Tivo -> Virtualdub ->SVCD

[rbrown3rd]

I decided that the next best thing to hacking my DirecTivo and actually extracting the Mpeg2 files it captured was to unplug it and take it into my computer room. There I plugged it into my capture card. Ok, I know I am going from digital to analog and back but I figured there would be almost no noise and I could deal with that.

I captured at 352 x 480 with Virtualdub. First I ran a trial by just deinterlacing thinking the signal would be clean but for that. The result burned on a CD looked really crappy on my TV. It looked really interlaced. So I then ran another trial which I deinterlaced (blend), smart smoother, and then temporal smoother. It was a bit better but not dramatically so.

I am very new at this and was thinking that by eliminating all noise I would get a good capture. I am beginning to think the problem is going from mpeg2 on the tv through an analog signal to avi and then going from that back to mpeg2.

Any guidance or advice would be greatly appreciated. Maybe I am going down a dead end using this approach. Help?

[deadpac]

Even if you did manage to dump the video from your tivo onto your hard drive (very easy procedure, check TiVO dumps on Ef, Undert, or Dal can't exactly remember which net had that room) you would still have to encode the video that is on your drive, you can't just burn the mpeg2(fake) that your tivo has.

Capturing below 480x480 for SVCD is going to produce a SVCD that is very washed and contain a slight haziness to it. You should try capturing at 480x480 or above for SVCD.

If you TIVO captures from a clean source i.e. digital cable, or sat then your TIVO capture should not contain any noise. Reducing noise on a source that already has no noise is going to produce more noise than reduce.

[rbrown3rd]

Perhaps my problem was the source of the video before it came through Tivo. I have had pretty good success capturing VHS to SVCD using Vdub and some filters. This capture, while noise free, was really interlaced and hard to fix. I captured at 352 x 480 using HuffyUV compression.

[rbrown3rd]

I resized my original capture which was at 352 x 480 using Vdub and precise bicubic. Converted to MPeg2 using CQ=100 and I am really surprised. The SVCD I burned with Nero looks 99.9 % as good as the original. I guess the resizing took care of the deinterlacing in the process. No other filters applied. The colors are pretty saturated but I am guessing that is the settings on my TV. It looks good when played on my computer monitor using WinDVD 4.

Guess I will capture at 352 x 240 to begin with next time. Will also save some disk space. Sure is nice to have a noise free source.

[rbrown3rd]

Here is a sample image from my latest DirecTivo capture. This was snapped using WinDVD 4 while playing the SVCD I created.

[rbrown3rd]

If anyone is interested in experimenting with clips captured directly from Tivo I could provide my 480 x 480 capture. Just email me at bob@thebrowns.com and I can give you an ftp address. My test is .5 gb but I could provide shorter clips from it. If any of you experts could use that to produce a nice clean mpeg for SVCD I would be interested in knowing the filters you used.

I captured originally at 480 x 480 and the only way I can get it to look good on an SVCD is by using virtualdub to resize it to 352 x 240.

[phelix]

Guess I will capture at 352 x 240 to begin with next time. Will also save some disk space. Sure is nice to have a noise free source.

Well, capturing at 352x240 will definately get rid of any interlacing problems, by eliminating half the lines. The phrase "throwing the baby out with the bath water" comes to mind.

Search the forums for info on deaing with interlace. One thing you can try is to change the field order. Also, if you're using TMPenc, you have to tell it to encode in interlaced format.

I do captures from my PVR (echostar 501) all the time with great results. Don't give up on higher quality captures.

[rbrown3rd]

Thanks for the tip. I am very new at this and just tried applying a deinterlace filter in Virtualdub. Guess I need to experiment some more. I still have a 480 x 480 test capture that I did. I'll try the different field order and the TMPGenc setting for interlaced source.

[rbrown3rd]

Ok. I discovered that I had encoded with TMPGenc and had not setup the deinterlacing properly. I just ran a short test by discarding first the even field and one discarding the odd field. I cannot tell the difference between the two but what I can tell is that the resulting mpeg is beautiful. Thanks so much for the tip.

The only artifacts I see are some squiggly pixelations up at the top of the frames. I think I read something about that somewhere on the forums.

[Nelson37]

352x240 is VCD resolution, you are making an XVCD, NOT an SVCD. Look into IVTC. Also, remember that interlaced video looks much better on TV than on PC monitor.

[rbrown3rd]

My original capture was at 480 x 480 for SVCD. I resorted to resizing to 352 x 240 to get rid of the interlacing since I had not yet learned the proper way to do it. I have done some tests with deinterlacing in TMPGenc and found that the double field deinterlacing, whatever that is, looks best. Anyone have any other recommendations?