Thanks to some people on rec.video.desktop for their help. I finally have
the DVD that I recorded from LD. I'm more than pleased with the quality.
I recorded in half D1 resolution (352x480). The result actually looks better
than the LaserDisc itself. I didn't use any filters or noise reductions, but
this half resolution killed that video noise that LD had. Sharpness is
still the same.

For video recording I used a simple $70 value TV Tuner card FlyVideo 3000FM
with Philips AD converter. I plugged composite output of LD player to the input
of that card (s-video gave worse results). For audio recording I tried
something different and I'm not sure anyone else has tried it before during
video capture. All my LaserDiscs have digital 2 channel stereo track
(same format as CD). So instead of plugging RCA jacks to the soundcard I ran
coaxial S/PDIF digital audio out to S/PDIF in of my M-Audio soundcard and used
44.1kHz sampling rate.

Captured everything in Huffyuv AVI, then separated an audio track from AVI and
resampled it to 48kHz with SSRC. My final DVD audio track is uncompressed
LPCM.

If anyone records from LDs that are just simple 2 channel stereo and if the
sound is important, I highly recommend this method rather than buying expensive
cards like Canopus ADVC series. I'm sure these cards are good, but there's no
way one can take advantage of digital track on LD with such cards.

--Leonid

On 26 May 2004 00:24:57 GMT, Leonid Makarovsky <venom@cs.bu.edu>
wrote:

Any place where one could see a few screenshots?? As you know, I've
got a FlyVideo, too, so I'd like to see how things turned out for you.

Good idea, but I've done this for about two years already! I'm sure
I'm not the only one, either...

In alt.video.laserdisc Karyudo <karyudo_usenet@yahoo.com.remove.me> wrote:
: Any place where one could see a few screenshots?? As you know, I've
: got a FlyVideo, too, so I'd like to see how things turned out for you.

Sure thing. However, the best test is to playback the source LaserDisc and the
resulting DVD.

The shots are in this directory:

http://us.geocities.com/leonid_makar...ColorTour1990/

The shots with avi name on it are taken directly from captured avi file.
The shots with mpeg name on it are the same shots from compressed MPEG-2 file.
The noise comes from the fact that the original footage was shot in East
Germany PAL and converted to NTSC for Japanese LaserDisc.

I used TMPGEnc to compress with 8250kbs maximum and with CQ 96%. It gave
average 7226.40 kbps. I should buy beer to Nomen Nescio and Bariloche for
suggesting me going to half D1 :-)

--Leonid

Hi,

Here some little suggestions:

1) Why use uncompressed audio for the DVD? Almost 1/3 of your DVD is
just for the audio alone, if possible use Mpeg Layer 2 or AC3 audio
format. Hence you can use that extra space for the video (increase
the bitrate).

2) Why capture the audio at 44Khz and resample it again to 48Khz.
Just capture straight to 48Khz.

Leonid Makarovsky <venom@cs.bu.edu> wrote...
I have yet to see this on any LD-to-DVD transfer, and I've seen
hundreds of them. Are you sure that you simply weren't HOPING to see
a better picture and talked your mind into going along with it?

-Junior

Phil_12345@hotmail.com (Phil) wrote in message news:<ab57986.0405252143.18ead487@posting.google.c om>...

If he was creating an NTSC DVD, which seems likely, as he said that
the original Laserdisc was NTSC, there's a problem. Mpeg layer 2 is
not allowed as the only sound format on a NTSC DVD, it is on PAL
discs, and most of the cheaper software is not capable of encoding AC3
for a Dolby Digital track. NTSC discs are required to have at least
one audio stream in either PCM or Dolby digital format. PAL discs are
required to have at least one audio stream in either PCM, Dolby
digital or mpeg layer 2 format. Strictly speaking, I believe that a
mute disc with no audio at all is also allowed. DTS is optional on
both PAL and NTSC. Quite why it was necessary for the DVD standards
to provide for four different audio systems, I don't know. I believe
that there was also provision for SDDS sound, but Sony never
implemented it as a home format. It also seems to be declining as a
cinema format; few of the 35mm prints I project now have it.

Some software will allow you to make an NTSC disc with only mpeg
audio, although it does not conform to the spec, but NTSC only players
are not required to be able to play it, and some will not do so.

"Stephen Furley" <furles@mail.croydon.ac.uk> wrote in message
news:cc9fa30.0405260153.749233c0@posting.google.co m...
Ok... NAME SOME!!!! But they must be able to play DVDR or
there is no point. Every DVD I've made with MPEG layer 2 audio
has played fine on the several players I own.

Ken

"Leonid Makarovsky" <venom@cs.bu.edu> wrote in message
news:c90ubr$965$1@news3.bu.edu...
Psss... Hi there remember me???

LoL;
Ken

"unclejr" <watsona@kenyon.edu> wrote in message
news:139de3b3.0405252340.386b39b6@posting.google.c om...
There are so many factors that go into what makes up our
perception of image quality, and many are impacted by the
personal preferences of each individual viewer. Some minor
changes from the original may bring the image closer to an
individuals personal perception of what "looks better".

I've made captures off DirecTv that seem "better" than what
it was when played from the DirecTv Receiver. This is largely
a perception issue, when the reproduction is nearly identical
to the original. Of course it is also possible to remove noise
or other distortion from an original source, in which case you
could say that there is a "real" improvement in the resulting
look .

Luck;
Ken

Wed, 26 May 2004 07:02:52 -0500, kmaltby@sbcglobal.net suggested:
:
: "Stephen Furley" <furles@mail.croydon.ac.uk> wrote in message
: news:cc9fa30.0405260153.749233c0@posting.google.co m...
:>
:> Some software will allow you to make an NTSC disc with only mpeg
:> audio, although it does not conform to the spec, but NTSC only players
:> are not required to be able to play it, and some will not do so.
:
: Ok... NAME SOME!!!! But they must be able to play DVDR or
: there is no point. Every DVD I've made with MPEG layer 2 audio
: has played fine on the several players I own.

Probably mostly older players will have this problem. Look for a machine
that doesn't support any VCD formats and see if your disc still plays.
Regardless, Stephen was referring to the DVD spec, not the generous
tolerances of most players.

--
agreenbu @ nyx . net andrew michael greenburg

"Ken Maltby" <kmaltby@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message news:<40b48767$0$4872$a32e20b9@news.nntpservers.co m>...

I don't have experience of this myself, all of the region 2 players we
have here can play PAL discs, and are therefore required to be able to
play mpeg layer 2 audio. I have however heard of people who have made
NTSC disks with mpeg tracks, and been unable to play them. One of
these was a disc which was sent over to me, and played fine on my
player. I don't know what model the creator of the disc had.

Mpeg audio was originally proposed to be the main standard for PAL
DVDs, in the same way that ac3 is for NTSC ones. This was later
changed to allow ac3 to be used at the only audio, and this is what
most discs have. I have about 50 DVDs, not including a few NTSC ones,
I think 2 have PCM (2 channel) only, 1 has PCM and Dolby, 2 have mpeg
(2 channel) only, 1 has mmeg (multi channel) and Dolby, and 1 has
Dolby and DTS. All the others have Dolby only, in various
configurations of channels. Mpeg seems to have just about died out;
several titles which originally had mpeg audio have since been
re-issued with Dolby. I wanted a multi-channel mpeg disc, and had
considerable difficulty finding one.

TMPGEnc now has an optional two-channel software Dolby ac3 decoder
which is not expensive, so maybe this format will become more widely
supported by lower cost software.

I have made a few NTSC DVDs from films downloaded from the Prelinger
Archives. I ended up putting PCM sound on them, but this would not
have been my first choice. There are still a number of music DVDs
which use PCM tracks.

In article <139de3b3.0405252340.386b39b6@posting.google.com>,
watsona@kenyon.edu (unclejr) writes:
often, I have seen the noise reduction before MPEG either having
artifacts or the serious need for noise reduction on LD source
material.

Good noise reduction wont' add significant motion artifacts, while
also removing the typical noise-nits on a LD (along with removing the
large area chroma noise.)

John

In rec.video.desktop Phil <Phil_12345@hotmail.com> wrote:
: 1) Why use uncompressed audio for the DVD? Almost 1/3 of your DVD is
: just for the audio alone, if possible use Mpeg Layer 2 or AC3 audio

I have tried MPEG Layer 2 but I wasn't happy with the quality. It wasn't a big
big difference, but uncompressed did sound better so I decided to go with
LPCM. Maybe I should've tried to compress to AC3, but it was too much headache
plus the TMPGEnce DVD Author version I use only works with MPEG Layer 2 or LPCM.
: format. Hence you can use that extra space for the video (increase
: the bitrate).

Well, average 7200kbs for half D1 was good enough.

: 2) Why capture the audio at 44Khz and resample it again to 48Khz.
: Just capture straight to 48Khz.

You've missed the whole point. Had I been digitizing an *analog* audio signal,
I would of course have used 48kHz sampling rate. That's what I do when I x-fer
from VHS. But this time the audio signal that was going to my soundcard was
already *digital* at 44.1kHz (same format as CD). I was doing bit for bit
accurate transfer. If I had used 48kHz instead, I would've gotten unexpected
results such as: playback at wrong speed, audio/video dissynchronization, poor
resampling on the fly, etc. Something would've definitely occured. So I played
safe and used SSRC to resample knowing that it gives excellent quality.

I actually wish DVD allowed PCM 44.1kHz audio. Then no resampling would've been
needed. And it would saved space too.

--Leonid

In rec.video.desktop unclejr <watsona@kenyon.edu> wrote:
: I have yet to see this on any LD-to-DVD transfer, and I've seen
: hundreds of them. Are you sure that you simply weren't HOPING to see
: a better picture and talked your mind into going along with it?

I'm a very picky, anal, critical... you name it when it comes to quality. I did
admit in the past that my DVD that I made from VHS were looking worse than
source VHS. This time I think I got it right.

--Leonid

In rec.video.desktop Ken Maltby <kmaltby@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
: I've made captures off DirecTv that seem "better" than what
: it was when played from the DirecTv Receiver. This is largely
: a perception issue, when the reproduction is nearly identical
: to the original. Of course it is also possible to remove noise
: or other distortion from an original source, in which case you
: could say that there is a "real" improvement in the resulting
: look .

I can think of 2 factors. The half D1 I used smoothed out those LaserDisc's
artifact noises. Another thing is that I connected LD player's composite
cable (not S-video) to my capture card. When I played back the DVD and LD
back to back, I connected DVD player's S-Video to a TV and LD player's
composite to the TV. I was switching between them. Apparently my capture card
comb filter was better than my TV's one. In general LD looked kinda flat on
TV while the DVD image had deeper colors.

--Leonid

In rec.video.desktop Ken Maltby <kmaltby@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
: Psss... Hi there remember me???

: LoL;

Would Sambuca do it? :-)

--Leonid

"Leonid Makarovsky" <venom@cs.bu.edu> wrote in message
news:c90o4p$oeh$1@news3.bu.edu...
Good to hear you have succeeded in your quest. I can understand that using
half D1 resolution (actually, it's a quarter technically speaking) makes the
video noise go away, but the sharpness isn't actually the same - it just
looks that way. What I have found when capturing video with something like
VirtualDub is that I can use a slight amount of Noise Reduction (usually
only 6 steps above from zero, no more than this though) and this makes a
huge difference in reducing the video noise that can come off LD or VHS etc.
Try this for yourself and see the change in static areas like skies or
walls - you don't get nearly as much "colour crap" when something is
supposed to be stock-still.

So did you record the audio along with the video real-time, or as a separate
pass? Either way, how did you manage to sync both of these together? A
quick instruction guide would be very helpful for me right now .

Yeah, it's a shame that we have to resample the original 44.1khz LD track
into 48khz DVD, but I have found that using something like CoolEditPro 2.0's
facility (at full resolution) yields very favourable results that are almost
imperceptible to the source. Depening on the PC, this can either take
forever or very little time to convert, but I wouldn't use anything less
than full resampling resolution as I said before.

I'm thinking of buying a Nebula DigiTV on the recommendation of someone who
sells them here locally, as this person believes that Fusion card (and the
defacto software called UltraDTV) promise everything and deliver less than
this. I'm glad that you've had success in your quest to "archive" your LDs
as I am in the wanton process to digitise my collection of Red Dwarf
CGI-modified Seasons 1-3 from TV broadcasts onto VHS. This will be the
ultimate test of digitising since the producers decided to halve the video
resolution to make it more "film-like" and that the TV reception at the time
was not entirely the best. Here's hoping.

In rec.video.desktop Rick <deNOBULLlorean@dodo.com.au> wrote:
: half D1 resolution (actually, it's a quarter technically speaking) makes the

Why is it quarter? I was using 352x480 and not 352x240.

: VirtualDub is that I can use a slight amount of Noise Reduction (usually
: only 6 steps above from zero, no more than this though) and this makes a
: huge difference in reducing the video noise that can come off LD or VHS etc.
: Try this for yourself and see the change in static areas like skies or
: walls - you don't get nearly as much "colour crap" when something is
: supposed to be stock-still.

I don't use VD for capture, but I use it to feed the AVI to TMPGenc. I have
tried a few filters, but kinda wasn't too happy with them.

: So did you record the audio along with the video real-time, or as a separate

Yes, realtime.

: pass? Either way, how did you manage to sync both of these together? A

The good thing about this method is that I didn't even have to sync them 'cause
they were already in sync. When I capture from VHS, I use M-Audio to digitize an
analog audio signal going in. M-Audio samles the signal using its own internal
quarts clock which is a bit different from that of video capture card.
Thus you get audio and video out of sync. When you feed S/PDIF
digital audio signal to M-Audio, it doesn't digitize it, but just copies bit
for bit signal to the computer. The LaserDisc has a certain discrete number of
video frames stored and certain discrete number of audio samples stored. So
during the capture everything just gets copied the way it is stored on LD.

I checked and my audio was just 0.023 seconds behind which is less than an
NTSC frame.

: quick instruction guide would be very helpful for me right now .

Depending on the soundcard you are using, run SPDIF or optical from your LD
player to your soundcard. Set soundcard to capture SPDIF to 16 bit, 44.1kHz.

: Yeah, it's a shame that we have to resample the original 44.1khz LD track
: into 48khz DVD, but I have found that using something like CoolEditPro 2.0's
: facility (at full resolution) yields very favourable results that are almost
: imperceptible to the source. Depening on the PC, this can either take

I use SSRC to resample as recommended by CODECPAGE guy. I can't hear the
difference between the original 44.1kHz and 48kHz wav files.

: I'm thinking of buying a Nebula DigiTV on the recommendation of someone who
: sells them here locally, as this person believes that Fusion card (and the
: defacto software called UltraDTV) promise everything and deliver less than

Isn't it a digital TV card? How are you going to capture the analog signal?

: as I am in the wanton process to digitise my collection of Red Dwarf
: CGI-modified Seasons 1-3 from TV broadcasts onto VHS. This will be the

Onto VHS????? From VHS or to VHS?

--Leonid

"Leonid Makarovsky" <venom@cs.bu.edu> wrote in message
news:c9r2te$d62$1@news3.bu.edu...
I was referring to the fact that VCD resolution is actually 1/4 that of DVD.
But now that I understand that you might have been utilising the SVCD
standard (by your use of 352x480) it somewhat negates my original statement.
That said though, DVD runs at 704x480 in and VCD runs at 352x240. Using
these two sets of numbers, you only get 1/4 resolution on VCD compared to
DVD.

At first glance
Most of the filters (in VirtualDub for instance) are usually allocated to
post-processing rather than real-time capturing, but I can guarantee that
the Noise Reduction filter is superb in eliminating a lot of the video noise
that bugs me to tears. Ah, you haven't said what program you used for
capturing (or did you?)

From VHS recorded off of broadcast TV to DVD.

In rec.video.desktop Rick <deNOBULLlorean@dodo.com.au> wrote:
: But now that I understand that you might have been utilising the SVCD
: standard (by your use of 352x480) it somewhat negates my original statement.

Actually SVCD is 480x480.

: Most of the filters (in VirtualDub for instance) are usually allocated to
: post-processing rather than real-time capturing, but I can guarantee that

Yes. That's what I tried. I loaded AVI in VD and applied the filter. Then fed
the whole thing to TMPGEnc.

: that bugs me to tears. Ah, you haven't said what program you used for
: capturing (or did you?)

I used Fly2000. But this program only makes sense if you have Philips based
TV Tuner card. Especially it works well with LifeView FlyVideo series. This
program bypasses some of the WDM driver mechanism and makes calls to hardware
directly.

In any case, if you capture from LD and want to take advantage of digital sound,
you should be able to use it any capture program. You just need to change your
audio settings within that program.

--Leonid