Best Removable MediaFor Recording Off Air TV Broadcasts

[tomswift2002]

Besides working as an independent videographer, I also volunteer at my local community Cable TV channel channel. I like keeping copies of all the programs that I work on (so that I can use clips in my resume reel), and with the TV station the only way to get copies of all the programs is to record them off air. And while the station is still broadcasting in Standard Definition on both analog and digital cable packages, I wouldn't be surprised if they upgraded to HD in the next few years.

I have been using VHS and DVD to record the programs, however I have been looking for a better method to record the signal. With VHS I'm able to record upto 180 minutes in SP mode, while to get that on my set top DVD recorder I have (which also has only an analog tuner, and composite inputs with one firewire input, which I find useless as none of the DVR's I've seen have had firewire out) to use the LP setting --- but then I find the DVD quality really drops to where I get pixelated video, poor Color and a ton of grain. One of the programs that I help out with a lot is the broadcast of our local CCHL Hockey Team, and I get better video from using a T-180 VHS tape, as the games usually run between 2.5 and 3 hours, than a DVD on the LP mode, as the video is usually pixelated from all the fast action of the hockey players moving up and down the ice. But also with DVD I have some discs that are 6 years old and are failing from DVD chemical rot, whereas I still have VHS tapes that I recorded 20 years ago that still play fine.

I have been thinking of getting a DVHS machine, and disabling its sensor that picks up true DVHS and SVHS tapes for recording DVHS information onto regular VHS tape, as I have looked into the current status of DVHS and SVHS blanks, which, currently, are both discontinued, leaving just regular VHS blanks available (or I guess I could use $40 Digital-S/D9 tapes).

I have heard that in Japan set top Blu Ray recorders are available, however I am unsure whether they would work with North American cable, as I think Japan, while they used a modified-NTSC for their analog system, their digital system uses the DVBS standard, whereas we use ATSC.

So does anyone know of any other removable media that can be used for archiving TV Broadcasts that can accept analog NTSC and digital ATSC/QAM over an RF connection, and with SD programs over something better than the yellow composite, or even with HD allows for recording either by component or HDMI?

Or is it just VHS/DVHS and DVD recorders that are available for this sort of thing now days?

 

[Metryq]

You're still using VHS? Egads.

You should be able to get a copy directly from the station, I would think. That would save the "generation loss" of passing through the rest of the system. Even small cable stations should be using video servers by this time (Tightrope, Telvue, etc.). You could copy the file right off the server with a thumb drive and take it home.

(With SD programming, file size shouldn't be too much of a problem, unless the show is very long. If the file exceeds 4 GB, you'll have to reformat a thumb drive for NTFS, HFS+ or some other file system that supports bigger files.)

Assuming there's some reason you can't just get a copy direct from the station, set up a capture device on your computer to record off-air. Then you can segment a show at a higher quality, rather than compressing it to fit on a single optical disc. Unless you really, really want to keep the entire show, I'd suggest editing out a few select segments from a capture to put in a resume archive. Why keep the entire show?

 

[tomswift2002]

I've asked a few times, and even just last week another volunteer asked, and the station's very reluctant to give out copies or even allow access to the servers (and most of the time the programs are being recorded to DVD-R when we are in the field at LP mode ---they still use on occasion DVCPRO, but most recording is to DVD).

And I've looked at some of the TV cards out there and I have not been impressed by their specs in terms of compression.

 

[tomswift2002]

So I picked up a JVC HM-DH30000U and, really, I've got to say that JVC must've been joking with people on this model. So far I haven't used any true DVHS tapes (not that I have any), but I have used some Maxell ST-120 SVHS, Maxell T180 VHS and Memorex T-120 VHS cassettes in the machine, and I haven't modified the machine yet, but with the VHS tapes, just by hitting the "S-VHS-ET" button on the front of this recorder, I can override the S-VHS kill switch and record S-VHS on the regular VHS tapes, and just by hitting the DVHS button I can override the DVHS kill sensor and record DVHS on SVHS tapes!!!! So, JVC, what's the point of trying to say that you can only use DVHS tapes on this machine for DVHS, when you can clearly use SVHS (and with the mod, VHS).

So far I've recorded a 2-hour curling game, and due to it being repeated I was able to record it on a 2 SVHS tapes (one at HS speed, the other at STD speed), and also setup my DVD recorder (Sony RDR-GDX380) to record the first broadcast (which was also the same broadcast the HS recording was recording) in SP. Both recorders were being fed an analog NTSC cable feed (so composite video). HS records at a Constant-Bit-Rate of 28.8Mbps (max time on ST-120: 2hours), STD is also CBR at 14.4 Mbps (ST-120: 4 hours), while the SP DVD was recorded at a Variable-Bit-Rate of around 4.5 Mbps. Both recorders are recording at 480i.

For the test I hooked the DVHS upto my Philips LCD via S-Video (I need to do some rewiring to get the DVHS's component video connected, as I only have one set of component on my TV, but I've got 3 HDMI, and 2 S-Video/RCA connections) and used a Sony PS2 that I've got connected by S-Video (the GDX-380 does not have any S-Video in or outs).

First impression: Wow, compared to the DVHS recordings, DVD is extremely soft, and the Colors are extremely muddy. On both HS and STD the video is very sharp, and the Colors look much more natural, as far as composite sourced video is concerned.

Curling is not as action packed as hockey so there wasn't any noticeable pixelation in any of the recordings. In terms of the HS vs. STD RECORDINGS, I couldn't really see much difference, except it looks like STD might be closer to MicroMV video quality, while HS is just a little softer than DV video and that it appears that I'm going to have to clean my video heads, since the VCR uses 4-heads for the HS mode vs. 2-heads for the STD mode, and while the HS had dropout within the first 30 seconds of playback, it was fine after that, but the STD recording featured dropouts that, after rewinding and playing back the same spot, played fine.

Overall, when we are talking about Standard Definition recordings, it looks like DVHS leaves DVD is the dust.

 

[scotthm]

Overall, when we are talking about Standard Definition recordings, it looks like DVHS leaves DVD is the dust.

The question is, why do your DVD recordings look so poor? DVDs are able to store very high quality video content.

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[tomswift2002]

From my experience most DVD recorders have poor 2-D color separation when it comes from composite sources such as analog NTSC cable or a VHS that is connected via RCA. And recording into DVD's 4:2:0 color space, at it's high compression level doesn't help either. When I transfer a VHS or Umatic for a client I find that by capturing DV gives me a much better quality final product than by hooking up a Umatic or VHS to a DVD recorder and recording right to disc.

But also DVD's use a Variable Bit Rates under 9.4Mbps, so depending on how the DVD is recorded, there is not a lot of space for change. And when I'm recording hockey the DVD recorder is set to the LP mode, and at that level it is barely cracking 4.0 Mbps. And at 4.0 Mbps I'm seeing a lot of pixilation and bleeding colors, even on shots that do not have a lot of movement. Also the variable bit rate causes the amount of data recorded to vary by more than 2.0 Mbps.

DVHS at it's STD (or LP mode) is recording at a Constant Bit Rate of 14.4 Mbps, so it is only fluctuating between +-1.0 Mbps (so 13.4 - 15.4 Mbps). I haven't tried it yet, but DVHS's LS3 (analogous to SLP) is suppose to recorded at a CBR of 4.5Mbps, so at that level DVHS might show a picture that is closer to DVD.

 

[tomswift2002]

So today I was able to do two things with the D-VHS: one was connect it to my 64 bit Windows 8.1 computer via firewire, and two was rewire my TV so I was taking a component video feed from the player.

On my computer, while I was able to see the video (and control the deck), for some reason I was not able to get any audio over the firewire; I was getting audio through the analog outputs. So when I compared the DVD on my computer, again the D-VHS gave the higher quality video. Even when I captured some through my ADVC-300, I was able to have the sharpness all the way up on the 300 without having any ghosting and very little noise, while the DVD I was only able to get upto just uner the 3/4 mark before it started showing signs of being too over sharp. And with the D-VHS I was running it to the 300 with S-Video, while I needed to run the DVD by RCA yellow Composite to even get a decent shot.

Again with the component vs. HDMI, D-VHS kicked DVD's rear!