AVI File Size

[kazzer]

Could someone please tell me just how big uncompressed AVI files are?
I only have a single 20Gb hard drive and I dont know whether to go for a card that only captures uncompressed AVI, or one which uses some type of compression like MJPEG. I'm planning on converting VHS to VCD.

Thanks in advance!

[resnullius]

unvompressed avi is about 30gig for 2h... if you only have 20gigs forget about uncompressed

[Spicuzza]

kazzer,

This will depend on the "Frame Size" you select.
720 x 480 requires about 1.2 gig of disk space per minute of video.
352 x 480 requires about 600 MB of disk space per minute of video.
352 x 240 requires about 300 MB of disk space per minute of video.

At 720 x 480 you could only capture about 16 minutes of video, at 352 x 480 about 33 minutes and at 352 x 240 about 64 minutes.

The advantage of uncompressed AVI is that when you encode that to an
XVCD at about 2300 kbps the end result will be very near the quality of the source material, however, at best with a 20 gig HDD you are limited to capturing only about a half hour of material at 352 x 480.

I hope this helps.

Gary Spicuzza
cic7@juno.com

[kjmacke]

Try picvideo with a setting of 19 and resolution of 352x240 for t.v. caputures. It does look pretty good and you will have hard drive space to spare.

[kazzer]

Thanks for your replies.

I plan to capture in 10 min chunks from 30 min footage (Twilight Zone episodes!!). I still dont know what card to get. My budget is about €250, and I'm just looking for VHS quality. Does anyone have any experience with Pinnacles PCTV pro and DC10 plus?

[resnullius]

you might want to look in the capture card user comment list on the site....

[TechJunkie]

Just bought a Western Digital 7200RPM 120 GB drive for $192 at www.newegg.com!

My advice: don't make your decision based upon disk space used by DV. Capture and edit in DV, then transcode to MPEG-2 720x480 for DVD burning. You can transcode to MPEG-1 (VCD) or MPEG-2 480x480 (SVCD) to burn CD's for friends and family. 8)

[sammons]

It is not the card that decides on the capture compression (or not), it is the software that you use to manage the capture. There are so many choices. You might for example play with Virtualdub to begin with, since its free, good and small.

I managed to free up 23Gb for my 50 minute VHS - not quite enough to capture best quality uncompressed. I have an ATI AIW 128 Rage Pro, now old fashioned I guess but very cheap to buy, and pretty good. I capture using the ATI MMC 7.6 TV capture program, capturing directly into MPEG format for VCD. Quality is almost as good as TMPGENCing an uncompressed capture, and it is fast, since the 6 hours of TMPGENC encoding is not required. with another 40Gb of free space, plus an overnight TMPGENC, I could achieve a 10% improvement in quality.

Once you get into capturing stuff, you will undoubtedly want quality (uncompressed AVI's), so maybe you should look at investing in a big HDD, and pick up a cheap AIW 128 Pro card to begin with.

[kazzer]

Thanks Sammons.

I don't know what to do! I'm so confused! My budget is only about €300.

[TechJunkie]

It is not the card that decides on the capture compression (or not), it is the software that you use to manage the capture. There are so many choices. You might for example play with Virtualdub to begin with, since its free, good and small.

Are you saying that the software that manages DV capture over firewire will capture at something other than 720x480? Will Virtualdub capture from my miniDV camcorder connected by firewire to my system?

If so, I'm learning something new every day.