I am currently in the nightmare which is video capturing. For one of my clients, I am completely upgrading their Video area (just the Music Videos for now) with new high quality videos.

The workflow: Get source (DVD / DV / Laserdisc / VHS) to the computer. Save. Save a copy as an Uncompressed 8bit 4:2:2 QuickTime file. Drag that to Final Cut, slap some titles on the start and end, then save again as an Uncompressed 8bit 4:2:2 video. Finally, take the result, and compress down to a 480×360 MPEG4 video file. Each video takes up to 90 minutes (!!!). Why go through all the Uncompressed steps? If you just take a DV25 encoded clip (which is all the quality I am able to capture at on my laptop), and compress that down, it will look like crap, pure and simple.

Now, if all the video was digital already, this would be great. Ripping a MPEG2 DVD file, and doing “the workflow” is workable, if a bit time consuming. The issue is that there are close to two dozen videos that have never been released, or are on very old formats (PAL VHS). This becomes the start of the nightmare.

Below, we have two identical frames from the Depeche Mode video “A Question Of Time”. One is from a NTSC laserdisc (the Strange home video was only released on VHS and Laserdisc formats), and the other is from a PAL DVD rip of The Best Of Depeche Mode, Volume 1. Note the lack of detail on the Laserdisc. Lack of detail going into the process means that the final product will be washed out and dull. Fun!

You ask yourself, “Self, why would he even bother to capture something that is already on DVD?”

Good question. The answer? Anton Corbijn (the director) did a slight edit (a different shot) for two seconds in the middle of the video. I am trying to be complete, hence I am featuring all of the videos, with all variation.

Yes, that was the 4:32pm train that just went by. You can tell because it has orange stripes instead of blue stripes. (British people reading that are laughing right now)