Lower Field First capture jittery; Upper Field First is not for VCR/DVR

[c627627]

When I connect either a VCR or a DVR to my All In Wonder 9600XT card and use Ulead software to capture video, Lower Field First capture is jittery and Upper Field First is not.

Shouldn't it be the other way around, when I click on 'Detect', it even detects Lover Field First.


Both Ulead DVD Workshop 2 and Ulead VideoStudio 9 & 10 capture Upper Field First just fine but not Lower Field First when I connect VCR or DVR.

EDIT:
If using an ATi capture card, SET the field order to "UPPER FIELD FIRST" because that is a REQUIREMENT for ATi cards for all video captures. Captured videos will be jittery on those capture cards if "Lower Field First" is selected (even if "Lower Field First" is "Detected").

[FulciLives]

When I connect either a VCR or a DVR to my All In Wonder 9600XT card and use Ulead software to capture video, Lower Field First capture is jittery and Upper Field First is not.

Shouldn't it be the other way around, when I click on 'Detect', it even detects Lover Field First.


Both Ulead DVD Workshop 2 and Ulead VideoStudio 9 & 10 capture Upper Field First just fine but not Lower Field First when I connect VCR or DVR.

Only DV AVI is bottom field first. This applies to digital camcorders (Digital8 or miniDV etc.) that use the DV AVI format. It would also apply if you are using a hardware DV AVI capture solution such as a Canopus ADVC-110 or DataVideo DAC-100 etc.

However the AIW 9600XT is made to capture top field first. You should be capturing top field first. Also you probably should capture with ATI software as it seems to work best with AIW hardware.

If you don't want to use the ATI software then consider one of the following (in no particular order):

1.) VirtualVCR
2.) iuVCR
3.) TheFlyDS

Again with that capture card and with the source material you are using ... you should be setting the capture up for top field first.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[c627627]

Great post, thanks.

So all VCR and DVR captures and even capturing from a MiniDV camcorder should be captured with 9600XT using Upper Field First regardless of what Field is "Detected"?


Yes, I agree about using ATI software. Here's why I also use Ulead DVD Workshop 2:
It converts all my captured MPEG-2 files to a DVD VIDEO_TS folder in under 10 minutes.

No matter what setting I use, I can't seem to convert to DVD as fast as that with other programs. Even newer Ulead VideoStudio 10 Plus converts my captured files to DVD a lot longer than the capture file itself is long.

I mean they take two hours to convert captured 1 hours and 24 minutes. But Ulead DVD Workshop 2 does it in a few minutes, why is that?

[FulciLives]

Great post, thanks.

So all VCR and DVR captures and even capturing from a MiniDV camcorder should be captured with 9600XT using Upper Field First regardless of what Field is "Detected"?

Well yes and no. If you have a miniDV camcorder then you should use FIREWIRE for your capture which is then just a "data dump" from the camcorder to the computer (or a transfer if you will) from DV AVI on the cam to DV AVI on the computer. The first part is correct though.

Yes, I agree about using ATI software. Here's why I also use Ulead DVD Workshop 2:
It converts all my captured MPEG-2 files to a DVD VIDEO_TS folder in under 10 minutes.

No matter what setting I use, I can't seem to convert to DVD as fast as that with other programs. Even newer Ulead VideoStudio 10 Plus converts my captured files to DVD a lot longer than the capture file itself is long.

I mean they take two hours to convert captured 1 hours and 24 minutes. But Ulead DVD Workshop 2 does it in a few minutes, why is that?

Sounds as though DVD Workshop is doing a MPEG-2 capture which is probably not the best thing to do ... I mean your ATI supports MPEG-2 capture but that only works the way it should with ATI software. With DVD Workshop you are doing a pure software MPEG-2 capture. Very bad for quality.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[c627627]

Excellent, thank you for clearing up so many things for me.
I was just about to try to figure out how to compare ATI software to Ulead's for capturing but now I know that ATI's is better as I noticed new version of MMC has separate HARDWARE and SOFTWARE mpeg capture options.

But here's the thing: when I use ATI Multimedia Center to capture hardware MPEG-2 DVD format file I get an .mpg file, right?

What do you use to convert that .mpg file to a VIDEO_TS folder?


If I use DVD Workshop 2 to LOAD that.mpg file captured with ATI MMC, it still converts it in a few minutes.


Am I loosing in quality when conversion is done in a few minutes, what software is good to make that conversion to a DVD VIDEO_TS folder?

[FulciLives]

Excellent, thank you for clearing up so many things for me.
I was just about to try to figure out how to compare ATI software to Ulead's for capturing but now I know that ATI's is better as I noticed new version of MMC has separate HARDWARE and SOFTWARE mpeg capture options.

But here's the thing: when I use ATI Multimedia Center to capture hardware MPEG-2 DVD format file I get an .mpg file, right?

What do you use to convert that .mpg file to a VIDEO_TS folder?


If I use DVD Workshop 2 to LOAD that.mpg file captured with ATI MMC, it still converts it in a few minutes.


Am I loosing in quality when conversion is done in a few minutes, what software is good to make that conversion to a DVD VIDEO_TS folder?

If you want to capture direct to MPEG-2 then you need to use the ATI MMC software so it can do a hardware MPEG-2 encode (actually it isn't full hardware MPEG-2 but better than a full software encode).

Any DVD authoring program can take a MPEG file and output a VIDEO_TS folder so you can still use DVD WORKSHOP ... the trick is that some programs will try to re-encode the MPEG file and you want to avoid that ... but if DVD WORKSHOP is only taking a few minutes then it must not be re-encoding it as that would take a very long time.

My guess is that when you used DVD WORKSHOP to capture that it was doing pure software MPEG capture which is why again it took only minutes to compile. However as I said you will have better quality if you use the ATI MMC software and use the hardware capable MPEG-2 capture feature.

One thing you may want to consider ... the MPEG-2 capture via MMC is probably using MP2 audio ... I suggest you consider converting that to AC-3 audio instead. I don't know if DVD WORKSHOP can do that or not. My understanding is that it supports 2.0 AC-3 (maybe even 5.1 AC-3) but I do not know if it has a built-in AC-3 encoder.

If not then you need to DEMUX the captured MPEG file and re-encode the MP2 audio to AC-3 (ffmpeg GUI is a good freeware option as is Aften) then import the video only file and AC-3 audio file into your DVD authoring program (in your case DVD WORKSHOP). You could combine the video and AC-3 back into an MPEG file first (before importing into your DVD Authoring program) but that shouldn't be necessary.

However I am not very familiar at all with DVD WORKSHOP.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[c627627]

I'd like the process to have the best quality and to be faster rather than slower.

I have an option of selecting LPCM Audio in ATI MMC, so I should go with
• MPEG-2 DVD (not MPEG-2) for video and then
• Audio Format: 48.000 KHz, 16 Bit Stereo, LPCM?

And then I should convert to VIDEO_TS using a program that can do it in a few minutes, right?

I've tried Sony DVD Architect and Ulead VideoStudio 9 & 10 and they all took more than an hour for 1 hour .mpg.

Only Ulead DVD Workshop 2 took a few minutes, which is what should happen to preserve original capture quality?

What other program would you suggest to try to use for converting to VIDEO_TS.

It takes Ulead DVD Workshop 2, a few minutes to convert MPEG-2 with MPEG Audio but it also takes it only a few minutes for MPEG-2 with LPCM Audio but LPCM the Audio should have a theoretical 1536 kbit/s rate vs. MPEG 224 or 256 kbit/s Audio I sometimes use.


My other settings used to be:

• MPEG-2 DVD (not MPEG-2)
• NTSC (525)
• 704 x 480
[Use 704 x 480 to capture SD or HD TV, VCR, analog camcorder.
720 x 480 is used by commercial DVD discs and DV format camcorders.]
• Encode Interlaced, do NOT use De-Interlace.
• UNCHECK: Inverse 3:2 Pulldown
• UNCHECK: Record Cropped Video
• Audio Format: 48.000 KHz, 16 Bit Stereo, LPCM
(To capture best quality uncompressed audio which can then be compressed to Dolby 2/0 [L,R] audio when the DVD is created later. Dolby Digital audio is compatible with DVD players whereas MPEG audio is compatible with some, but not all DVD players.
If you intend to leave audio uncompressed later, use 1536 kbit/s for LPCM Audio Bitrate when using Bitrate calculators.)


EDIT: It's OK to capture directly to MPEG-2 DVD video and then simply convert to DVD in a few minutes by using the "Do not convert compliant MPEG files" option. However, it's better to originally capture LPCM audio instead of MPEG audio because if the final output is to have compressed MPEG Audio, then the compression should take place at the last stage when conversion to DVD is made.

Compressed MPEG (MP2) or MP3 audio is not compatible with all DVD players but compressed Dolby Digital AC3 Audio is, so it's better to compress LPCM audio to Dolby AC3 audio.


Figured out the answer to quick MPEG-2 to DVD conversion: Correctly captured DVD compliant MPEG-2 files can be converted to DVD quickly (in a few minutes) with Ulead software as long as options are set to match captured files and to treat them as DVD compliant:


• Ulead VideoStudio 10.0 Plus •

1. Tools > Create Disc...

2. Click on Add video files icon (top left)

3. UNCHECK Create menu, if making a DVD that directly plays the file without a menu

4. Click on "i" icon (lower left) to see the audio/video properties of the captured file

5. Press ALT+J or click on Project settings (gear icon, second from lower left)

6. Click on Change MPEG Settings... > Customize...
to set ALL settings in both General TAB and Compression TAB equal to properties of captured file > OK

7. CHECK: Do not convert compliant MPEG files
UNCHECK: Treat MPEG audio as non-DVD compliant
UNCHECK: Auto repeat when disc playback ends

> OK > Next > Next

8. UNCHECK: Create to disc
CHECK: Create DVD Folders and click on a yellow folder to the right to select location of DVD folder

9. Click on Burn
to convert the captured file to a DVD folder.


[You can actually burn a DVD disc using any burning software later (after testing the DVD folder) or
you can make a DVD disc directly in step 8. by leaving Create to disc option CHECKED.]


===========


• Ulead VideoStudio 9 •

1. Tools > Create Disc...

2. Add Video

3. UNCHECK Create menu if making a DVD that directly plays the file without a menu > Next > Next

4. Click on "i" icon (middle right) to see the audio/video properties of captured file

5. Press ALT+J or click on Project settings (gear icon, second from lower left)

6. Click on Change MPEG Settings... > Customize...
to set ALL settings in both General TAB and Compression TAB equal to properties of captured file > OK

7. CHECK: Do not convert compliant MPEG files
UNCHECK: Treat MPEG audio as non-DVD compliant
UNCHECK: Auto repeat when disc playback ends

> OK > Next > Next

8. UNCHECK: Burn to disc
CHECK: Create DVD Folders and click on a yellow folder to the right to select location of DVD folder.

9. Click on Burn
to convert the captured file to a DVD folder.


[You can actually burn a DVD disc using any burning software later (after testing the DVD folder) or
you can make a DVD disc directly in step 8. by leaving Burn to disc option CHECKED.]


===========


• Ulead DVD Workshop 2 •

1. Start TAB > New Project > Project Name and location > Select: DVD > OK

2. Capture TAB > Next to Video-General, click on the open folder "Load Video File" icon
> Browse to captured file > Open
> Right click on the thumbnail of the captured file > Add to Title List

3. Finish TAB > Burn Project to Disc (top right button) >

SELECT Working directory: (click on ... in upper left corner)
UNCHECK: Burn to Disc
CHECK: Create DVD Folders

Advanced Settings TAB > UNCHECK: Add converted files to library

4. Click on Burn
to convert the captured file to a DVD folder.


[You can actually burn a DVD disc using any burning software later (after testing the DVD folder) or
you can make a DVD disc directly in step 3. by leaving Burn to Disc option CHECKED.]

[c627627]

The problem is: ATI MMC Hardware Encode MPEG only has MPEG Audio capture up to 384 K Bit/sec.

Only if you choose Software Encode MPEG, then you can select LPCM Audio capture.


So then that's why you say

1. Use Hardware Encode MPEG-2 Video and MPEG Audio capture.

2. DEMUX the captured MPEG file and re-encode the MP2 audio to AC-3 then import the video only file and AC-3 audio file into your DVD authoring program.


But wouldn't it be easier to just capture MPEG-2 using ATI MMC and simultaneously capture audio into a massive .wav file?

Then import captured .mpg, delete the audio from it altogether and import the massive .wav file then somehow synchronize the audio and video then convert everything to a DVD VIDEO_TS folder?


EDIT: It's OK to capture directly to MPEG-2 DVD video and then simply convert to DVD in a few minutes by using the "Do not convert compliant MPEG files" option. However, it's better to originally capture LPCM audio instead of MPEG audio because if the final output is to have compressed MPEG Audio, then the compression should take place at the last stage when conversion to DVD is made.

LPCM is wav audio. Compressed MPEG (MP2) or MP3 audio is not compatible with all DVD players but compressed Dolby Digital AC3 Audio is, so it's better to compress LPCM audio to Dolby AC3 audio.

[c627627]

To sum it up, my capture options are:


1. ATI MMC Hardware MPEG-2 DVD video format with decent MPEG 256 or even 320 K Bit/s Audio
Then convert into a DVD VIDEO_TS folder in a few minutes.

2. ATI MMC Software MPEG-2 DVD video format with 1536 K Bit/S LPCM Audio
Then convert into a DVD VIDEO_TS folder in a few minutes.

3. ATI MMC Hardware MPEG-2 DVD video format with any MPEG Audio
while at the same time using another program to simultaneously capture audio into a .wav file.
Then import captured .mpg file, delete audio, import captured .wav file
Then synchronize video with audio
Then convert into a DVD VIDEO_TS folder using what kind of Audio on the DVD?


EDIT:
MPEG (MP2) or MP3 audio is not supported by all DVD Players.

Uncompressed LPCM audio is supported and compressed Dolby Digital AC3 Audio is supported.


There is no need to use two programs as most can capture LPCM audio.
LPCM Audio is wav audio. Uncompressed LPCM audio can then be compressed to Dolby Digital AC3 at the final stage when the captured file is converted to DVD.

[thecoalman]

The reason it takes such a short time for DVD workshop to do this thatit's not really doing anything. :P DVD Workshop has a "do not convert" compliant files option which apparently you are using. Any files both audio and video streams will not be reencoded as long as you have this selected. FYI is one of few authoring apps that will also do this for multiple files.... you can have videos with varying resolutions, bitrates or even aspect ratios....

Then convert into a DVD VIDEO_TS folder using what kind of Audio on the DVD?

You should beusing AC3 (Dolby Digital), DVD Workshop has native AC# support. Look under the compression tab.

[thecoalman]

but if DVD WORKSHOP is only taking a few minutes then it must not be re-encoding it as that would take a very long time.

It will not if you tell it not too.

My guess is that when you used DVD WORKSHOP to capture that it was doing pure software MPEG capture which is why again it took only minutes to compile. However as I said you will have better quality if you use the ATI MMC software and use the hardware capable MPEG-2 capture feature.

Probably so but DVD Workshop uses a version of Maincocepts encoder which is supposed to very good at this, I've seen EdDV post some pretty good screenshots from Video Studio....

My understanding is that it supports 2.0 AC-3 (maybe even 5.1 AC-3) but I do not know if it has a built-in AC-3 encoder.

It does support both however it won't encode a 5.1, it will not reencode a 5.1 if you already have it. Least that's how it works in my version which is a little older than the current one.
.

However I am not very familiar at all with DVD WORKSHOP.

Good try tho.... :P

[c627627]

... has a "do not convert" compliant files option which apparently you are using. Any files both audio and video streams will not be reencoded as long as you have this selected.

Yes, yes. That's it.

Thank you for the idea, now I went into Ulead VideoStudio Plus and even there I finally found the
Do not convert compliant MPEG files which was CHECKED

However

Treat MPEG audio as non-DVD compliant was also CHECKED and unchecking that made VideoStudio Plus convert in a few minutes just like Workshop did. Thanks for the idea.



So you use computer screen shots to compare quality of capture?


All right, I'll capture using ATI MMC Hardware, ATI MMC Software, Ulead DVD Workshop 2, Ulead VideoStudio Plus 9 & 10, then post screen caps.

Sony Vegas has no MPEG capture so why bother with it for single captures since we can capture MPEG Video using ATI or Ulead and save time converting to DVD, is that right?


I'm still trying to figure out Audio though.


I do have the option of ATI Software MPEG + LPCM Audio > Convert to DVD in minutes through Ulead.

The better Video alternative would be ATI Hardware MPEG but then I'd have to use MPEG Audio, which is only useful if I need to fit more than 60 minutes on a single layer DVD, right?


But what if I'm capturing less than 60 minutes? Then I do have room for non compressed Audio, so I don't need MPEG Audio. In that case it's either

1. ATI Software MPEG Video + LPCM Audio
2. ATI Hardware MPEG Video + what kind of Audio? The only Audio option in ATI is MPEG if Hardware MPEG Video is used?

The suggestion in previous thread was to use option 2 then separate the Audio and Video but what about what I was saying about why bother with that when I can capture Audio simultaneously into a wav file?

Or maybe I can capture the Audio simultaneously using something like SoundForge into an AC3 file? How about that?

Then it would be a little extra work to synchronize separately captured Audio & Video before converting everything to DVD. But I'd get ATI Hardware MPEG Video and AC3 Audio in the shortest amount of time.

[FulciLives]

Capture with the ATI MMC software using the hardware MPEG mode and MP2 audio. Capture the audio in the best quality possible which for MP2 is a bitrate of 384kbps (also of course make sure it is 16-bit 48k Stereo).

You can then have DVD WORKSHOP convert that to AC-3 audio as this is a feature that DVD WORKSHOP supports according to the website (I looked it up). On the Ulead website it says that DVD WORKSHOP has a built-in AC-3 encoder capable of encoding 2.0 AC-3 (meaning two channel mono or stereo audio). DVD WORKSHOP will also support 5.1 AC-3 but the built-in encoder is only capable of 2.0 AC-3 but all your captures will only be two channel anyways so the built-in encoder should work fine for you.

Don't worry about trying to capture LPCM WAV ... it ain't worth it.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

P.S.
Just so you are not confused ... MP2 audio is short for MPEG-1 Layer II audio ... sometimes called MPEG audio

[thecoalman]

Treat MPEG audio as non-DVD compliant was also CHECKED and unchecking that made VideoStudio Plus convert in a few minutes just like Workshop did. Thanks for the idea.

MPEG audio is not a standard for NTSC and will not play in in some NTSC machines however this is mostly older ones and it should play in any new one. If you want fully compliant discs use PCM or AC3. You could capture using PCM then import into DVD Workshop and have it convert the audio only to AC3. I know you're looking for speed but converting a 1hour audio clip isn't going to take that long....

PCM = Highest quality but enormous sizes
AC3 = High Quality (bitrate dependant) compressed
MPEG Audio = High Quality (bitrate dependant) compressed but not compliant


A lot of people get hng up on the auddio quality but your audio is most likely not that great to begin with... A medium bitrate MPEG audio or AC3 is more than adequate in most cases.

So you use computer screen shots to compare quality of capture?

It works well if you're looking for macroblocking issues and other problems. Save your screenshots as BMP or other uncompressed format like TIF so you don't introduce atifacting from the image compression. You probably won't be able to upload them here because of the sizes.

All right, I'll capture using ATI MMC Hardware, ATI MMC Software, Ulead DVD Workshop 2, Ulead VideoStudio Plus 9 & 10, then post screen caps.

I'd imagine you would get the same results from all the Ulead products but it would be interesting to see if that's the case.

[c627627]

I'd imagine you would get the same results from all the Ulead products but it would be interesting to see if that's the case.

Thank you all for informative posts.

I've been trying to figure out what was going on as ATI Hardware captures resulted in 0 byte files. Then I had to reimage my system and it took me some time to figure out which version of Multimedia Center I had installed that had the Hardware Capture option.

Turns out versions 9.15 & 9.16 "fail to initialize" on my AIW 9600XT. But when MMC 9.08 is installed and 9.15 or 9.16 on top of it, it upgrades all the components except MMC 9.08 still starts up (version 9.08 has no hardware capture option).

So then it finally dawned on me that I had installed MMC 9.13, which does start up and does have a Hardware Encode MPEG option. Unfortunately selecting it results in 0 byte captures


Is it because ATi All-In-Wonder 9600XT is not capable of Hardware MPEG captures?


I still plan on comparing Ulead software MPEG captures to ATI MMC 9.13 and 9.08 software MPEG captures.
Maybe I should post them as 1 or 2 second actual .mpg file attachments?

[FulciLives]

I've never had an ATI capture type card myself but I do know that ATI is "known" for having "driver issues" as many people, even those that advocate ATI capture cards (like LordSmurf), have bemoaned the ATI "driver issue".

Apparently finding the right combo of driver and MMC is a bit of a trick.

Have you looked at LordSmurf's website? Here is a link: CLICK HERE

He has a lot of information about using ATI capture cards on his website there.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[c627627]

I have, I discovered a few mistakes that he acknowledged but said had no time to update.

What cards do you recommend by the way?


As for digitalfaq web site, it said you should never CROP and should MASK instead.

Well, first of all:
To crop = cut out part of the picture.
To mask = putting a black bar on the edge of the picture to mask flickering.

But ATI incorrectly uses the term CROP when they mean MASK, so "Record Cropped Video" option is in fact, a "Record Masked Video" option.

So that's bound to confuse everyone reading digitalfaq.



Digitalfaq also says something about how we should use Variable Bit Rate to capture and should use Constant Bit Rate only on older slower machines (?)


Well for the best quality Constant rate should be used, not Variable, right?

I'm doing test captures now, I've noticed something by the way:

If you take one file and copy it to another folder and rename the original to 1.mpg and a copy to 2.mpg and then if you open them both at once using Windows Media Player, one file is clear, the other grainy even though they are identical files, what's up with that?

[c627627]

I noticed that if I capture using the highest Constant Bit rate of 8 M Bit / Second and fill up 4 GBs,

I can capture the same content using a Variable Max Bit Rate of 8 M Bit / Second and fill up only 3 GB or so approximate.


So there's an extra Gig there that was saved using Variable Bit rate but the end result was that Variable capture was worse than the Constant Bit Rate capture.


So now what's better:

1. 3 GB worth of Variable Max 8 M Bit / Second
or
2. 3 GB worth of Constant Bit rate that is less than 8 M Bit / Second?

[jagabo]

If you take one file and copy it to another folder and rename the original to 1.mpg and a copy to 2.mpg and then if you open them both at once using Windows Media Player, one file is clear, the other grainy even though they are identical files, what's up with that?

That's a video overlay issue. Only one program at a time can use overlay. The first media player gets it, the second doesn't. The graphics card's drivers have different settings for overlay so any differences are due to that. If you open both files with VirtualDubMod (which doesn't use overlay) you'll see they're the same.

So now what's better:

1. 3 GB worth of Variable Max 8 M Bit / Second
or
2. 3 GB worth of Constant Bit rate that is less than 8 M Bit / Second?

For best results capture as YUY2 with HuffYUV for compression. Then do a multipass encode with a good MPEG2 encoder.

[c627627]

When I said opened identical files with different names at the same time. I meant they're playing one after the other, not playing at the same time. So using one instance of Windows Media Player > File > Open > Select both files > Open > so they play one after the other but not at the same time.

And then one is grainy, the other is not. I suppose your explanation still stands though.


Of course AVI capture is better. However, using ATI software at highest settings using MPEG-2 DVD (not MPEG-2) capture allows for conversion to DVD in only a few minutes.

I suppose I should capture using AVI > then convert to MPEG2 and compare this to ATI's direct MPEG-2 DVD capture.


I hope to post screen caps like I'm making right now comparing Ulead to ATI capture.

[FulciLives]

http://www.rapidshare.com/

That is a free website that allows you to post multiple files and each file can be up to (or just under) 100MB each. This will allow you to post a video sample instead of stills. When it comes to comparing different methods of capture/encode you really need to compare moving video and not just still images. Still analysis is helpful but it only tells part of the story.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[c627627]

Rapidshare allows free uploads?

I just captured same object (house+yard) and I captured a face.

I tested the many versions of ATI Multimedia Center, and Ulead DVD Workshop 2 and Ulead VideoStudio 10+.

Each mpg capture is about 1 second so it's about 1MB per capture.


I then took .bmp screen captures. The different versions of ATI Multimedia Center appear to be the same so all the reports about different versions capture differences may not be true.

There does appear to be some difference between Ulead and ATI. I do believe I see Ulead VideoStudio 10+ to be slightly better. Because of this, I plan on installing Ulead VideoStudio 9 as well then figure out how to let you take a look at all of this and tell me what you think.

EDIT: • When using ATi cards, it is better to use ATi Multimedia Center instead of Ulead software to capture video.

• Different versions of Multimedia Center have additional functions (and bugs) but the quality of the capture should be the same if the same settings are used.

• Some of my screen captures were not always of the same scenes/frames, so their use was limited.



I'll post detailed explanation about settings and how I captured what...

EDIT: All posted here:
https://forum.videohelp.com/viewtopic.php?t=321598

[c627627]

Regarding my other question, it's an important one: I noticed that if I capture using the highest Constant Bit rate of 8 M Bit / Second and fill up 4 GBs, I can capture the same content using a Variable Max Bit Rate of 8 M Bit / Second and fill up only 3 GB or so approximate.

So there's an extra Gig there that was saved using Variable Bit rate but the end result was that Variable capture was worse than the Constant Bit Rate capture.


So now what's better:

1. 3 GB worth of Variable Max 8 M Bit / Second
or
2. 3 GB worth of Constant Bit rate that is less than 8 M Bit / Second?

[FulciLives]

Regarding my other question, it's an important one: I noticed that if I capture using the highest Constant Bit rate of 8 M Bit / Second and fill up 4 GBs, I can capture the same content using a Variable Max Bit Rate of 8 M Bit / Second and fill up only 3 GB or so approximate.

So there's an extra Gig there that was saved using Variable Bit rate but the end result was that Variable capture was worse than the Constant Bit Rate capture.


So now what's better:

1. 3 GB worth of Variable Max 8 M Bit / Second
or
2. 3 GB worth of Constant Bit rate that is less than 8 M Bit / Second?

Hard to say truth be told. From comments I have read from other users it would seem that the ATI VBR mode tends to use settings lower than what you specify thus giving a size less than you would have thought. This is "bad" if you ask me in that it makes it hard to determine the size up-front and also it may be using lower bitrates than you would like.

My guess is that you can probably go as "low" as a CBR of 7000kbps before you would want to start using VBR instead. In other words if you have to use a bitrate under 7000kbps then do VBR otherwise just do a CBR.

You could always try a test ... for instance many cable TV channels run their prime time shows a second time after midnight. Thus the same show is on the same day twice. You could record the prime show with one setting and the late re-run show at another setting and compare.

This is all assuming the use of Full D1 resolution. If you go with Half D1 resolution then there is no reason to go higher than a CBR of 5000kbps and even a CBR of as low as 4000kbps is pretty darn good for Half D1 resolution.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[jagabo]

Regarding my other question, it's an important one: I noticed that if I capture using the highest Constant Bit rate of 8 M Bit / Second and fill up 4 GBs, I can capture the same content using a Variable Max Bit Rate of 8 M Bit / Second and fill up only 3 GB or so approximate.

So there's an extra Gig there that was saved using Variable Bit rate but the end result was that Variable capture was worse than the Constant Bit Rate capture.


So now what's better:

1. 3 GB worth of Variable Max 8 M Bit / Second
or
2. 3 GB worth of Constant Bit rate that is less than 8 M Bit / Second?

As FulciLives pointed out, that question can't be answered definitively.

Since your 8 Mb/s max VBR encode came out to 3 MB instead of 4MB, the average bitrate is 6 Mb/s. Some scenes of a 6 Mb/s CBR encode may look better and some scenes may look worse.

During a single pass VBR encode the encoder will use up to the specified max bitrate when it thinks the high bitrate is needed. To balance this out the encoder has to use less bitrate when it's not needed. Since the average is 6 Mb/s and the max is 8 Mb/s, there must be some scenes that are encoded with less than 6 Mb/s. For simplicity's sake lets just say the lower bitrate scenes are 4 Mb/s.

In a perfect case, the 8 Mb/s scenes will look better than the same scenes at 6 Mb/s. And the 4 Mb/s scenes will look just as good as the 6 Mb/s CBR equivalent because they didn't really need the full 6 Mb/s. In a less perfect case, the 4 Mb's scenes may look worse than the 6 Mb/s CBR equivalents because the encoder was wrong about how low a bitrate those scenes needed.

The only way you'll know for sure is to experiment and compare the results. Use a lot of different videos because any particular video may be an unusual case.

[edDV]

I can add a few tips from experience.

A trend with consumer oriented encoders seems to set VBR modes to max and let the encoder do what it can to decrease bitrate for low motion areas. In such cases as your example, 8Mb/s would be the worse case for VBR where for CBR it would always consume 8Mb/s. Clean professionally shot video would presumably average lower than 8Mb/s with VBR.

Pro oriented encoders and previous consumer versions required setting low, average and high limit bit rates. The key setting was average bitrate. The encoder would strive to reach the average target even if it meant degrading the video to get there. Two types of common consumer video are very difficult to compress: noisy VHS (or poor noisy cable) and hand held camcorder sources. Both types give encoder motion detectors fits.

Noise makes still scenes look like they are still moving. Amateur hand held camcorder video has all pixels in continuous jerky X, Y and rotational motion with poorly executed zooms thrown in to make it worse yet*. When the motion detector reports no still blocks, the encoder is forced to intraframe compress more to make the average bitrate specified. This severely degrades video quality. In such encoders VBR average needs to be set closer to peak bitrate or CBR should be used to maintain picture quality. As a general rule, it is better to use high CBR rates for non-pro handheld camcorder video. If pro camera technique or tripods are used, VBR can get satisfactory results with lower average VBR bitrates.


* add low light camcorder noise and the encoder has an impossible job.