What am I doing wrong?

[plumcrazy]

Hello, sorry for the length in advance. I'll start with my set up, I am working with a Dell 8200 pc, 60 gb hard drive, 512 mb pc800 rdram, p4 1.8 ghz, NEC 7800a 16x10x40x burner, windows xp os, Adaptec Duo Connect usb2 and ieee 1394 firewire card, 32 mb Nvidia GeForce2 mx 4x agp with tv out, Roxio easy cd creator 5 platinum, I am using a Dazzle DV Hollywood Bridge with Mainactor and Video Wave4 software (thats what came with the Dazzle), and a JVC SVHS to play the vhs tapes.
What I was hoping to do was to convert all my vhs tapes to mpeg and burn them to a disk, I have had little success. I have no problem capturing the video using either the Mainactor or the Video Wave, the problem starts with the conversion, Video Wave will convert, but only smaller avi files, if it is any bigger than say, a 15 minute video clip, it will stop in the middle of the conversion process, Mainactor seems to want to work sometimes and not others, and when I use either, and get them to convert the avi to mpeg1 ntsc, my Roxio software will not recognize the encoding method either one used, so I have to use the Roxio software to convert the mpeg1 to an mpeg1 that it will use to allow burning, now I am into a second generation of conversion for the same file, this as to take away picture quality in the end product does it not? I would use the Roxio software for the original conversion but it will not work with larger files, and I mean anything over a ten minute video clip, I keep getting video impressions not responding every time I try a file over that size, and if I try to use Roxios video cd tab instead of video impressions, I get and error msg that says "one or more files have been modified, stop progress now" Roxios tech support is at a loss, I uninstalled Roxio and tried reinstalling it, no change. I have done a couple of smaller video clips that I got to work, however, on all three of them, the picture quality sucked, 65% of vhs quality at best, and on 2 of the 3 the audio was not in sync with the video. I don't know what else to try, if anyone in the know would not mind helping me out here, I'd be indebted. My e-mail addy is highwayman40@chartermi.net if you have the time, please e-mail me and maybe we can converse to educate me on this endever I am trying. Thank You

[scissors]

nice set up.

okay. do a google search for AVI-IO. It's a small shareware program that allows you to capture as much video as you want as long as you have the harddrive space.

it normally utilizes what ever capture drivers you have. I only have an ati all in wonder and that works ok. Not sure about your hardware.

it's only a 300-500k download for the demo. you also need the HUFFY avi codec. that's free.

IF it works buy avi-io, it only costs less than 20 ukp.

presuming everything is fine, get virtual dub. This is because it can read all those small AVIs that avi has created to make up you capture.

Use the Frame server in virtual dub to output to TMPEG.

frame serving basically throws you video "into the air" and any aware software can "pluck it out".

tempeg will make a nice mpeg.

you would then use tmpeg to demux(split the audio/video) and BBMEG to remux. You do this cus tmpeg is chinese standard, but bbmpeg does extra stuff when it puts the video back together, making it "compliant".

finally, make a CD image with vcdimager. burn the BIN image created with the latest nero. Use nero only to burn the image not create the vcd as i personally don't think neros (s)vcds are compliant.

most of the above software is free.

[Stansell]

Good advice, except I suggest using the VCD Easy package (see tools to the left) for both converting and burning. Newer versions of Nero do not handle burning BIN files so well, and VCD easy can do it with one step

VCD Easy is a nice GUI that combines VCD Imager with CDRDAO writing software with a nice install program as well. IF you have trouble at first in the writing stage, check the CDRDAO site for what driver to use for your particular CD writer.

Anyone who hasn't used VCD Easy since the first versions should give it another look. It has really improved and it is what I use to make all my VCD's now.

You may also be able to skip the demux/remux step. I use the MPEG straight from TMPGEnc without any playback problems.

[scissors]

I didn't recommend dao as i /think/ it's dos, and lot's of people are on xp.

you're right about bloody nero. I was on version 4.xx until the other week, got the version 5 demo. Went to burn the bin, totally misinterpretted the cue.

going back to old version. BTW - i was using CDRWin, but nero does a power calibration and i tend to get less buffer probs on my old p200 which i use for burning at 4x.

mux/remux. Yeah i no vcd imager does it on the fly, but i seem to remember bb is more accurate AND you get no ff/RW sync probs on players such as philips.

It's just i know this way is 100%.

thanks for the input/confirmation, it's good to get an agreement in here
(i'm having a good old spat in the newbie furom )

[Stansell]

Re. DOS and DAO

Is that a problem on XP? I'm using VCD Easy on Win 2K without any problem. Does XP not support any type of command line programs?

With VCDImager though, you never have to use those messy command prompts anyway.

If it works on Win2K, I would think it would work on XP.