I am trying (and failing) to compress capture card files....

[ladyhawke]

Hi guys,

Basically I know ZERO about computers except that you turn it on and the internet happens. So, being the wonderous depth of IT knowledge that I am (lol :P ) I thought I would give the whole "capture card" thing a go.

So far its not going too well.

I have managed to work out how to make the card work - I can capture old videos and such when they are playing on the TV now, but they are HUGE... They take up all my space before they are even finished recording!

Is there any way to compress the files down so they can be put onto DVDs?? I know this seems like simple stuff, but every other thing I have looked at doesn't tell me anything that I can understand...

Thanks in advance for your help!

[lordsmurf]

Fill out your profile. https://forum.videohelp.com/member209226.html
"I have no idea." doesn't work.

You ask a question that requires an answer based off information you've not given.

[ladyhawke]

OK I put in what I know

[guns1inger]

You can find most of the details that you need by right-clicking on My Computer, then selecting Properties from the pop-up menu (it's the General tab, if you can't see it).

Next, you need to tell us what capture card you are using, what software is doing the capturing, and what settings you are using.

However, if you know as little as you say about computers, you would have been better off purchasing a DVD Recorder with a digital tuner and HDD instead.

[ladyhawke]

its my home computer - im at work now...
and can i just have a rough guideline to follow? is there some kind of checklist that i can go through when i get home for it? whats the best capture system to use?

[guns1inger]

Without knowing what you have, there is no way to point you in the direction of anything valid or useful.

[ladyhawke]

hmm. ok ill go home and check what ive got and let you know.

[guns1inger]

Some (very) generic things to consider

1. Does your capture card do all it's work in software, or does it have hardware encoding support ?

If it has hardware support then you may be restricted in what you can change at capture time. Any further compression will have to come after capture is complete.

If it uses software only compression then you may have more freedom, but you also have to remember that your PC is doing all the work, and therefore is the main factor in quality and compression. Higher compression usually requires more CPU. If your CPU or HDDs aren't fast enough then you will get dropped frames and lower quality.

2. Filesize = Bitrate X Running time. This is a universal rule. If you are getting very large files then your bitrate must be very high. Change the bitrate in your capture software to get smaller files. However, when you do so, also consider that lower bitrates often lead to lower quality. You will have to find the trade off between bitrate and quality that suits you.

3. You are better off having a second HDD in your PC, and capturing this this drive, than capturing to your system drive (usually C:\ ). Large drives are cheap and a good investment.

4. If you are capturing movies and TV shows of free to air broadcasts, get a digital tuner that allows you to capture the digital stream. In Australia we still use Mpeg-2 as the video format, and AC3 or MP2 for audio. This means our SD digital streams are already DVD compliant, and can often be burned to DVD after only minimal authoring. HD broadcast material will have to be re-encoded (the video, at least) before authoring.

[ladyhawke]

thank you