Capturing from VHS, what resolution?

[vade]

Hi guys, newbie here needs a little advice. I have a few VHS tapes which I intend to convert to VCD. The tapes are all pretty new, so the quality is not too bad.

I understand VCDs use a fixed resolution of 352x288 (for PAL), and so my question is, will there be a difference in quality if I capture from VHS to AVI at full PAL (768x576), and then use TMPGEnc to encode to 352x288, or if I just capture from VHS to AVI then to VCD at 352x288 all the way? The advantage of the latter method is obviously less time and hard disk space needed, but I'm not sure if there'll be a difference in quality.

I've looked through all the guides, and from what I understand, it seems to be that there's no difference in quality, but I can't be sure. Can anyone confirm please? Or is there another resolution which I should be doing the initial capture in to ensure optimal quality? Thanks in advance.

[vade]

Right, seems like I have a problem. I can't capture at anything less than 704x576 without the video getting choppy and skipping badly. Anyone know why's that?

I'm using VirtualVCR with a Pinnacle PCTV capture card.

[Forum Troll]

As I understand it VHS resolution is 320x240 or something close to that. When I capture from VHS, I capture to VCD MPEG. Capturing to full DVD rez (720x480 NTSC) and my videos turn out unwatcheable.

[lordsmurf]

As I understand it VHS resolution is 320x240 or something close to that. When I capture from VHS, I capture to VCD MPEG. Capturing to full DVD rez (720x480 NTSC) and my videos turn out unwatcheable.

No..... No no no no no.....
That is a common misconception.
VHS is 220x480 (EP) or 240x480 (SP).

Unwatchable? What is the problem?

I rarely capture for non-DVD output, but you must consider proper deinterlace methods and how that must be taken into account with the resolution, capture format, and conversion to the smaller, low-quality VCD standard.

[andymed]

hi vade,

for the resolution issue, try a higher horizontal resolution (at least 384 pixels, more are better) while fixing vertical resolution to 288 (for PAL) during capturing. resize afterwards to 352x288 for PAL-VCD.
From my experiences this results in a better picture due to less mpeg-artefacts than capturing using VCD-resolution. the problem with capture cards is that they do not antialiase well which leads to lots of sharp edges that need a lot of bits to encode...

I normally use virtualdub for capturing with an older pinnacle PCTV-card

[lordsmurf]

less mpeg-artefacts than capturing using VCD-resolution. the problem with capture cards is that they do not antialiase well which leads to lots of sharp edges that need a lot of bits to encode...

That's not the reason. Bad on-the-fly deinterlace causes this, not a resize (which is when aliasing comes into effect).

[vade]

Thanks for all the responses. I've settled for capturing in 768x576 and then enconding to VCD format using TMPGEnc.

Another problem which has surfaced is that after I captured to AVI from VHS, I've noticed that the audio gets softer (seems a bit muted) towards the last 10 mins or so of the 45min capture. Is there a reason for this? And anyway to fix it?