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Mini DV transfers to DVDR:..what speed to preserve quality?

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Waldteufel

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Don't know if there's a forum to handle this, but here goes...I'd really appreciate any help
I just bought a MAC G5 that I'll initially be using to convert all my VHS, HI8, and MiniDV tapes to DVDR. I'm starting off with MiniDVs and I'm wondering what speed I should be recording to to prevent any loss in quality. I used the SP mode on the camera (Sony DVR-9...1999-vintage), should I then also use SP mode on the DVDR, or play it safe and stick to the ultra high quality mode? Having the 2-hr capacity SP mode would offer would be nice, but preserving the quality of the taped recordings is most important.
BTW, I'm using the imovieHD, iDVD software

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Re: Mini DV transfers to DVDR:..what speed to preserve quality? - videophile 14:46:41 03/28/05 (3)
MiniDV is 25 Mb/sec motion JPEG encoded. This is a fairly high quality compression. To MPEG-2 transcode you will want to use the highest bit rate (quality mode) available to you. 2-hr bit rate will give you roughly the quality of a commercially mastered DVD, which I find to be pretty bad.
- Thanks, guess I'll just have to be more selective in editing... - Waldteufel 21:43:15 03/28/05 (2)
  I was hoping to squeeze onto a single DVD, but will use 2 to be safe.
  I was really surprised to see how much storage was required to store four 1-hr mini DV tapes on my HD...over 40GB! And here I thought 150GB was overkill! I trust VHS won't be as dense?
  - Re: Thanks, guess I'll just have to be more selective in editing... - videophile 05:52:36 03/29/05 (1)
    It all depends on how much you compress the video. VHS is an analog format so there is also the question of how you want to sample it. The video bandwidth of a VHS recording usually limits the resolution to something less than D1 format (704x480). This, stored raw, would require a bit rate of around 240 Mb/sec, or over 100 GB per hour. The first thing compressors do is to convert to a luma/chroma color space and subsample the chroma 2:1 in both directions (humans are much less sensitive to loss in chroma resolution than luma). This cuts the bit rate in half. You might be able to get up to another 2:1 compression with a lossless entropy encoder. After this you will probably have to start throwing away information to get any more compression.
    - Wow, the plot thickens... - Waldteufel 07:03:23 03/29/05 (0)
      ...I would've thought VHS would be a snap. Looks like I'm going to need a whole helluva lot more storage than the 160GB I ordered with this G5. Every one of my VHS tapes has about 2 hours recorded. This is turning out to be a monumental project! Many of those tapes are 15 or 16 years old, which is why I want to preserve them for the kids. It would have also been nice to condense many hours worth of tapes to make a Christmas compilation that could be written to a couple DVDs. Sounds like that would involve an unmanagable file with my paltry storage. Wish I'd did more homework before ordering this MAC! I thought 1GB of RAM and 160GB storage was way more than I'd ever need.
      Thanks for enlightening me,
      W
Re: Mini DV transfers to DVDR:..what speed to preserve quality? - AbeCollins 14:34:11 03/28/05 (1)
If you're going from MiniDV to DVDR aren't you transferring the video file digitally? If so, you just copy the file over or import it. On my PC I use Pinnacle Studio software and simply import the digital video file from my Canon MiniDV camcorder onto my PC hard disk with no concerns for making any 'speed' settings. I'm basically just copying the digital file over.
- I'm editing before burning onto DVD - Waldteufel 14:56:44 03/28/05 (0)
  Thanks for the reply. With the first project I've imported 4 MiniDV tapes (4hrs-worth at SP), to the MAC, where I will edit them to a form for subsequent burning to DVDR. Before burning, I'll have to select a transfer quality mode. Since they were recorded in SP by the camera, would SP then be the way to go? I know digital, if it stays digital, should be either right or wrong. But I'm wondering why, or how the choice of recording mode will affect the visual outcome. I don't want to do anything that would compromise the quality already on the tape (now on the HD). I'd prefer SP because of the 2-hr capacity, but will use the highest setting if that's what I'll really need to get it all.
  I'd just experiment, but this is already turning out to be more work than I'd anticipated, and I'm trying to learn as much as I can to avoid as many mistakes as possible.

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