Posted by erik on 08/25/05 14:18

"Jon D" <jon_d@nomail.com> wrote in message
news:96BD82E92665C71E5D@66.250.146.159...
>I am in the UK.
>
> I want to copy some VHS tape onto CD or DVD. The burners are in my
> PC.
>
> Approximately how much CD or DVD storage would I need for a 30
> minute
> VHS recording in order to preserve its quality.
>
> Does it make much difference which file format I use such as MPEG?

For DVD-Video, MPEG2 read these. They describe the possible
resolutions and optimal bitrates for each. For VHS captures half D1
should be enough, then you can use lower bitrates and fit more on one
DVD disc.

http://www.digitalfaq.com/dvdguides/capture/understandsource.htm#analogsource

http://www.digitalfaq.com/dvdguides/capture/intro.htm#mpegbitrate

http://www.mediachance.com/dvdlab/tutorial/bitrate.html

You can calculate how much you can fit on a single DVD disc using
bitrate calculator

http://www.videohelp.com/calc.htm

2 hours of Full D1 and 4 hours of Half D1 is an absolute maximum I
would put on one DVD disc, optimum would be 1.5 h and 3 h.

You get subjectively comparable results using AVI divx/xvid with lower
bitrates than necessary for MPEG. You can convert a typical DVD with
~1.5h film (~6GB) to a very good quality 700MB AVI. Somebody may have
more info on this, it is not my area.

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