Capture for VCD now, DVD later.

[sgil]

I would like to transfer some of my NTSC VHS video collection to Video CD right now, and later to DVD (when I have a DVD burner and the cost is down). I am thinking about getting the Dazzle Digital Video Creator II to capture.

I would like to capture in such a way that I can make Video CDs now at VCD 2.0 352x240 resolution, and later make DVDs at 720x480 resolution in NTSC from the same source material (the captured digital video, not the VCD), without having to capture again.

Is this possible?
Is the Dazzle DVC II the best option for me?

Basically I want to capture and store the digital video, then make a VCD from it now, and a DVD from the same stored digital video source material later. So I think I want to capture at 720x480 now, use this to make VCDs at 352x240 and DVDs at 720x480.

Thank you.

[disturbed1]

To be blunt, the DVCII sucks at VCD capture. DVD capture is ok.

Your idea is pretty good. Capturing at the DVD template does a good job at preserving the quality. There is only minor quality degradation. When re-encoding to VCD there will be more quality loss though. But for the price and convience it may be the best choice. The software is easy to use, and the interface is cleanly laid out with plenty of options.

I do use the DVCII for on the fly DVD's and SVCD's. But for my important stuff I use a different computer with Pinnacle's DC10+ then PWI for VCD or LSX for SVCD. It may take longer, but in those cases I'm after quality not quanity.

Make sure your computer is compatible with your capture card. And check the stores return policy in case you have problems. I have a couple of AMD systems that just aren't suited for capping. At first I blamed the card makers, then I bought a couple of PIII Intel combos, and a P4, and haven't had a bit of trouble.

If you wanted to spend more money/time you could look into a Pinnalce 500. It comes with a great bundle of software, and can cap at high bit rate mpeg2 and MJPEG. The DC30Pro caps at 704x480 upto 7megs/sec MJPEG. I had a chance to demo one, I capped at said resolution/bit rate, then re-encoded with CCE Light ($250) in faster than real time. I made some really impressive (S)VCD's and CCE has a DVD compliant output switch. The DC30Pro is ~$500 and comes with Adobe Premiere Full Version, and some other great software. It is my next purchase.

If you are really serious about HQ DVD authoring, you should always budget as much money as possible into your capture card. This will decide the final quality of the output.

Here's a link to clips encoded by a DVCII (untouched and pure) by another member (Monster). ftp://24.9.52.241/dazzle/clips/

[House de Kris]

I've got a DVCII and I have tried this exact thing. In my case I was transfering some Three Stooges from marathon tape collections to VCD. Capturing an MPEG-2 at DVD resolution look great. Then I trimmed the start and stop and removed the commercials and rendered to MPEG-1 at VCD resolution. Looked pretty bad. So much so that I paid more attention to the MPEG artifacts than the silly anticts of the boys.

BUT, I have had very good success if I capture directly to a VCD compatible MPEG file without any edits. I've been happy with the many direct captures for VCD I've done with the DVCII.

There is probably some way to make a decent MPEG-2 720x480 to MPEG-1 352x240 conversion using external steps, but I haven't found it yet. I am now downloading some of the tools on the left one by one to find my golden nugget.

Good luck.