Capture settings for VirtualDub

[Bud]

What should the setting be for the Capture?
This is what I use for the AVI capture:

1150 kbit/sec MPEG-1
352 x 240 pixels

If I use a lower setting, can this be changed during the Encoding process with TMPGEnc to improve the picture quality? What would be the BEST setting prior to the Encode process? What I am looking for is the BEST possible setting for a good quality VCD. Not looking for SVCD/XSVCD/XVCD, I am not up to that speed yet, have to get the basics down first. When I do a RIP from DVD and use all the standards I get great results, now I know I can't get that off the TV Capture but I beleive I can improve a little, I capture from a Digital Cable system, so the picture is great to start with, just don't want to loose anything in the process. Many thanks...

Bud

[deadpac]

1150kb/sec MPEG-1

You can't possibly capture at such a low rate for AVI's!

Capturing lossless to uncompressed AVI's requires hundreds of MB/sec to the disc during capture. I highly doubt you can capture AVI's at such a LOW rate and expect good output when you encode to TMPGenc. You would just be capturing a slideshow with that data rate. Unless you were capturing with a codec like the Divx codec, which is all well and good for distro' files online but extremely terrible when you have to encode the Divx -> MPEG.

You cap from Digital Cable, your source is excellent for capturing to VCD MPEG-1 specs. But you need to capture AVI's using lossless codecs such as Huffyuv or if you have enough free space, capture directly uncompressed AVI's.

Just capture the AVI in Virtual Dub lossless/uncompressed and do not even attempt to use Vdub's filter while you are capturing; after the capture is done with Virtual Dub apply any filters you see fit from Vdub and frameserve out to your MPEG encoder i.e. TMPGEnc.

Then when you encode in TMPGEnc you should use filters such as the Noise Reduction filter and change the color settings to try and come close to the source.

You don't need to be up to speed for things as simple as XVCD, basically it's just a different bitrate from the 1150 VCD standard or maybe a different resolution from 352x240 or 352x288 NTSC and PAL standards. In TMPGEnc it's as simple as loading the VCD template and then loading the unlock.mcf [not sure about extension]-> after the unlock part you're pretty much free to play with the default VCD settings.

[Bud]

Disk space is not a problem, my first Capture was a 2 hour movie and it save out at 16GB in the AVI format. Now I just need to convert this and output it to a standard VCD format. I was not sure of all the specs, but I will do as suggested. I have both the Huffyuv and PICVideo MJPEG so I could use either one, I have been told that Huffy gives better results, and I do set it up for 352x240 for NTSC in the video format, is this a good setting or should I lower this? Many Thanks....

Bud