transfering from a VHS Handy cam to VCD

[cnhfanclub]

Hi all,

I am new to this forum and got hooked into this ever since I got an old Handycam to play around with.
It is a VHS format, Panasonic, (not sure of the model no),
but the quality is pretty good.

What I need to do now is convert this into a normal VCD that I can play on any VCD Player.

I have downloaded the TMPGE encoder, and I have 2-3
s/w to capture the movie and convert it into an avi file.

Here is where I face problems.
My Pc Configs are as follows :

PIII - 550 MGHz. 128 MB RAM
20 GH HDD
"Mercury" TV TUNER Capture/Card
Panasonic VHS Handycam

when I start to capture, what format shud I use, what compression codes wud fit best, since a 4.7 MB avi file
approx 10 sec worth, after converting becomes 1.72 MB Mpeg format (10 sec worth).

plus the continuity is not maintained, and a lot of frames are dropped.

what is the best choise for me, regds compression codes
(I have tried HUFFYUV, but it isn't so good,
what all other settings shud I make)

I have recorded an entire cassette of my newborn daughter,
and wud like to make a VCD out of this, but the size seems to be a major hurdle.

Please reply, ASAP...
Thanks and regards,
Calvin

[ebaldino]

Hi.

I´ve been converting my Star Trek tapes (taped off TV) to SVCD, and I´m very happy with the results. I too have a PIII. You may have a long way ahead of you, but here are a few tips:

1. If you want portability, then definitely stick with the VCD format. For VHS source, SVCD gives MUCH better end results, but it is not nearly as portable.

2. To avoid dropping frames, make sure your hard drive is fast enough. I´m capturing hour-long videos with less then 20 (twenty) dropped frames - and I understand these frames are dropped on purpose to keep audio synch. Make sure you are using DMA on the HD, and I would recommend getting an ATA-100 controller and HD combination. Also, if you use VirutalDub for capturing, zero-out all buffer settings under Capture/Capture Settings, and disable Windows Write Buffering under Capture/DiskIO - basically, let the capture card driver and the HD controller handle all the IO...

3. I use huffyuv in VirtualDub to capture. If you have been having problems with huffyuv I recommend you play with it until you get it working. It is great. You may be perceiving low quality in playing back video captured with huffy because you are not using huffy to decode the video. Make sure you use the same codec to capture and to play back your videos.

4. Capture directly in the resolution that you will finally use - for VCD, 352x240 if NTSC. I´ve found that capturing at higher resolutions and then processing the video down to a lower resolution does not add that much quality to the end result, but takes A LONG time to process. Plus, you are short on disk space anyway...

Congratulations on your daughter. Mine is 2 yrs old this month and she is the most incredible thing that´s happened in my life...

rgds
E.Baldino

[cnhfanclub]

Thanks Baldino,

I hope the above does solve my problem, however I need to know what size shud a Mpeg file of approx 1 min be, accordingly I will know if the compression codecs I am using are propper or not. !!

thanks and regards,
Calvin

[Anonymous65]

To make a VCD file, capture at 352x240 at 29.97 frames per second. As for compression, use no compression if you can, and select YUY2 for color format, and not 24 or 32 bit. The audio should be 22.05 or 44.1Khz at 16 bit.
When the capture is done, convert the file in Tmepg and burn the file to a VCD.

[joeydlc]

Hi Skittelsen,

This is just a follow up question - If I want to make SVCD what capture resolution should I use then? I have a Pinnacle PCTV Pro capture card. I get lots of dropped frames when I capture at 720x480. I use iuVCR capture software and I haven't tried VirtualDub yet. My system specs:
PIII 866
512 MB RAM
2x40GB WD Ultra100
PCTV Pro
Studio DV
SB Live value

[ketan]

Sorry to take you off the track, ebaldino.

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
On 2001-11-06 02:06:07, ebaldino wrote:
3. I use huffyuv in VirtualDub to capture. If you have been having problems with huffyuv I recommend you play with it until you get it working. It is great. You may be perceiving low quality in playing back video captured with huffy because you are not using huffy to decode the video. Make sure you use the same codec to capture and to play back your videos.
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>
WHAT IS "DECODE THE VEDIO"?
I CAPTURE THROUGH MY ATI SOFTWARE + (HUFFYUV CODEC), CONVERT THROUGH TMPG. AND SHALL BURN THRU ADAPTEC AND MAKE VCD. I HOPE I WILL BE ABLE TO SEE ON TV. AM I MISSING SOMETHING?
THANKS
KETAN

[Shabubu]

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
On 2001-11-06 05:54:36, joeydlc wrote:
Hi Skittelsen,

This is just a follow up question - If I want to make SVCD what capture resolution should I use then? I have a Pinnacle PCTV Pro capture card. I get lots of dropped frames when I capture at 720x480. I use iuVCR capture software and I haven't tried VirtualDub yet. My system specs:
PIII 866
512 MB RAM
2x40GB WD Ultra100
PCTV Pro
Studio DV
SB Live value
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

With those hard disks capture at 400x480 (or 576 for PAL) and then open up the file in VDub (capture with HUFFYUV), Bilinear resize to 480x480 (or 480x576 for PAL) and then frameserve to TMPGEnc.

[joeydlc]

Hi Shabubu,

Need your help.
I'm new to VirtualDub. How do you frameserve to TMPGenc?

[Baldrick]

http://www.vcdhelp.com/virtualdubframeserve.htm