I am stumped.

[Daveb]

I've read a fair bit on this (and other) sites about capturing/conversion, however find myself at a crossroad.

I have a winfast tv2000 xp expert card which I use to capture home movies (mainly) which I then convert using the ulead DVD MF 2.0 (came with the card) to DVD. The results are pretty good, at least as far as I can see.

The problem comes when I try to convert any of the many sport videos I have on tape, which from what I can see seems to be because there is a lot more movement in them. The avi I've captured is ok I think - I can't tell if the winfast pvr software used to cap is dropping frames as there is no info on that, though the final AVI has the number of frames I'd expect for the time captured (5 minutes at 25 fps, end up with 7530 frames, slightly over). When I cap with virtual dub I get quite a few dropped frames. Anyway that's not what this forum as about so onto the crux of the issue.

I have tried a number of different encoders - mainconcept, studio 8, tempenc plus and all of them produce results that are dissapointing (to me anyway). I cannot use either of the CCE trials as the AVI I am capturing is not exactly 25fps. I don't want to spend any more than I already have to find out CCE wont work either. My understanding of GOP structures is not great though I think I get the basics (!!). the question that I have is this:

Has anyone out there has had better success than me by tweaking settings such as bit rate, GOP structure etc or am I better off biting the bullet and getting a set-top DVD recorder and going down that path?

Or have I completely missed something blindingly obvious ?

cheers,

Dave.

[Nelson37]

What exactly seems to be the problem? Please be more descriptive than "disappointing".

What bitrate, GOP etc. settings are you using?

[Daveb]

By dissappointing I mean that the DVD video is not as clear and sharp as the original. the background is quite blurred as is the general play. When viewing relativelt static scenes it's ok.

I am using the default seetings for GOP structure and a variable bit-rate, 8000 max, 200 min 6000 avg. I have also tried a constant bitrate of 8000.

Sorry for the lack of clarity.

[Daveb]

I managed to get the trial version of CCE to read the avi file by passing it through vdub. Looks better than the version I get from DVD Movie Factory. I also discovered that all avi's are not equal. At least that's how it looks. The reason I say this is that I passed two avi files, one capped with the winfast pvr that came with the card, the other by ivcr through mainconcept with two very different results. The winfast version was jittery all the way through, particularly when zooming in or out, the iuvcr file was smooth. This was the case in repeated attempts. From what I can see the avi files look the same but obviously they are not.

Making progress, still not sure whether I should get the standalone box or not though.

[Local Boy]

Your best bet if to go in and either slow down the tape speed so you dont drop of as many frames or go in and try to increase the number of frames capturing per sec minute whatever the case mey be this out to bring the quality up signifegantly

[flaninacupboard]

Ignore local boy completely - he doesn't have a CLUE what he's on about.



It sounds like you're experienceing two problems, dropped frames and interlacing. do a google search on interlacing to get yourself up to speed, basically you want to leave your video interlaced when encoding with TMPGenc, using top field first.

You also don't say what the properties are of your captured file. what resolution, codec etc. capturing at 720X576 resolution using the codec huffyuv will probably be your best option.

[lordsmurf]

Your best bet if to go in and either slow down the tape speed so you dont drop of as many frames or go in and try to increase the number of frames capturing per sec minute whatever the case mey be this out to bring the quality up signifegantly

Or take the tape out, flip it upside down, and see if it plays devil chants slwoed down in reverse.

Good advice.

[Jacobus Serpenti]

Hello,

I have the same board. Whatever the input is (either S-Video, aerial, Y/C) the board deinterlaces the signal. It does a good job at this.

I used to have quality issues also, at least after authoring to DVD.
The board is provided with Ulead DVD Movie factory : this software reencodes your Mpeg2 stream as soon as it is not 100% DVD compliant. It reencodes even when the audio stream is not 48Khz, 16 bit.

This reencoding degrades the visual quality of the final DVD. There is a way to overcome this easily : use the DVD template supplied with the Winfast for acquisition, since this template makes a 100% DVD compliant mpeg2 stream, moviefactory does not reencode it.

Furthermore, to prevent frames from being dropped, minimize winfast during acquisition. I noticed that some templates load the CPU at 100% of its capacity(at least on my Athlon 2200XP, see my profile); thus the CPU cannot cope with the data flow comming in!! But when minimized, the load descent to 85-90% which is ok.

No frames dropped, a compliant mpeg2 stream, MovieFactory makes very nice DVD. I use it a lot for Stargate episodes, Ushuaïa Nature, etc... The DVD's are as good as the original broadcast.

Hope this helps you too.
jacobus serpenti, somewhere in Europe

[flaninacupboard]

auto de-interlace?

Add that to my personal "avoid at all costs" list then......

[Daveb]

It sounds like you're experienceing two problems, dropped frames and interlacing. do a google search on interlacing to get yourself up to speed, basically you want to leave your video interlaced when encoding with TMPGenc, using top field first.

Initially I was dropping frames but that doesn't happen (at least in iuvcr) anymore. It looks like the stuff i've read on interlacing is not up to scratch as i've been using bottom field first. I'll give top field first a go and see what happens. I should add that being in Aus I'm capturing PAL, though should be evident from the resolutions below.

One thing on TMPGenc, it took 7 hours to convert a 2 minute AVI (on a P4). Is that usual?

You also don't say what the properties are of your captured file. what resolution, codec etc. capturing at 720X576 resolution using the codec huffyuv will probably be your best option.

Sorry. I was capping at 720x576, and it made no difference to quality whther I used huffy or not (though it did to the space!!!!). I also tried 352x576 after reading the res page on the digitalfaq website - VHS is no better than this according to that.

The next step is to try recordings done on SP.

Thanks for the advice!

[Daveb]

Thank you to those who replied, especially flaninacupboard. After changing the field order (duh, how dumb do I feel), the results have improved markedly. They aren't perfect, however that is due no doubt to the GIGO factor.

cheers,

Dave