best format for VHS homevideos

[Sciencepit]

What's the best format to copy VHS videos to disk? The VHS tapes are not the best quality but I still want to archive them.

 

[LTR12101B]

It depends...

If you want to re-edit, then it may be best starting with a format better for this (with typically poor compression).

If you might want to play them on a standalone DVD, then you could save re-encoding time by going to a compatible format (VideoCD compatible MPEG1, or if you have an SVCD capable player, SVCD compatible MPEG2).

If you want the best compression with acceptable quality, then it's DivX or Xvid - but don't expect to play those formats on a lower powered machine.

 

[celtic_druid]

Best format would be some kind of lossless AVI such as huffyuv. You can then filter to remove noise, etc. before encoding to your final format whether that be (S)VCD, XviD AVI, DVD or whatever.