Can I improve my laserdisc transfer quality?

[Gary Rice]

I have 3 laserdiscs that I want to transfer to DVD. My setup includes:

Panasonic LX-H670 Laserdisc Player
Miglia Director's Cut D-10 Analog to Digital Converter
Macbook Pro 2009 17" model

I've successfully captured the frames to a DV format from the Laserdiscs but they are quite poor quality.

The attachment is a frame from a "digitally restored" area.

Note the lack of definition. The frame is quite "soft".

Is this the best I can expect from a Laserdisc transfer to a DV format capture?

Gary

[Gary Rice]

Here is another frame. It is a sample frame from a video black area. Note the large amount of noise.

For some reason I couldn't include this image in my previous message.

Gary

[Paul R Johnson]

The snag really is just the line count. around 250 horizontal lines against the current frame size - so with 1080 pixel height 4 pixels vertically will have the same video line data on them. Worse is of course the fact the lines have a visible join between them and the next one, which registers as noise in the signal. You have the frame to frame lag as one brightness level ramps into the next, which is recorded error in the sensor used to scan the film. The blacks and whites are always squashed so all in all I doubt you will do better. You might make a small improvement to the noise and levels if you could get y/c out of the player? Not sure if this is doable? My memory says how good laserdisc was, but the same memory tells me how good VHS was too. It wasn't!

[Keith Rollinson]

Originally Posted by Gary Rice

Here is another frame. It is a sample frame from a video black area. Note the large amount of noise.

For some reason I couldn't include this image in my previous message.

Gary

If you're not seeing similar noise just viewing the laserdisc on a TV/monitor, it's likely the converter is the culprit. Your mac is easily capable of accepting a clean, hi res signal.

[Gary Rice]

> it's likely the converter is the culprit.

Possibly. But will the quality improve any with another brand converter? Or is this quality typical of most setups? That is, would a transfer service produce a cleaner result?

Gary

[Paul R Johnson]

Always worth trying. after all some capture devices were mega expensive and others less so.

[Andrew Smith]

I'd definitely try for a more expensive/professional converter.

The bigger thing I was going to mention is that whilst DV was a leap forward from analogue formats of the day, it's a noticeably soft format when you compare it to more modern codecs. It also has the blockyness / macro blocking (big square regions of pixels) which is likely what was showing up for you, but hard for me to know for sure.

From using Matrox products, I've often captured in their .avi wrapper mpeg2 based codec at an appropriately high data rate and it's always been a fantastic place to start.

Looking at one of my capture files for SD content per the properties panel in Media Player Classic:

Video: MMES 720x576 (4:3) 25fps 50000kbps [V: mpeg2 4:2:2, yuv422p, 720x576, 50000 kb/s]
Audio: PCM 48000Hz stereo 3072kbps [A: pcm_s32le, 48000 Hz, 2 channels, s32, 3072 kb/s]
Audio: PCM 48000Hz stereo 3072kbps [A: pcm_s32le, 48000 Hz, 2 channels, s32, 3072 kb/s]

It's plenty good for standard definition captures to throw 50Mbit/sec at the capture rate for it. You know that your acquisition isn't going to be a constraining issue in your workflow. Capture at the very best digital quality you can.

Andrew

[Gary Rice]

>From using Matrox products ...

I've shied away from Matrox in the past due to their price tag but the MX02 line is now quite affordable and looks to be EXACTLY right for my transfers.

Thanks for the hint.

Gary

[Andrew Smith]

There is a saying in this business: "cry once, enjoy many" when it comes to professional gear. It costs more, but it's always worth it.

Actually , I don't think you can purchase the Matrox MX02 gear any longer, but there are other hardware digitisers available at B&H who are/were a long time sponsor here. Avoid the USB dongle type digitisers and be aware that more professional gear is merely one part of a workflow with potentially other dependencies available.

Come to think of it, if you only have three laser discs to digitise then you'd be better to take the player and discs to an existing video production facility that will already have the good quality gear in place. Digitising/capturing a composite video source won't be an issue for them. It will be cheaper and better, especially when you factor in the cost of your own time.

Andrew

[Boyd Ostroff]

I hate to ask the obvious... but are the movies on those old disks available today in some other format? If so, that would certainly be a lot less trouble, cheaper than buying new capture hardware and the quality would no doubt be a lot better. I mean, if it's only 3 disks, this all sounds way too complicated. :-)

[Gary Rice]

>are the movies on those old disks available today

1 is on DVD. 2 are on VHS and/or Laserdisc only. Talk about strange licensing deals ...

>if it's only 3 disks ...

If I can get a decent transfer, Laserdiscs are REALLY cheap these days.

Gary

[Andrew Smith]

I'm stunned they are still available. I remember being demo'd a Laserdisc player during a film & media class at uni back in the early 1990s. Even back then it was an old yet interesting relic. After all, we now have/had VHS tape.

Andrew

[Gary Rice]

Originally Posted by Andrew Smith

I don't think you can purchase the Matrox MX02 gear any longer

New: no. Used: sure. And Matrox still has drivers available for download.

Gary

[Greg Miller]

Originally Posted by Gary Rice

If I can get a decent transfer, Laserdiscs are REALLY cheap these days.

What about the cost of the equipment for conversion? What about the cost of your time?

I haven't thought about LaserDiscs for years, and I've forgotten anything I knew then. (They first appeared over 40 years ago.) I just checked wikipedia, and I'll presume they're reasonably correct.

The video is recorded as an analog FM signal. The quality was somewhat better than VHS tape, but not as good as [digital] DVD. Since they're not digital, the can't include any error-correction data, as CDs and DVDs do.

So if you have a perfect LaserDisc, and a perfectly working LaserDisc player, the most "decent transfer" you get will be NTSC format video. GIGO. We all remember how bad NTSC was. If I wanted to watch an old movie, and if it were available on DVD, I would certainly opt for that format, rather than converting an old LaserDisc.

Just my 2¢ worth.

[Boyd Ostroff]

That was my point above, but the OP said there were two movies not available anywhere else. Personally, I'd pass, just doesn't make much sense to spend time and money for the level of quality that could be obtained. But if you just *have* to have those two movies....

Funny, I dug an old VCR out of my attic a few years ago and was all psyched up to watch some of my old (commercial) tapes of movies. After about 15 minutes, I bailed out, was getting a headache. I had forgotten just how bad VHS quality was (and that was s-video, composite is much worse). This is compounded by the fact that we weren't watching VHS tapes on 48" LCD screens and were used to the really bad quality of over-the-air broadcast.

I have an old DVD of the original theatrical version of Star Wars that I always liked better than the "improved" CGI version. Don't know if this has changed, but Lucas didn't like the idea of releasing it, so evidently they used the old Laser disk version as the source of the DVD (this was a "bonus disk" in a Star Was DVD box set). The quality is noticeably worse than digital DVD transfers from high definition sources. However, it's still quite watchable, nowhere near as bad as VHS.

Anyway, I hope the OP manages to get the results he wants.