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You really want such an old palletized codec?


Scott

Did you make sure to have all the audio clip segments have fade-ins and fade-outs? (they can be very short - <<1sec, if necessary) It is a best practice to do that to avoid any instant sample changes, which causes the pops.


Scott

assuming its profile & level is standard (e.g. main@main, high@4.1, etc), h264 is h264. so unless it is non-standard (10bit+, lossless intraframe, mvc, alpha channel), h264-encoded media should be playable by ANY h264 decoder.
Is it non-standard? check with MediaInfo.

Assuming it isn't non-standard, my educated guess is that it is using a non-standard fourcc (CAVC??). The most common standard fourcc for h264 is "h264" (also "v264", "x264", "avc1", "jvt3").
Since this is just an assignment of decoder based on signature, just change the fourcc! I would use a hex editor.

BTW, QT7 (on Windows & Mac) is SO deprecated, I strongly don't recommend its use except as an intermediary when converting old assets to modern codecs (so they don't become technological orphans). If this experience here was an example of that, I would also say the implementation of h264 present in QT is NOT optimal, so I would have gone a different way (ProRes, uncompressed - converting later to final format using better methods).


Scott

Limit of BetaSP was like equivalent to 600x480/576, with ~50dB SNR.
None of the analog formats except Hi8, IIRC, used metal particle tape. Metal didn't really appear on analog videotape until late 80s (metal started in early/mid80s with analog audiotape first), and by that time of late 80s most of the other analog formats had been established. It did get used for a number of digital tape formats, though.

I am intimately familiar with Beta/SP and its pros and cons, but have only had sporadic use with W-VHS. My memory is that W-VHS didn't hold up as well with artifacts and with multiple generations. Remember, any time you incorporate some form of compression (be it digital bitrate reduction, analog dynamic range compression, or time domain compression), and anytime you decrease analog areal recording density & speed per bandwidth, you are making compromises and the signal is - for lack of a better term - more fragile. So, I would say BCSP was very robust, and WVHS less so, but both are head & shoulders above your consumer formats like vhs & betamax, and even Umatic.
Looking strictly at resolution, of course an HD signal has the lead over an SD signal. But those formats had other parameters to gauge them by, and I would say that it wasn't until digital hit its stride and digital compression went through a few generations, before HD (often in the form of HDCAM) was hands down 100% better all the time over SD, using all those metrics. That was around 2001/2002. So the safe bet in the 80s and early 90s would have been Beta, BetaSP.


Scott

You have got some numbers wrong.

Both are component analog signals.
Betacam (82) records (vertical resolution) exactly 525 iines NTSC or 625 lines PAL, and its signal is continuous. That means its limit of resolution is down to the filtering in the camera's & recorder's electronics. They say (in that wikipedia article) the "effective" horizontal resolution is 300 lines (with Beta SP being 340), but I can tell you from experience that it is more than that - more like 550-600.
The difference is that the limit used in those web calculations always refers to the 4.2MHz bandwidth limitation of BROADCAST NTSC. However, component recording formats do NOT have that limitation yet. They are UPSTREAM of the the transmitter (with a Luminance bandwidth of ~6.4MHz, IIRC), and since they are not (usually) "broadcasted" to their recorders, so the bandwidth being recorded is higher that what actually will end up going out via the TV transmitter. And the equivalent chrominance is ~5.7MHz, so also much higher than previously stated. All of that was limited by what the available cameras of the day were able to provide, which was often the limiting factor.

W-VHS has a number of improvements in technology due to being designed 11 years later, which Betacam doesn't have: higher density metal particle tape, time-compression integration allowing double data throughput, dual R/P heads allowing 2 tracks' worth of data to be stored simultaneously (doubling the throughput again), & advanced crosstalk cancellation. That, plus a higher speed than consumer VHS does allow for analog HD (1035/1125) to be recorded. However, it also cost ~ double what Beta/SP cost (recorder vs. recorder). That, plus the fact that it used the MUSE system which didn't catch on beyond Japan, also means that it wasn't near as compatible with existing systems (which were VERY predominantly still SD through the 90s).
W-VHS did have a record time of ~107 minutes vs. 31 minutes of Beta, but that is also not 120+ minutes...

To each their own, I guess.


Scott

As "movie trailers" go, this SUX. Just a bunch of slowmo repetitive movements of models.

Go watch Forbidden Planet. MUCH better. The definitive original. Even the trailers have more action and character.


Scott

Usb connected discs do not support TRIM, though they may support a USB equivalent (UASP). FAT/FAT32/exFAT partitions do not support TRIM, NTFS does.

Btw, ALWAYS remember to save any recoveries onto a completely different drive!


Scott

DVDs being digital, MV does not exist on any of them. What exists is a flag that tells the player to apply MV at the player's analog output. That's why ripping will so easily defeat MV - it turns off/removes that flag.

There are very few DVDs that recent versions of makemkv, DVDFab, etc cannot get around. The great majority of effort being done by Hollywood producers these last few years has been toward beefing up CP on Blurays (HD & UHD/4k), and not working on DVDs, since those are passe. Thus, existing forms of CP are still being used there.


Scott

Things haven't changed much in the last few years, but I would recommend what I recommended a decade ago: RIP the dvd. If you truly need to watch it using that system, burn that rip to a DVD+RW/-RW. The process of ripping the disc would have removed the Macrovision flag altogether, so the newly burned disc won't have it it trigger. No need for any special player, firmware, process, etc.

BTW, Macrovision company is not gone - they changed their name to Rovi, recently bought out TiVo & Xpery. They still are sticklers with their IP, but the focus is no longer on analog, and no new tech is being put towards analog, for the simple reason that there is no market for that since nobody is really doing analog anymore (yourself and a few other hobbyist stalwarts excepted, of course).



Scott

Confirmed: that model only supports NTSC, and only V8 (equiv to VHS) or Hi8 (equiv to SVHS), but not D8 (equiv to DV).

Could be an issue of D8, could be an issue of wrong standard (PAL, SECAM), could be not accepting non-standard Long Play (yes, it was an option), could be simple tape corruption.

None of the Canopus ADVCs ever had a TBC. To say so is misleading. They have, like any other device that digitizes, a frame buffer, so what comes in gets "locked" into place in a standard grid of pixels. But that doesn't mean its timebase is corrected. It isn't. It just "burns in" whatever mistimings it is given.

4:2:0 is fine for much of analog, except NTSC DV does not use 4:2:0, but 4:1:1 instead, and converting to 4:2:0 (which all modern codecs use as their consumer default) means another round of loss & interpolation (and loss!). But the complaint was also that it is COMPRESSED using DV's DCT, and converting AGAIN to h264, etc, is another amount of (unnecessary) loss.

That's what they were trying to warn you about.

While it might be possible, I know of NO TVs that can do this.
Regardless, even if it can, any TV that has an embedded app to be able to save streams/recordings, will ALWAYS have those saved files in ENCRYPTED format. Meaning they are NOT transferrable to a standard PC or another device (even a device of the same family or even the same model TV), because they will not have the decryption keys. Unless you know of a (most likely warez/pirate) app/method to get those decryption keys, the only way to decrypt them is via brute force, which may take weeks/years/decades/centuries?

TL;DR / Short Answer: Not gonna happen this way.


Scott

You get best compatibility when you follow standards.

The standards for HD, UHD video say that - barring some few exceptions like HDV - all HD and higher resolutions use PAR of 1:1, and 4:3 or 16:9 DAR. Which is much easier to work with than SD material. So make it like that.

You quad SD (1408x960) is nonstandard, so it is not a good idea to leave it like that if you hope for compatible shareability.

Your issue of cropping shifts is another matter - one which should have been properly fixed using a proper NLE, like Alwyn said.


Scott

The center portion of a 1080 resized image that is 4:3 DAR is 1440x1080, and it will then have a PAR of 1:1, then pad black to 1920.


Scott

Plugs have been designed and engineered very specifically to work a certain way in order to follow a very specific set of conditions and to be used only in that manner. This includes non symmetricality vs symmetricality, presence vs absence of grounding pin (or placeholder for one), etc.

Are you sure you are using it correctly?


Scott

I'd argue differently to that. AI can be useful if made use of in the right environment for example, using it to aid programming and scripting, AI then becomes very useful. I've used it countless times to aid creating scripts for media use so things become more automated.[/QUOTE]
And yet I have seen the exact opposite of that, specifically in regards to scripts and programming. It is great at nicely showing the surface form without any real meaningful or appropriate meat of content.


Scott

I agree

Agree. It's a non-issue for those who know what's under the hood, and know how to tweak what they need when it's non-standard.
In the process of converting our whole fleet (~>1500) of PCs to Win11, with encryption, etc., and haven't had a single OS-related issue, even with some old machines that have 4GB RAM and 128GB SSDs (no self-respecting machine should have less than that anymore).


Scott

Gemainico?


Scott

No. It does NOT capture uncompressed. You MAY be able to open/use it with vdub, but it is a DV device, and every thing coming into it is either Analog converted to DV or is a straight DV --> DV transfer. If vdub has options for other codecs, it is doing an ADDITIONAL conversion.

I know. I used to own this card/unit back in the early 2000s at my production company. One of the best & most versatile of DV cards at the time. (And contrary to what Dellsam34 said, the software was decent - again, at the time).
But time and technology has long since passed this by...


Scott

The sound portions would have HAD to be 24fps, for sync reasons, but the silent original portions might have been anywhere between 16-25fps. My hunch is that the closer it got to studios converting to sound, they might have hedged their bets by standardizing closer to 24, but I could be wrong.
Perhaps work backwards - the original silent version was supposed to have a runtime of 75 minutes. Assuming the edits were correct, what fps would create such a runtime?


Scott

He should talk - 99% of CEOs don't do real work.


Scott

As well you should. Where did clip B (2nd item in overlay) come from? It's not referenced.


Scott

1. If you already have a BIN+CUE, you should be able to burn to disc using any decent (DAO/SAO-capable) disc burning software (ImgBurn is a great one, though old).
2. I may be mistaken (been many years since), but I was under the impression that VCDGear ONLY worked with VCDs (352x240 NTSC, 352x288 PAL) not SVCDs (480x480 NTSC, 480x576 PAL).
3. I doubt that most apps allow you to "drag & drop" a BIN+CUE onto a CD in Windows Explorer to start burning
4. Yes, I also --^ said VCDEasy only works up through XP. These are old technologies, with little reason to bring back up, and little demand to update, so it makes sense that progress has passed them by, sad though it may be. But you can always Dual Boot, or use a VM.
5. If you've got a DVD player, you have alternatives - convert to DVD-Video, burn as plain media data file...


Scott

Yes, SVCDs have a specific structure - not unlike DVD, but different enough, more similar (very) to VCD - and they also must be not just encoded, but AUTHORED, in a process not unlike DVDs, BDs, & VCDs. See "what is..." above.

All the apps that dealt with these formats are long in the tooth now, but your best bet, as mentioned, is probably vcdeasy. It is not without problems though either, because it has issues running on anything newer than XP.

But depending on the media player(s) you intend to play it on, you might not need it to be authored.


Scott

Blacks as grays doesn't usually have anything to do with colorspaces or chromashifting, although incorrect interpretation of full vs. limited range, especially when converting colorspaces, MIGHT have something to do with it.
It DOES sound like its a levels (contrast/brightness) issue, which may be due to wrong range setting.

FYI,
MOST (digital) cameras record in component YUV color spaces, and the better ones are usually set to record limited range (aka 16-235), so that there is legal overshoot & undershoot which could be adjusted without loss in post if necessary.
Analog devices like VHS output Analog Composite (Y+U+V) or Analog S-Video (Y, U+V) - the range is set when you digitize it (manually or automatically depending on device, app, driver, codec, settings), along with separation of color primaries into component format.
DVDs have ALL their material in Component format (Y, U, V), which should already be limited range (MPEG2 8bit 4:2:0), on disc. MakeMKV usually keeps it as things already are, just re-encapsulates it. What it is after somebody converts it is anyone's guess.


Scott

Another good option: don't use WMP. Try VLC, MPC, etc.


Scott

*ALL* NTSC DVDs play at 29.97, or 23.976 (with flags) - NO EXCEPTIONS (there is no other option in the spec for NTSC, and similarly only 25fps for PAL). Regardless of what you think it is supposed to be telling you, if an app is saying it is running at 30fps, or supposed to be running at 30fps, that is incorrect, and that is probably why you are encountering this.

And YES, 29.97 does run ~5seconds longer. It is supposed to (compared to 30fps using the same # of frames, given ~90minutes). Don't play it at 30, play it at 29.97 - most systems SHOULD be able to give you this option (including sometimes even putting monitor to 59.94Hz refresh vs 60Hz).

Scott

The way watermarks work is usually shadow & highlight on the edges of the source logo, applied to the original video. If you can, in a sense, re-create & reposition that source logo, you could fairly easily reverse the shadowing & highlighting to restore the original video's original contrasts. A bit of (A + B) - B' = A' (if B' ~= B, then A' ~= A).

Also, some of the motion-compensated inter-frame-pasting tools can be of benefit that greatly reduces the blur factor.


Scott

"This video isn’t ready"
Please fix your link.


Scott

What does it say the problem was?


Scott

Subs don't get delayed if you play them at the proper speed.


Scott

(waves robed hand)
Those are not the decks you're looking for...


Scott

Yes, but...

It works by smartly recompressing the whole DVD image, asset by asset, using dct-domain requantization. Any one particular asset may or may not be shrinkable to your target size (certainly not without some quality loss).
Also, since it works on ALL the VOB elements of the DVD, it also REQUIRES those elements to be present in their original structure. Am pretty sure it doesn't work on individual lone VOBs. And, btw, there is no VIDEO_TS filetype, there is just the VIDEO_TS folder and VIDEO_TS.VOB, .IFO, & .BUP files, and similar VTS_#_# files.
And note: all the ifo & bup files are small, deal only with navigation/commands, and are not recompressable/shrinkable.
And the VIDEO_TS.VOB file is only the root menu, so is smallish, and bearly shrinkable.


Scott

Hybrid is an encoder, and can encode DVD-compliant MPEG2 video streams, and AC-3 audio, most likely via ffmpeg. But it does not create the DVD VOB container (which is a superset of MPEG2-PS that also allows for LPCM audio streams), nor the file/folder structure of VOB+IFO+BUP, nor any of the subtitle muxing or navigation compiling. THAT is all the jurisdiction of a DVD-Authoring app, and Hybrid is not one.

As mentioned, you will need a separate DVD-Authoring app.


Scott

That's called editing.

Autorun/autoplay was a known, exploited security risk, so Windows disabled some of the features. You can re-enable some/most of them, but at your own risk. Just google "autorun cd enable windows 10".

Make sure you set the autoplay's default for DVD disc loading/mounting to be a compatible DVD media player (e.g. Cyberlink PowerDVD, or even VLC), and you may also need to set something in that app startup settings.
You could/may want to do a similar thing for Audio CD disc loading/mounting.


Scott

I see very little point to going to the trouble of either prepping & uploading, or of DL & viewing, a looped video, when it is SIMPLE to loop in YT already through its player (right-click).


Scott

for physical media, I'll stick with DVD/BD/UHD BD, thank you very much.


Scott

There is no Shazam extension for Edge browsers, only Chrome browsers.
For chrome, when you enable it, it adds access to your sound system & mic. Then when you engage it, it will take a snapshot clip of the music it "hears" and background upload to compare, then give you your results.


Scott