VHS 3hour Capture - OBS Help

[VincentVBR]

Hi All,

I am posting this as I have had no luck searching on the net for a solution, I have been given a project to convert 500 VHS films originally umatic to a HDD, I am using a HD PVR2 1080 upscaled at 30FPS with OBS Studio as the Hauppauge Software was complete shite with no luck from there technical team. I am getting excellent results with OBS however the 2.5hr films are at 16GB-18GB per film, I tried handbrake and I was getting the same result in file size, My OBS settings are:

OBS (Run as Administrator)
Recording Type: Standard
Recording Format: MP4
Audio Track: 1
Encoder: NVIDIA NVENC H.264
Rate Control: CBR
Bitrate: 16000 Kbps (note i tried 6000, 3500 and these were very poor results - 16000 gives the best sharp image and quality)
Preset: Quality
Profile: High
[yes] Look Ahead
[yes] Pyscho Visual Tuning
GPU: 0
Max B Frames : 2

Video Tab set to : lanczos 16 frame rate set as 30

I am happy with the quality and sound of the VHS film, as this has really really improved the quality and sound, however anyway or recommended settings to shrink this video down from 20GB, I tried Handbrake, VidCoder, Adobe Media Encoder, VideoProc & Movavi and none seem to shrink the video to a lower size, Please can someone advise on how I am able to get each film size down to at least 1GB.

Apologies if there is another thread as I have tried my best to look for a thread online. I really would appreciate if someone can help me with this problem.

Thanks guys

 

[JanVdB]

Hi,

I'm no tech expert but I've been capturing VHS footage for a while now and the only solution is to lower your bitrate, 3500 should be enough for SD 720x576 footage. I don't see any difference when using a higher bitrate. When searching online, I always find the same advice: 3500 to max 5000 Kbps.

Jan

 

[qhobbes]

1 GB = 1000000 Kilobytes = 8000000 Kilobits. 60 sec * 150 min = 9,000 seconds. 8000000 / 9,000 = 889 Kbps. That would be the total bitrate for video AND audio for a 2.5 hour file at about 1 GB.

 

[Natonylon]

3500 is too low for VHS. DVD quality is about 6000 Kbits/sec, especially with VHS you dont want pixelation when recording shaky scenes. Are you recording off a windowed screen? And maybe putting it to full screen that you are recording more pixels than you need? In your Sources add "Window Capture", Get your VHS resolution to be 1:1 with your monitors pixels so that you're recording only the pixel Height and Width that you need. It might trim some of the fat :)

 

[VincentVBR]

Hi Guys, This is going to sound strange but I have a U-matic 1080p Upscaler HD VHS setup which feeds into OBS Studio, The Picture is immaculate, the sound is excellent, I am recording at 16000 Kbps at 30FPS for each 3 hour film, using Yadif and Filters, I tried every setting and tutorial in Handbrake, Movavi, Videoproc and the file size is the same, lowering the quality results into Jerkyness and really bad square pixelated quality. I have ended up buying a 4TB HDD to save each VHS print at 20GB until a new software comes out in the near future or a OBS plugin that could help reduce the file size whilst recording. One of the Video Specialists I purchase software from suggested that I use Adobe Media Encoder to convert the 20GB file to a lower file size without lossless, or someone suggested to create a youtube private channel upload each film and then download the film, what you guys reckon?

 

[qhobbes]

If you're recording at 16000 Kbps, the only way to 100% guarantee a lower file size is to re-encode the files at lower bitrate.

 

[VincentVBR]

Hi mate, for the approx 2GB specifications, that you have mentioned, please can you tell me the settings you would use to record a VHS 3 hour film under 5GB -

Here are my settings capturing 1920x1080 using a U-matic VHS Feed (note the signal from the device is 1080 HD feeding into OBS Studio:

[OUTPUT TAB -RECORDING]
[1] Output = MP4
[2] Encoder = NVIDIA NVENC X264 (NEW)
[3] Audio = 1
[4] CBR=16000 kbps
[5] Keyframe '2'
[6] Quality = Max Quality
[7] Profile = High
[8] Look-ahead = 'YES'
[9] Psycho Visual Tuning = 'YES'
[10] GPU = '0'
[11] Max B Frames = '2'

[AUDIO TAB] = Everything is at default = 160 nothing changed

[VIDEO TAB] =
[1] Base Canvas = 1920x1080
[2] Output Resolution = 1920x1080
[3] Downscale Filter = Lanczos (Sharpened scaling, 36 samples)
[4] Common FPS = 30 (**I tried 60FPS however the system was lagging on playback and record so i changed this 30FPS**)

[ADVANCED TAB] =
[1] Process Priority = High
[VIDEO] [1] Renderer = Direct3D11
[2] Color Format = NV12
[3] Color Space = 709
[4] Color Range = Full

** [Other Settings] ** = [FILTERS]
[1] Video Capture Filter (Yadif - TF) = [YES]
[2] Color Correct Filter = YES
[3] Sharpen = YES

The above settings are my OBS settings I found on YouTube tutorial, and the result is excellent picture and sound, no sync issues however 3 Hour video film becomes 20GB file in size, and when using Handbrake to compress the file, no luck in reducing the file size.

I hope you could possibly identify somewhere in these settings where I am going wrong or if possible send me your settings to capture 'High Quality' low file size, please.

Cheers Guys :)

 

[qhobbes]

H265 allegedly has same quality at half the bitrate compared with H264, so re-encode the videos with H265 with 8000 Kbps bitrate.

 

[VincentVBR]

Hi mate, tried that managed to bring the file size down to 11GB however the video was very Jerky and pixelated, is there a better software out there than Handbrake that can decompress the files without losing quality, I tried H265 which was fast however affected the quality of the file.

What I am finding is that the MP4 files I am creating using OBS Studio are problematic in decreasing file size without loosing quality. I even tried capturing using the MKV format and ran that through handbrake and same issue.

I have just tested the new OBS V27 and I managed to capture 3 hours MP4 at 16GB (normally captures 20GB) using the settings I had mentioned above this post, and the quality and sound is even better than version 26. not sure what they have fixed but it works even better as the Interlace lines have all disappeared in my final capture.