Capturing VHS using DV

[jfebus]

Hi All,

I need to capture some VHSs and I am using my Sony CamCorder as the digital converter. I found that process a time consuming one, since i have to capture to avi (at dvd specs) and then using tmpgenc to convert and resize to mpg. Is there a better way? Can I capture at a different resolution so tmpenc can only convert to mpg?

Any hints?

Regards,

Jose

[Lyverbe]

I'm in the process of doing the same thing (turning VHS home movies into VCDs). I thought I had the perfect application for that, which is PowerVCR. It has the ability to capture directly to VCD format, but for some unknown reason, the width is always 368 no matter what I select. I've sent a mail to software support a week ago and never got a reply.

If PowerVCR could record 352x240, then I'm sure it would be a great application.

[jfebus]

Hi,

Can I capture using my CamCorder DV interface with PowerVCD or do I need a TV Capture Card?

Regards,

Jose Febus

[Lyverbe]

You can use the setup you are using (VHS -> Digicam -> PC). It works for me and I have a Firewire card.

And the application is PowerVCR, not PowerVCD.

[nsdn]

No you can not capture in differant resolutions for DV.

I wish my DV cam had a analogue in. This is the very best way to capture VHS analogue into DV then firewire to PC.

Your could try resizing in virtual dub then frameserving to TMPGE...or even try CCE (CCE is way better for MPEG2 encodes). or even use avisynth which is faster than virtual dub

BTW this works great for VHS to VCD resolutions but, with DV source I have not yet been able to encode a good SVCD. Obviously for VHS source it does not matter because u only have VCD res to start with so there is no benifit to encoding at SVCD res.