Capturing issues

[Jella]

I have a problem which I hope someone will be able to assist with. I'll try to keep this short and simple.

I am trying to transfer my wedding video from 8mm camcorder tape onto the computer for svcd authoring. Actually, I can capture just fine, and the quality of the captured video file is good enough for playback on the computer, but when authored into svcd format....the quality is way lower than it should be. I know what you're thinking...this isn't a capturing issue - but I think it is.

See, my WinTV card, which I capture with, seems to only be capable of capturing video in 320x240 resolution. I have been able to capture and author quite splendid quality video before, but I do not remember what I did differently. So I need help...

When capturing from the WinTV card, I CAN force the capturing program to make the captured video 640x480 or higher. However, will there be difference in quality once the video is being authored into svcd format (mpeg2) depending on whether I originally captured into 320x240 or 640x480? Or should I already capturing into 480x480? I could really use help on this. Another thing is that the original material is shot in 16:9, does that make a difference here?

I have just been appalled with the quality loss when authoring svcd's and had to ask for help. The video only lasts about 30 mins to begin with. I use Ulead's DVDWorkshop to author.

Any hints or tips would be appreciated. I would have a better capture card if I could afford it... I HAVE managed to capture and author in great quality before...where could I be going wrong?

[FulciLives]

First of all I don't have a WinTV card but I do have some capture experience with other TV tuner type cards. Some people say you should capture at the same resolution as that which you will be using. So in this case you would want to capture at 480x480 but other people will tell you that you should capture at the highest resolution you want and then resize to your target resolution later and this will supposedly produce slightly better quality. I would try to capture at full D1 resolution which is 720x480 (NTSC format). Some capture cards can't do 720x480 but can do 640x480 although I frankly don't know why that is. The one thing everyone can agree on is you should NEVER capture at a resolution LESS than your target resolution. A capture of 320x240 will not look very good when you make it into a 480x480 SVCD

Keeping in mind that your original is 16x9 I would try to capture at the highest resolution that your capture card (and computer) can handle. Again I would do 720x480 if you can. Please note that SVCD cannot be anamorphic (16x9) widescreen because your stand alone DVD players will not "correct" the image for a 4:3 TV like they can for a DVD recording. So you will have to convert your capture from 16x9 to a normal 4:3 widescreen source. You could leave the video as 16x9 but then your SVCD will only look normal on a 16x9 TV while looking stretched (making everyone look too tall and too thin) on a normal 4:3 TV

If the WinTV card you have cannot capture at a higher resolution then there are other TV tuner type cards that do and most cost around $60 USD or less. There are better options than such cheap capture cards but if you are on a budget then you can "get away" with a cheap TV tuner capture card but only if that card can support at least 640x480 if not 720x480 otherwise I say your card is crappola if it can't do that and needs to be put to death with extreme prejudice

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[Jella]

Thanks for your advice, I really appreciate the fact you took the time to write it.

I've faced an issue I had not noticed before...because of my n00bness and stupidity, I s'pose. I use Adobe Premiere 6.5 for capturing. Seems that despite of the fact that the software accompanying the WinTV card allowing me to view input image in higher resolutions, Adobe ALWAYS captures ONLY 320x240 video. The result resolution is always the same. I have changed the resolution in the capturing preferences, everywhere I look it says 720x480, in the PREFS, but once I capture the clip, it always says it is in 320x240, and MediaPlayer says the same. What could cause this? Is this really all WinTV card's doing?

[greengate69]

try the hacked wintv drivers

http://btwincap.sourceforge.net

These should allow you to capture right up to DVD resolution with the WnTV series cards. Pay very careful attention to the install instructions that come with the driver, you need to do it exactly how they say.

If the drivers install OK, you will need to disable overlay in your capturing application (or I did anyway with virtualdub)

[RoopeT]

Yep, you can capture 720x480 with VirtualDub, just turn Video overlay off. If you can't, install Btwincap drivers and I'm sure you can.

I'm not familiar with Ulead DVDWorkshop, but I'm almost sure you could get better results encoding with TMPGEnc.

[housepig]

you might also try iuVCR or Virtual VCR (check the Tools section).

[Fozzee]

Please note that SVCD cannot be anamorphic (16x9) widescreen because your stand alone DVD players will not "correct" the image for a 4:3 TV like they can for a DVD recording. So you will have to convert your capture from 16x9 to a normal 4:3 widescreen source. You could leave the video as 16x9 but then your SVCD will only look normal on a 16x9 TV while looking stretched (making everyone look too tall and too thin) on a normal 4:3 TV

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

Hi please explain this paragraph in more detail.

I have many VCD and SVCD which are widescreen and display perfectly fine on a 4:3 TV. They just display with black borders on the top and bottom. These VCD and SVCD also play fine on my neighbours widescreen tv. This is both from captured sources and downloaded videos.
Either I'm misunderstanding what you are saying (most likely) or you are wrong.

Fozzee

[FulciLives]

Please note that SVCD cannot be anamorphic (16x9) widescreen because your stand alone DVD players will not "correct" the image for a 4:3 TV like they can for a DVD recording. So you will have to convert your capture from 16x9 to a normal 4:3 widescreen source. You could leave the video as 16x9 but then your SVCD will only look normal on a 16x9 TV while looking stretched (making everyone look too tall and too thin) on a normal 4:3 TV

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

Hi please explain this paragraph in more detail.

I have many VCD and SVCD which are widescreen and display perfectly fine on a 4:3 TV. They just display with black borders on the top and bottom. These VCD and SVCD also play fine on my neighbours widescreen tv. This is both from captured sources and downloaded videos.
Either I'm misunderstanding what you are saying (most likely) or you are wrong.

Fozzee

Well you have two types of widescreen. There is "normal" widescreen where the image is in a 4:3 box at the proper aspect ratio. Then you have anamorphic 16x9 enhanced widescreen. This is stored in a "stretched" format that looks normal on a 16x9 widescreen TV but must be resized to look normal on a standard 4:3 TV. The DVD player does this resizing. However it is my understanding that if you make an anamorphic 16x9 enhanced widescreen SVCD then it will only look normal on a 16x9 TV as a stand alone DVD player will not resize the SVCD for a 4:3 TV.

In your case it sounds as though you have "normal" widescreen SVCD discs which of course would look normal on any standard 4:3 TV and most 16x9 TV sets have a bunch of different settings regarding how to display a 4:3 image on the TV. This ranges from keeping the image at 4:3 with unused space on the sides to either blowing it up and/or stretching it to "fit" the entire widescreen TV display.

So again you can create an anamorphic 16x9 enhanced widescreen SVCD but it will only look normal on a 16x9 TV when using a stand alone DVD player. If you watch it on the computer then there are some media players that will resize it correctly for your 4:3 computer monitor. But as far as I know stand alone DVD players cannot resize anamorphic SVCD discs for proper 4:3 display.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[Fozzee]

HMMMMMMMMMMMMM

Think I follow

Fozzee