a race between release of the TR-40 and the 90 day expiration of the vouchers from date of issue. The TR-40's will go on my other TV's and not the E-85. Once I make the transition to HD Plasma and bring the HD TR-50 on board, I will have zero interest in recording anything in SD on the E-85 for timeshifting. The E-85 will be relegated to offloading from the TR-50 those few special recordings I actually want to keep. And for playing those SD DVD's, the third component that will come in the door with the Plasma is the Oppo 981HD player.

Football season 2008 is going to be a whole lot more fun.