DV to MPEG end to end quality

[skipc10]

I've been using Ulead Studio6 and Pinnacle Studio 7 to capture DV, encode, and burn VCDs and SVCDs. I'm not happy with the MPEG quality from either, but they don't offer a lot of settings. I've downloaded and played with TMPGE, Virtualdub, VCDEasy and a few others (MovieXone has a problem with ipl.dll I'm trying to fix... anyone have ipl.dll problems and have a fix?).

The quesion is, I'm trying to judge the different encoders and settings for best VCD and SVCD quality - nothing extreme, and playable on the average standalone DVD (so far my tests do). Anyone do some quality tests and can narrow it down for me before I run through a large stack of discs and a head of hair?

Also, VirtualDub doesn't capture DV. Any freeware tool that does, and doesn't have the 4GB limit?

And, any ideas or recommendations on the capture regarding de-interlacing with the above suggestions?

[vcdfreak]

I won't touch on de-interlacing as I have no knowledge on that.


I will express my view on the media production instead. I would suggest editing using AVI files (captured using firewire/USB 2.0, lossless) with Adobe Premiere and framserve your final footage to TMPGEnc(high quality, inverse telecine, sharpened, noise reduction on).

But the quality will still be not satisfying if your original footage is high in contrast and too sharp with too much detail. You need to find a way to tone in down before passing them thru. the TMPGEnc. Some forms of soft filter or gamma correction using Premiere might help. But you need a powerful PC to cut down the rendering/encoding time or it just takes too long...

[vcdfreak]

How about the DVIO.exe to capture DV? If you run on w2k/XP, you should not have the 4GB limitation problem, right?

[skipc10]

I'll look at Premiere. Not freeware though I just got DVIO - will see how it does.

I'm on WinME for other compatibility reasons, and so far so good. I've seen several products adv. no limitation by splitting files during capture, but I'd assume each product does it their own way - I haven't heard of a standard.

The process I'm trying for is to set a clip the way I want it, then archive it - preferably in something less than AVI length. I'm also trying DivX 5.0 if you have any comments on that. Then, I'll bring out footage from the archive to use as needed in larger projects. Sometimes I'll chain MPEGs together (like in VCDEasy) and other times maybe do some simple editing, then combine.

Thanks for the info. If you think of anything else based on the above....