Capturing VHS with Nvidia MX460 problems

[citizen]

Hi,
I have problems capturing my home VHS videos (PAL format).
Here is my setup:-

XP (Home edition)
2 GHz Pentium processor
80 Gig hard drive
768 Meg RAM
Nvidia Geforce4 MX460 64 Meg Graphics card with built in WDM Video capture
Cyberlink PowerDirector Pro & PowerVCR capture software

Basically I'm getting rubbish capture no matter what settings I make (even AVI with no compression).
The picture in the capture window is poor quality even before I record it. Is this an issue with the capture card, the capture software or the cables?

I'm connecting the PC to the VCR by Svideo and 3.5mm sterio jack cables into a Scart adaptor into the VCR.

I've tried different VCR's.
I've tried a composite video cable.
I've tested the cables and scart adaptor by connecting the VCR to TV.
I've used a new 'Harry Potter' video (the quality is a little better)

As I mentioned above the basic problem seems to be the picture from the VCR to the PC, this is of poor quality before it is recorded.

Does anyone have any experience of this Graphics card for video capture?
Am I expecting too much to reproduce a VHS video without a loss of quality?

Any information or advice would be greatly appreciated


Thanks
Citizen

[Macros746]

Citizen,
First of all let me say that I have no experience with the video card you are referring to but let me try to answer a few of your questions.

First of all...yes, you are expecting too much to expect to capture from VHS without loss of quality. That being said it IS very possible to capture VERY watchable video from VHS. This is what I'd suggest....if you are already doing all of this ignore me.

First of all HIGH QUALITY cables. I'd suggest getting the gold cables...the most expensive kind. I'd buy them from somewhere like COMPUSA or some other megastore...keep all the package so you can return them if they don't make a significant difference.

Secondly, I'd try capturing to MJEG codec set to a quality of 18. I don't know why this is the magic number but I find that my captures look far better in this codec set to this quality then in Huffy or no loss.

Thirdly, what resolution are you capping to? I recommend capturing to 640 X 480 (I'm assuming NTSC here....) and then reducing when you are converting either to VCD or SVCD.

Fourthly, I'm assuming that you are making VCD/SVCD? If so and you are using TMPGenc I HIGHLY recommend using the sharpness filter. It gives the VCD/SVCD the crispness that the encoding tends to remove.

Finally, I am assuming you use virtualdub to capture? If not you probably should....

Of course it is entirely possible that that particular card simply isn't good for capturing. I found my signal was moderately weak and bought a signal booster ($30 from Radio Shack) which helped matters significantly. But I'd say that if the TV looks good on your computer and looks crappy after capture than it is your method that has problems and not your card. Try the above and see what happens. Good luck.

Macros746