Record VHS In full screen size
- Thread starter jeffb57
- Start date
Lawrence_SoCal
Active Member
that question is not technically clear, because (I'm assuming) you are referring to aspect ratios
You have to decide whether you want to
- distort the image by even (or logarithmically) adjusting scaling, (ie expanding in one direction and not the other... ie expand horizontally but not vertically)
- or crop the image
If you want the best image... do neither. Understand and accept that old VHS (presumably 480p?) uses a different aspect ratio that modern widescreen monitors... and therefore you will have black bands on top or bottom as appropriate.
some TV will auto scale (or having settings options for user selectable scaling approach (ie leave center largely untouched, and scale more on the edges) when receiving non-native aspect ratio sources.
To convert from one aspect to another involves either cropping (losing data) or distorting the image... you just have to pick one... Your question does not indicate if you are asking for one of these approaches, so none of us can directly answer your question
You have to decide whether you want to
- distort the image by even (or logarithmically) adjusting scaling, (ie expanding in one direction and not the other... ie expand horizontally but not vertically)
- or crop the image
If you want the best image... do neither. Understand and accept that old VHS (presumably 480p?) uses a different aspect ratio that modern widescreen monitors... and therefore you will have black bands on top or bottom as appropriate.
some TV will auto scale (or having settings options for user selectable scaling approach (ie leave center largely untouched, and scale more on the edges) when receiving non-native aspect ratio sources.
To convert from one aspect to another involves either cropping (losing data) or distorting the image... you just have to pick one... Your question does not indicate if you are asking for one of these approaches, so none of us can directly answer your question
Last edited:
Mistergrin
New Member
So following up on this other person‘s post. I am playing my VHS through component wires (which my combo unit has) into an upscaler, which then connects via HDMI to an Elgato Camlink 4K and into my Mac. The input into the upscaler was at 480p, and has since been upscaled to 1080p. So as it stands, the image is currently stretched. I can crop it manually to simulate a 4 x 3 aspect ratio, but that will cut some of the information from the VHS tape. Is there a way to digitize and export in 4x3 through OBS and retain all the information from the VHS, which would otherwise be lost? in the past, I’ve exported the video at 16x9, and then re-imported it into an editing program’s timeline at 4x3 in order to bring it back to its proper aspect ratio. Is this still the best way to handle this or is there a simpler way within OBS? Any advice would be helpful?
koala
Active Member
You can change the aspect ratio within OBS by using different aspect ratios in Settings > Video > Canvas resolution and output resolution. For example, if your source is 16:9 you enter a 16:9 resolution in the canvas resolution and use some 4:3 resolution in output resolution.
However, it would be best to not mangle/resize the video in between. Especially on the analog part. Every such conversion comes with some loss of quality. Your upscaler just bloats up the video and seems to distort it. Instead of undistorting it afterwards, the better solution is to directly read the 480p 4:3 aspect ratio VHS video into OBS as 480p video. With a 4:3 aspect ratio you would use a resolution of 640x480 as canvas and output, so you create a 480p video in the end. Not scaling but saving the video 1:1 exactly as it is on the tape is the best for conserving quality.
Any upscaling is the task of the media player.
You also should make sure your image never has black bars on the top/bottom or right/left during all processing and you never had to crop any black bars. Having these is a sign of a not properly chosen resolution. It's the task of the media player to dynamically re-add any black bars on the playback device during playback in case the playback device has a different aspect ratio than the video.
However, it would be best to not mangle/resize the video in between. Especially on the analog part. Every such conversion comes with some loss of quality. Your upscaler just bloats up the video and seems to distort it. Instead of undistorting it afterwards, the better solution is to directly read the 480p 4:3 aspect ratio VHS video into OBS as 480p video. With a 4:3 aspect ratio you would use a resolution of 640x480 as canvas and output, so you create a 480p video in the end. Not scaling but saving the video 1:1 exactly as it is on the tape is the best for conserving quality.
Any upscaling is the task of the media player.
You also should make sure your image never has black bars on the top/bottom or right/left during all processing and you never had to crop any black bars. Having these is a sign of a not properly chosen resolution. It's the task of the media player to dynamically re-add any black bars on the playback device during playback in case the playback device has a different aspect ratio than the video.