lordsmurf's mpeg aiw guide is elementary

[jamawass]

This guide does not give credit to all the strengths of the aiw card.
720 x 480 dvd setting with vbr at 4 mb/s can give excellent results without more demands on your system than 352x 480. Also there's not enough detail about videosoap. The benefits of videosoap depend on your source, if you capture from a dirty source like analog cable video soap is invaluable and it doesn't have to be set at heavy. Personally I use medium comb filter at 65% and sharpness at 40% for svcd caps.
When capturing from a clean source like s- video videosoap does not change quality but you get a 15-20% reduction in file size! So I just use videosoap light in these situations so I can get more movies on my dvd without sacrificng quality. The file reduction size is the same whatever videosoap settings you use.
Thirdly he makes idiotic comments about athlon processors. I am capturing full resolution dvd video at 6mb/s with an athlon xp 1500+ with 768 MB SDRAM on a relatively old KT133a mobo.

[housepig]

so write a guide, and post it. that's the nice thing here - you can post a guide just as easily as he can.

[pixel]

@jamawass, I'm not trying to take a swipe at you with this, but I feel Lordsmurfs guides are very useful for people of all skills.

He does it voluntarily, so you can't expect him to go into great detail about one minute function, especially when he has to get the rest of his site up and running.
He uses 352x480, because that is roughly the resolution of a S/VHS cassette, plus with a slightly lower resolution, more bitrate is allocated to each part of the picture = less shimmering/blocking.
He doesn't go into detail about videosoap because not everyone will be capturing from the same source, so he wants to keep it simple for newbies.
Actually, videosoap does change the quality of S-Video, and this makes the file size smaller at VBR. It blurs the picture slightly, so more colours get blended together and makes it easy for the ATI software to use less bitrate, because it has to encode less detail.
He did not make an idiotic comment about AMDs, but simply stated fact. Intels have a safety feature to make sure they are not allowed to overheat, but AMDs don't so can literally melt during use.

I hope this clears up what you thought, and if you want to share your experienced ATI skills with others, please post a guide, I'm sure ATI users will be greatful.

[jamawass]

He did not make an idiotic comment about AMDs, but simply stated fact. Intels have a safety feature to make sure they are not allowed to overheat, but AMDs don't so can literally melt during use.

AMD's do not melt during heavy use except in that rigged Tom's Hardware video I challenge anyone to show me a case where an AMD system melted during use. You may crush the core during installation or fry the chip if you don't install the heat sink properly but none of this "melt during operation" urban myth.

[presto]

Jamawas,
I don't think there is any need for you to bash lordsmurfs guide. I found it very helpful.

I am interested in finding out more about video soap. You refer to a comb filter but when I use the drop down box I see soften, sharpen, sports, salt and pepper, combo filter 1, and combo filter 2. (That's from memory so could be wrong). Are the combo filters the same as what you refer to as a comb filter? Exactly what are they supposed to do and when do you use one instead of the other?

I appreciate any help. There's no use in each of us doing dozens and dozens of experiments on our own.

(My other computer is busy right now so I can't check exactly what is in that drop down box. Maybe it says comb and my mind just saw it as combo. )

[jamawass]

Jamawas,
I don't think there is any need for you to bash lordsmurfs guide. I found it very helpful.

I am interested in finding out more about video soap. You refer to a comb filter but when I use the drop down box I see soften, sharpen, sports, salt and pepper, combo filter 1, and combo filter 2. (That's from memory so could be wrong). Are the combo filters the same as what you refer to as a comb filter? Exactly what are they supposed to do and when do you use one instead of the other?

I appreciate any help. There's no use in each of us doing dozens and dozens of experiments on our own.

(My other computer is busy right now so I can't check exactly what is in that drop down box. Maybe it says comb and my mind just saw it as combo. )

Combo filter 1. If you have the cpu horsepower for perfect results use combo filter 1 and 2.

[jamawass]

@jamawass, I'm not trying to take a swipe at you with this, but I feel Lordsmurfs guides are very useful for people of all skills.

He does it voluntarily, so you can't expect him to go into great detail about one minute function, especially when he has to get the rest of his site up and running.
He uses 352x480, because that is roughly the resolution of a S/VHS cassette, plus with a slightly lower resolution, more bitrate is allocated to each part of the picture = less shimmering/blocking.
He doesn't go into detail about videosoap because not everyone will be capturing from the same source, so he wants to keep it simple for newbies.
Actually, videosoap does change the quality of S-Video, and this makes the file size smaller at VBR. It blurs the picture slightly, so more colours get blended together and makes it easy for the ATI software to use less bitrate, because it has to encode less detail.
He did not make an idiotic comment about AMDs, but simply stated fact. Intels have a safety feature to make sure they are not allowed to overheat, but AMDs don't so can literally melt during use.

I hope this clears up what you thought, and if you want to share your experienced ATI skills with others, please post a guide, I'm sure ATI users will be greatful.

Videosoap heavy will affect the picture with s-video but it won't improve it unlike with less clean sources. Videosoap is not a little detail it is a major strength over other software capture cards and should be evaluated well when talking about aiw's.

[lordsmurf]

This guide does not give credit to all the strengths of the aiw card.

I thought it covered plenty. It's already a lot to take in at once, especially for newbies.

720 x 480 dvd setting with vbr at 4 mb/s can give excellent results without more demands on your system than 352x 480.

Sure, capture any resolution you want. But again, anything over 352x480 from VHS, S-VHS, cable, broadcast or satellite sources is unneeded. And at 720x480, 4.00 is quite low. The needed max for that resolution is 8.00, and you'll notice macroblocking at about 5.0 depending on the footage. Most noticeable on live action stuff, less on cartoons.

Also there's not enough detail about videosoap. The benefits of videosoap depend on your source, if you capture from a dirty source like analog cable video soap is invaluable and it doesn't have to be set at heavy. Personally I use medium comb filter at 65% and sharpness at 40% for svcd caps. When capturing from a clean source like s- video videosoap does not change quality but you get a 15-20% reduction in file size! So I just use videosoap light in these situations so I can get more movies on my dvd without sacrificng quality. The file reduction size is the same whatever videosoap settings you use.

I'm not there yet. Under the RESTORATION section, I'll go way in depth on the ATI filters, as well as other programs. Again, it's planned.

I couldn't agree more. VideoSoap is an amazing advantage over most other capture cards.

Thirdly he makes idiotic comments about athlon processors. I am capturing full resolution dvd video at 6mb/s with an athlon xp 1500+ with 768 MB SDRAM on a relatively old KT133a mobo.

Alright. I'll accept that criticism. But I have a buddy with a fried AMD because his processor melted on the board while encoding overnight. I'm sure he'd love to have this conversation with you. As I've said before in another post once, the motherboard alarm went off AFTER the damage was done, and it was as loud as a fire alarm. I was visiting, couching it that night a this place, and we thought there was a fire. After looking around, we realized it was his computer, not the fire alarm making the noise. Why? Because unlike Intel, AMD processors apparently have no heat control, and after extended usage, simply melt. I don't like it any more than you. But that's the way it seems to work. There's information about this all over the Internet, and I've seen it discussed on these boards in the past. My incident, plus complaints from others, is proof enough for me to stand behind that comment.

(And that "dropped frames" guide of which you speak was actually a collaborative effort between myself and others, not entirely written alone. In fact, it was posted here by one of the others before I even registered my domain, and is still a sticky on this site.)

--

And again, this is a hobby. I do pages when I find free time. I originally hoped to have the site done by the end of August, but that'll be delayed into the first week of September. Until somebody wants to pay me to do this full-time, it'll remain a hobby done in spare time.

Feel free to contribute if you have more to add. My e-mail is here and on the site.

[next]

This guide does not give credit to all the strengths of the aiw card.

I thought it covered plenty. It's already a lot to take in at once, especially for newbies.

720 x 480 dvd setting with vbr at 4 mb/s can give excellent results without more demands on your system than 352x 480.

Sure, capture any resolution you want. But again, anything over 352x480 from VHS, S-VHS, cable, broadcast or satellite sources is unneeded. And at 720x480, 4.00 is quite low. The needed max for that resolution is 8.00, and you'll notice macroblocking at about 5.0 depending on the footage. Most noticeable on live action stuff, less on cartoons.

Also there's not enough detail about videosoap. The benefits of videosoap depend on your source, if you capture from a dirty source like analog cable video soap is invaluable and it doesn't have to be set at heavy. Personally I use medium comb filter at 65% and sharpness at 40% for svcd caps. When capturing from a clean source like s- video videosoap does not change quality but you get a 15-20% reduction in file size! So I just use videosoap light in these situations so I can get more movies on my dvd without sacrificng quality. The file reduction size is the same whatever videosoap settings you use.

I'm not there yet. Under the RESTORATION section, I'll go way in depth on the ATI filters, as well as other programs. Again, it's planned.

I couldn't agree more. VideoSoap is an amazing advantage over most other capture cards.

Thirdly he makes idiotic comments about athlon processors. I am capturing full resolution dvd video at 6mb/s with an athlon xp 1500+ with 768 MB SDRAM on a relatively old KT133a mobo.

Alright. I'll accept that criticism. But I have a buddy with a fried AMD because his processor melted on the board while encoding overnight. I'm sure he'd love to have this conversation with you. As I've said before in another post once, the motherboard alarm went off AFTER the damage was done, and it was as loud as a fire alarm. I was visiting, couching it that night a this place, and we thought there was a fire. After looking around, we realized it was his computer, not the fire alarm making the noise. Why? Because unlike Intel, AMD processors apparently have no heat control, and after extended usage, simply melt. I don't like it any more than you. But that's the way it seems to work. There's information about this all over the Internet, and I've seen it discussed on these boards in the past. My incident, plus complaints from others, is proof enough for me to stand behind that comment.

(And that "dropped frames" guide of which you speak was actually a collaborative effort between myself and others, not entirely written alone. In fact, it was posted here by one of the others before I even registered my domain, and is still a sticky on this site.)

--

And again, this is a hobby. I do pages when I find free time. I originally hoped to have the site done by the end of August, but that'll be delayed into the first week of September. Until somebody wants to pay me to do this full-time, it'll remain a hobby done in spare time.

Feel free to contribute if you have more to add. My e-mail is here and on the site.

My opinion is that it a great effort and a selfless example of volunteer work as it relates to the AIW. Well organized and a tremendous effort.

It is obvious that the site is in its early stages. And I'm sure constructive comments are welcome.

There is a history to the AIW cards that may never be included based on the experience of the provider but that's AOK.

It is a welcomed effort

[jamawass]

Thanks for the response lordsmurf much more levelheaded than my initial post.

Why? Because unlike Intel, AMD processors apparently have no heat control, and after extended usage, simply melt. I don't like it any more than you. But that's the way it seems to work. There's information about this all over the Internet, and I've seen it discussed on these boards in the past. My incident, plus complaints from others, is proof enough for me to stand behind that comment.

With the Athlon XP processor AMD placed heat protection diodes but motherboards failed to implement them, not AMD's fault but a problem with the platform. However I have crunched a lot of games, encoding with even the red hot Athlon thunderbird bfore upgrading to XP without problems. I think the occurence of this problem should be put into proper perspective after all overclocked P4 Northwoods have been reported to die suddenly but this is only in a small proportion of cases and it is still popular with overclockers.
Your guide is a good first step but if you'd mentioned that it was a beginner's guide with followup that would have clarified things to me.

[SLICK RICK]

lordsmurf,

As some of the other members said, the guides you make are voluntary and although I have not used your guides (I capture VHS with my ADVC 100), I have read many of your posts on numerous topics and they were all very informative. Its good to visit this site and know that people such as yourself, txpharoah, tgpo, arcorob, moviegeek, racer-x, g_shocker and many, many others will be here to help out in any way possible. So, to you and the many others "Keep up the good work"


SLICK RICK

[next]

Once again a great site but I do not agree with the AMD comments. I've been running them for years and have never had a melt down.

And if melt downs were common we'd be seeing it on the front page of Yahoo. And on CNN (CNN International for our friends not in the states)

Perhaps the site should be a resourse for the AIW and not a flash point for AMD.

Just a thought. Too much work involved to relegate efforts to an AMD discussion.

[next]

lordsmurf,

As some of the other members said, the guides you make are voluntary and although I have not used your guides (I capture VHS with my ADVC 100), I have read many of your posts on numerous topics and they were all very informative. Its good to visit this site and know that people such as yourself, txpharoah, tgpo, arcorob, moviegeek, racer-x, g_shocker and many, many others will be here to help out in any way possible. So, to you and the many others "Keep up the good work"


SLICK RICK

Everybody except pharoahs from texas. But that is just a personal opinion. Hopefully it's still allowed.

Post counts matter?