Choice of VHS or CD VOB as Input Format

Help/How To
1

I’m new to video processing. I want to convert my daughter’s wedding video to a single mp4 file. I have a choice between using the original single VHS tape, or the original CD, both which were provided by a professional videographer. The CD contains 7 VOB files. I have an Elgato VHS converter to convert other old home-made VHS tapes. Which conversion path do you think would yield the best quality?

VHS into Elgato into MP4?
CD VOB files into Shotcut exported to MP4?

Or any other suggestions?

2

Hey @PeterPoggi welcome and congrats! for your first post…
To be brutally true I don’t know the exact answer but I did know that VHS into Elgato into MP4 will take a whopping time to export but in most cases the loss is around 1 to 2%, So if you use CD VOB files into Shotcut exported to MP4 it would be a better choice but it could decrease 2 to 3% quality but still it will be a very good quality video and take much less time compared to the first choice. I found two articles related to your post so you can also visit them:

  1. https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/366252-Using-elgato-for-VHS-capture
  2. http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/video-capture/7421-elgato-video-capture.html
    But I think that we cant find any VHS Tape ports in modern CPU if we want to export VHS files to mp4 from our Computer But CDs are still there, So for me it is better going with second choice.
3

Good to know that you are from leading American computer manufacturer IBM, And I does really like IBM Company.

4

Assuming that VHS and VOB are two different storage methods of the exact same event…

And assuming that the VOB looks as good or better than VHS on playback…

And assuming that the VOB has a vertical resolution of at least 480…

Then life will be much easier with the VOB because it’s ready to start editing immediately. Converting VHS to digital is a time-consuming process to do a quality job. I wouldn’t waste time on it unless I believed that capturing VHS could yield better results than the VOBs that already exist.

5

I’ll second what @Austinsaid, if you have VOB files already assuming they weren’t a bad transfer from the VHS tape they’re a better choice to start with.
If you did wanted to capture from VHS(because the vob files are a bad transfer or the cd is samaged) your best choice would be something like this https://amzn.to/2LDEbZ4 and you’d have to play back in Realtime to record using obs or shotcut but any PC with a usb port should be able to capture it.

6

Thank you for the welcome. Appreciate your comments. IBM has certainly changed since I was first hired in1982, and even more since I retired in 2016. Unfortunately not for the better. (IMHO)

7

Thank you all, for the welcome/replies. The CD was an original produced by the videographer 15 years ago, And as I’m writing this, I am realizing that the VHS has been slowly deteriorating all that time, while the CD has not. I think you all helped me a lot.
Thanks again :slight_smile:

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