capturing MPEG 1 or 2?

[u7mg0]

im using an Aver capture card capturing analog 8mm tapes. Im using Win MM to author and TMPEG (sp?) to encode. can you answer the following:


1) Should I capture at MPEG 1 or 2?
2) will the quality be noticably better for MPEG2?
3) and how much less will I be able to fit on VCD?
4) also, if I capture at MPEG 2, can I make a SVCD?

thanks

[FulciLives]

Hello

I don't know much about the AVER capture card but most capture cards allow you to capture in the AVI format and doing that will give you better quality than capturing real-time in mpeg1 or mpeg2. The process is longer since you first capture to AVI (using something like the HuffyUV codec or the MJPEG codec) then after the capture is done you take the AVI file and convert it to either mpeg1 (for VCD) or mpeg2 (for SVCD or DVD) using a program like TMPGEnc or CCE.

If your computer can handle it you should capture at full D1 resolution which is 720x480 for NTSC and 720x576 for PAL

If your computer can't handle that or you want to save on HDD space or processing time etc. then it usualy is OK to capture at the resolution you will be using for the final source so for instance the SVCD format is 480x480 (that's NTSC but for PAL it is 480x576) so you can capture at that lower resolution instead of at the higher D1 resolution.

Please note that the conversion from your original AVI capture to mpeg1/mpeg2 is not done in real time ... often it can easily take 3 times the length of your capture (and that's on a FAST computer) but the quality will be excellent as opposed to capturing straight to mpeg1/mpeg2 ... unless your AVER capture card has some sort of HARDWARE mpeg1/mepg2 encoding chip. Hardly any capture cards have that though.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

P.S.
On the left hand side click on the CAPTURE catagory under the HOW TO section and read the guide that says: "How to Capture to MJPEG or HUFFYUV and after convert to (S)VCD with any TV-Card or Video-In-Card"

[FulciLives]

im using an Aver capture card capturing analog 8mm tapes. Im using Win MM to author and TMPEG (sp?) to encode. can you answer the following:


1) Should I capture at MPEG 1 or 2?
2) will the quality be noticably better for MPEG2?
3) and how much less will I be able to fit on VCD?
4) also, if I capture at MPEG 2, can I make a SVCD?

thanks

ANSWERS:

1.) See my first post
2.) SVCD mpeg2 is better quality than VCD mpeg1
3.) Standard VCD is about 80 minutes per standard 80min/700MB CD-R
4.) Yes but you have to make sure you capture at the correct resolution and bitrate for the SVCD format otherwise you will have to re-encode but with most capture cards you either can't or even if you can you shouldn't capture straight to mpeg2

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

P.S.
I haven't made very many SVCD discs but when I have done so I used the program DVD2SVCD which is VERY simple to use. As the name implies it was created to rip a DVD (from your DVD-ROM drive) and then convert it to SVCD and that is the only way I have ever used it but I am pretty sure that it will also work with an AVI type file for a source as well. There is an excellent guide on how to use that program on the doom website