two questions regarding transfer of tape(cassette+Hi-8)

[tivrama]

Hi I have two questions regarding transfering tape to a digital medium.
1) When transferring audio cassettes to CD via a Sony standalone home cd recorder, is there any loss vs. going straight into a computer?
2)When transfering video from a Hi-8 cassette (not digital hi-8) to DVD via a Sony standalone home DVD recorder, which setting should I select in order to preserve the quality without wasting blank DVDs?
I have these choices:
SHQ
HQSP
SP
LP
SLP
I have been doing them at HQSP (one quality abouve VHS quality about 1.5hours per DVD) but wonder if this useless and just causing the need for 2 blank DVD's per hi-8 120 min tape.

[ssamadhi97]

Personally I'd suggest you to use SHQ instead. If you're really aiming to "preserve the quality", 90min per dvd is already pushing it, especially when handling recordings with noisy or unstable (or sharp) picture. And you'll be using 2 blank dvds either way (not like these cost much these days anyway).

[tivrama]

That seems the obvious answer, but these are Hi-8's shot in the early to mid 90's so they are not going to have digital quality, but I believe they are higher quality than VHS at SP. Theoretically (as I understand it) you can't get something to be higher quality than the master, even if you put it on the highest setting, hence selecting the HQSP as it is one better than SP (VHS) mode. However in this case I am thinking that even SP might be the same (not worse).....The tapes I have been doing too, are of continous msuic so it would be VERY incovenient to me and any listener to make a cut in the music if it is not totally neccesary.
Anybody know the science behind this kind of transfer?

[diggrd]

Like ssamadhi97 I would be inclined to go high on the quality. But that may not be the way to go, more information would help. Do you plan on editing these, other than simple cuts and splices? Are you capturing as mpeg? Can you tell us what bitrate each of the settings are using for the capture?

You may want to check this site.
http://www.digitalfaq.com

[ssamadhi97]

Well, if you can avoid a cut (that's potentially hard to conceal) by transferring to HQSP, that's certainly something to consider.

On the other hand (like I said) unstable picture and noise can kill a lot of bitrate in any video codec, so despite the lack of picture sharpness bitrate requirements for old sources should not be underestimated.

For your dvd recorder, bitrates seem to be distributed like this:
SP: 120min/dvd --> 5mbps --> ~3.5-4.5mbps video bitrate
HQSP: 90min/dvd --> 6mbps --> ~5.0-6.0mbps video bitrate
SHQ: 60min/dvd --> 10mbps --> ~8.5-9.5mbps

I'd be very wary of SP ("VHS"), at these bitrates you're really starting to push the lower limits of mpeg2 / dvd video if the source is even remotely hard to encode; especially if the hardware mpeg2 encoder in your recorder isn't outstanding (and chances are it isn't)

"Hard to encode" can pretty much mean a random combination of sharp, unstable picture, noisy, high-motion, flashy light show.

HQSP bitrates should be perfectly fine when using a decent encoder and/or working on a non-evil source, though I wouldn't put my money on a hardware encoder in a dvd recorder to be particularly good.

If the source is evil aka hard to encode and you're planning to edit / filter / reencode / author the dvd on your computer anyway, I'd really suggest SHQ to be on the safe side, especially if you can muster the skills to conceal the cut when editing the video later.

----
Eh, techbabble all right. Here's a summary:

If all you want to do is transfer to dvd, stick with HQSP and if you'd need to use two dvds anyway because of that, just go up a notch and use SHQ instead.

SP bitrates are apparently too low to yield decent results for anything but the easiest-to-encode sources, so personally I'd stay far away from these.
----


Well, diggrd is right, basically it comes down to what you want to do with it.

[ssamadhi97]

1) When transferring audio cassettes to CD via a Sony standalone home cd recorder, is there any loss vs. going straight into a computer?

Oh yes, there was that question too...

So, that depends on the soundcard you have at your disposal. If the standalone isn't cheap and actually worth its money, it'll should very decent analog/digital converters. If that's the case and you don't have a very good soundcard, chances are that it'll give you a good clean transfer that'll definitely be on par with what your computer can do.

[Five]

^I agree.

its all about the a/d converters. audio cdr isn't the most secure way to store audio data you should rip the audio back off the cdr if you go that route using EAC and cut into tracks and FLAC on your computer afterwards. Try both your soundcard and standalone and use whichever is better.

[tacoburrito]

For transferring audio (Analog to Digital) I prefer feeding the analog thru a pro or semi pro DAT and then optical to a Zefiro ZA2 card. I have never liked PC based A>D. Too much "noise" is flying around the PC. You could even record it to a DAT tape and use that to work from.

Of course its been a couple of years since I ran the ZA2 card. Not usable on today's systems since 8 bit ISA slots are pretty much a thing of the past. I haven't explored what is out there that compares to what the ZA2 did.

[Five]

You've got a pretty good handle on this stuff. Just do the a/d conversion as best as you can and avoid mp3 of course and all is well.

[tivrama]

cool
Thanks for the advice....