Questions on Capture and Authoring

[gschilling]

I'm just getting started at this game, so please bear with me. I purchased an AverDVD EZMaker capture card, and a copy of Ulead DVD MovieFactory 2 software. I don't have a DVD burner, just CD. Here is where I am right now.

I am able to capture the video just fine. I am confused, though, about the various formats that I can capture to. AVI format is just too big in file size. VCD is just looks terrible. I tried SVCD which looked great on computer, but then found out my DVD player is not compatible. So I would like to burn to a low bitrate DVD-Video format to get the higher quality picture. The Ulead software supports the Half D1 format, which I understand is comparable to SVCD, and I should get about 30 minutes on a CDR.

Here is my problem. When I go to burn to the Half D1 format, it takes VERY long to encode prior to burning. I have a 30 minute home movie clip that I am working with, and I am one hour into encoding, and only 40% done. I have a Pentium 4 1.8GHZ computer, with 512MB RAM.

What am I doing wrong? When I capture the video, should I use different settings? There are so many options to select when capturing, I'm not sure if I may be making wrong choices that ultimately result in extra long encoding time. I've also tried the software that came with the card (neoDVD), but it seems very limited in its capabilities.

Any guidance you may be able to give would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Gene

[BobK]

I'm relatively new to this myself. But I capture to avi- if the files are too big then you might want to get a bigger hard drive. I got a 2nd HD- 80 Gb for less than $90 and it will hold over 6 hours of avi captured at the best quality (S-VHS quality).

I have an Athlon 2400+ 2.0 GHZ computer and it takes between 5 and 7 hours to encode a DVD. So if yours takes 2+ hours to encode 30 minutes at half D1 then that doesn't seem out of line. Just something you have to live with until you get a faster processor.