What resolution is VHS quality?

[rodgreen]

Hi

Can anyone tell me what resolution is the equivalent to VHS (PAL) quality? I have been told that 704x576 is considered "full screen PAL" but what is an acceptable resolution for VHS recording.

I have tried 352x288 on my Marvel and it seems reasonably good quality for VHS.

Any help would be appreciated.

Rod

[Brian Ellis]

Rod

There are two answers to your question. The better one is, use the highest quality you can to obtain the best VHS quality. Even if VHS cannot resolve 300 equivalent lines horizontally, you will get a slightly better picture at 704 than you would at 352. Also the vertical quality at 288 would definitely be inferior than 576 (I presume this is why there is also 352 x 576 available, as a good compromise for taping). So the worse answer is use 352 x 288 with some loss of quality.

------------------
Brian (the terrible)

[Dayspring]

Hi there!

I tend to follow fairly simple rules for my recordings. If I'm doing a job for someone, I make things look as good as possible. I stive for quality, and the extra time necessary for processing and such is worth it, if the project I'm working on is one that will be seen as representative of what I do.

If I'm recording something to just play around with, like the little lightsaber effects I've done, and stuff to just be funny for friends, then the lower resolution is more than fine.

Basically, I figure if I were paying for it, then I would want the guy who was doing it to make it look as good as possible.

Actual normal VHS resolution is about equal to the quarter size or half size recordings you can make with the Matrox products, and S-VHS comes closer to the full size resolution. However, simply put, the higher quality the source material, the higher quality the end results, so if you want your output to look as good as possible, using the full size resolution is going to look better even if the tape doesn't record all that extra detail completely.

Matt

[Fred H]

-Capturing in 704x576 AND editing/creating new files with Premiere/MSP in 352x288 takes time to rerender the clips.
-Capturing in 352x288 AND creating new files in 352x288 could be a solution, but you can't chage the captured clips later to 704x576, with the same qual as a high-resolution captured clip.
-Capturing AND editing in the same resolution reduces the rendering time but the file size are different.
Tell me, if I'm wrong?

[JoakimC]

352x576 is a bit better than VHS. VHS is better than 352x288. VHS is interlaced so 352x288 can never look as good as VHS. I tried many ways to make 352x288 look as good as VHS. I couldn't find a way to do that. But when i capture at 352x576 and encode that to interlaced MPEG-2 files the quality is a bit better than VHS. 704x576 is much better than VHS.