Even though I have my capture routine sorted I was thinking about improving it or trying out something different.

1. Directly capturing to MPEG VCD. I have downloaded from hauppage the nanodvr application that is supposed to work with it for free however I get a message license not found - exiting.

Is there another program that can do this? I checked the tools > freeware section and all that I saw was applications that can capture to mpeg 4 or WMV directly, not mpeg.

2. Even though the picture at 352x240 capture resolution looks sharper (WHEN ENCODED to MPEG) than 352x480, I notice that there is some loss in dynamics of the frames. In other words the picture quality is not as "vibrant" than in 480. I do understand that at 480 both fields are captured and the picture looks more "digital" and sharp than at 240 but wouldn't this not matter when the final outcome is VCD.

Should I always capture at 352x480 even though I just aim at VCD?

(So far, again looking at the picture quality at 480 what happens I think some pixels are blurred due to encoder resizing the picture; that's why I believed it's always best to capture at 240 and NOT LET encoder resize but just encode..., on the other hand at 240 vertical resolution it looks like as if "something" is missing even though it is 29.97 (changes accross frames are a little jumpy or something whereas at 480 they are smooth).

3. These are computers I have used and currently use:

1. P2 333 (IBM Aptiva E96) - Acer motherboard (this thing worked with everything - From old dos games to Windows 2003 server - 192 RAM, 2 80 gig drives) - Hauppage WinTV card, Virtual Dub YVU 9 29.97 fps 3dfx Vodoo 4 PCI card 32 megs.

Now, capturing with this thing was perfect. If I remember correctly every 10th minute or so I would get a dropped frame.

2. Some e-machine model, temporary use 533 Celeron processor.

Better video card, more RAM - dropped frame every minute.

3. HP Vectra with some Intel motherboard I think, AGP Visiontek Nvidia 2 Ti 200 card, 384 RAM - drops frames every minute.

What the heck could be wrong?

din