MPEG2 Satellite video not worth re-encoding from DV?

[Raycaster]

For the last 2 months I have been desperately trying to get the cleanest video from DirectTV captured to play back on my Sony VAIO laptop.

I thought recording thru my Panasonic DV601 DV format and then encodong to MPEG2 would be the best solution. I have tried most encoders CCE, TmpEnc, etc but have I missed the point?

I started with a MPEG1 card that does 352 X 480 3.5Mbps capturing. I always thought MPEG1 to logically be a poorer picture.

I think I was duped earlier when I viewed a DVD rip on the laptop and was impressed by the MPEG2 quality.

After all the tests and 100 gigs of encoding was I an moron to not figure out that DirectTV video is SVCD at best anyways? For all the hassles of encoding and late night macros is straight into a MPEG1 card from the dish's S-Videojust as good in the end?


Or am I missing a vital filter or 2 I could add while encoding to MPEG2 720 X 480?

(sorry for the long story)
Summary: Garbage in - Garbage out?

[flaninacupboard]

Never used/seen DirectTV (guessing it's an american thing) but if it's MPEG2 digital cable similar to what we have in the UK, it's definitely GI-GO. Some channels have low resolution (things like dicovery) probably VCD, and most channels have pathetic bitrates/bad quality realtime encoders. i'd guess the max is 5,000kbps, with no NR and poor motion searching. in short, it's not nice. i would suggest a DV capture, and re-encode to 352X576(480) Mpeg2, VBR max 5000 min 500, then whatever average you require. 352X576(480) is a valid DVD resolution, and is used by several digital cable channels anyway.

[Raycaster]

Thank you for the reply, I will give that a shot.

Downsize from 720 X 480 to 352 X 480 and up the bitrate..

ok.

[wwaag]

I do quite a bit of capturing from DirectTV. I use an ADVC-100 to convert the analog signal to DV, Scenalyzer to do the capture, Vdub/Avisynth to edit, and then CCE or MainConcept to encode, and Ifoedit to author. I think the resulting quality of the DVD is pretty good when viewed on a Pioneed 50" TV. However, there are wide variations in the quality of the signal. Most of my captures are older movies from TCM. Some are quite good--others not. In any case, the resulting DVDs are pretty close to the quality of the input. I have also done laserdisc captures where I can compare the original source with the final DVD and I have found that it is often difficult to distinguish which is which.

One thing I've noticed with DirectTV is that there are sometimes audio/sync problems on some channels, although I've not had any problems with TCM or any of the other movie channels I've captured from.

[metageek]

I capture DirectTV with ADVC-100 and have been satisfied with the quality. I've noticed, however, that the quality of the transmissions are often medicre. This is not only based on the channel, but within a certain channel they sometimes have much worse quality than at other times.

By the way I use a windows machine to do the capture (with Scenalyzer live, great program). I then move the DV to a linux machine and do MPEG2 encoding with the MJPEG tools. I use a firewire drive to move the files (8Gbytes per second bandwidth, if I run down the stairs ).

[Raycaster]

A couple of points that might help find a solution.

I mostly capture TechTV and TMM. (pretty clean)

I view all of the final video 100% on a laptop screen.
I use the S-Video from the dish.

Are there any special filter or techniques that should be used on the DV to improve the viewing quality on a laptop screen?

Thank you guys for the time and effort, I really appreciate it.

[Supreme2k]

I usually get a cleaner signal using the composite output.

[ima2hd]

If composite output is looking better to you it's because it's Homogenizing i.e. smoothing the picture out. But in reality it's less clear. Not sure what you are trying to do here are you trying to simply put it on your laptops harddrive to then view it again later? I would think that Mpeg2 on the fly would look pretty good. I capture from Direct TV 640 x 480 huffyuv then I convert it to svcd using avi2svcd. And the quality is about the same as the original broadcast. Quality is all over the place with Direct TV, but in the sticks it's all you can get and thats what it was designed for. I wish there were less channels and better pic quality for sure. Will