VHS --> VCD, SVCD or XVCD???????????

[Anonymous49854]

if VHS is the source and the movie is 120 mins long, what format is best
I want the best quality I can get and would be fine with 3 cds but if I can get good quality on 2 discs I'm listening :)
I just have no idea which format and resolution etc etc to capture to
I know that my DVD player will play all these formats

Specs
Athlon 1.4GHZ
712MB RAM
16GB FREE on HD
ATI Radeon 64MB VIVO
ATI MMC 7.5

thanks for any advice!

[vhelp]

Well, in short, it wont hurt to
cap at highest available to your
cpu,ie 704x480

capping at 352x240 isnt really
gonna make you happy.

But, if you can cap at 704x480
enocode to VCD 352x240 or 352x480
even better. But no higher!
For the quality of VHS, its really
not worth going any higher for
your enocodes. stick w/ 352x480
as your highest or 352x240.
Ok, in other words, if you can
live w/ 352x240 less sharpness,
fine, else 352x480 will give you
a little more sharpness. but don't
4get that you're dealing with a
VHS source which is pretty low
on the res. scale anyways.

Best I can tell in addition to
above, is to do test caps at
352x240, 352x480, 480x480, 704x480
and THEN try various size encodes,
A)ie (x)VCD 352x240/352x480/1150k
B)ie (x)SVCD 480x480/352x480/2520k

A - you may have to up your bitrate
to reduce you poor quality vhs
blocks
B - if you end up want svcd, try
and make an xSVCD instead, ie,
352x480 at 2520k bitrate

But, try a bunch of scenarios
till you find the one you like
best. Remember, to find the
closest ultimate quality enocode,
you must burn to CD and test play
it on your tv set. PC gives off
way too inacurate results for your
testing.

Good luck
-vhelp

[tomselina]

I think 16gb free disc space is going to be your problem. Especially if you follow advice and capture at 704x480. Forget about that. You'll need to add hard drives for the file size you'll get. Do a capture at 352x480, then convert to VCD at 352x240 and De-interlace. When you capture at the higher resolution of 352x480, you'll be able to De-interlace and get a nice VCD picture, without overtaxing your system during the capture process. I do this all the time from VHS sources that aren't on DVD yet. I would convert to SVCD, but your VHS output isn't that good, so why waste the time.

Have fun!

TOM

[Anonymous49854]

thanks guys
you are right, ATI MMC says I can record 20 mins at 704x576 lol
the source is PAL by the way so what resolution should I cap at now?
IUVCR is working flawlessly on my computer so I can input whatever resolution I want
ATI MMC isnt that flexible however
please! I'm so close I can feel it :)
TOMSELINA : What resolution for PAL should I cap at and what program should I use for all the encoding+resizing? and bitrate etc?
I'm SO NEW
I'm sorry
but thanks :)

[tomselina]

Haven't worked with PAL since I'm in U.S. but if you'll use TMPGenc (free and downloadable from VCDHELP.com) you can create a PAL VCD or SVCD. When you use TMPGenc, it give you the option to load in settings for a PAL VCD, and it will automatically make the settings work for you. I'd still capture at a higher resolution, say 352x480 or the PAL equivalent, then convert to VCD Pal with TMPGenc. You'll have to play around with it, and read more of the forums on the matter, but it's very do-able and has become my hobby of sorts. Forget about capturing with MMC 7.1 in a high resolution MPEG2. You practically have to be plugged into IBM Big Blue to have enough processor power without dropping a bunch of frames. I use AVI_IO program (you can search for it easily) and my Matrox TV card to capture with...with great results. But not sure if this setup will work with ATI's card or not. Just play around with the settings for recording on the ATI card, and remember your source is VHS, and capturing at a high resolution is a waste of time.

[Anonymous49854]

thanks for the help
so when I'm capturing I should set it to interlaced
then when converting set to deinterlace?

[vitualis]

I agree with capturing at full vertical resolution (i.e., ?? x 480/576) and since you are in PAL land, 576.

I don't have your particular card, but on mine (Brooktree based), I usually find that when capturing with VirtualDub, I set the capture at 352x576 but also turn on the option "linear reduction 2:1 cubic" (or something like that). That way, you are actually capturing in 352x576 but outputting your video (AVI) in 352x288 (for VCD).

This gives much better quality than capturing straight to 352x288 but also takes much less than capturing to straight 352x576 and then de-interlacing.

Capturing to 352x576 and then doing de-interlacing WILL give better quality though.

If you want to create a SVCD, then you will have to capture at 480x576 and when encoding your MPEG-2, make sure you've got the setting on for "interlaced video". There is no real need to de-interlace the video first for SVCDs as MPEG-2 can handle an interlaced source... though some would argue progressive video yields better quality.

Anyway, good luck.

Regards.

[Anonymous49854]

ah virtualdub doesnt seem to be compatible with my video card
on XP anyway
but thanks for the tips guys
I'm off to give it a go :)