Camcorder to SVCD

[sigmma]

Hi I am new to video editing and have been trying to capture videotape from my camcorder without having much luck. Basically the end product is not what I expected!!!!. I am using Video Studio 7 which came with my hardware. I am using the following system. P4 2.4 Mhz with HT hyper threading , 512MB dual RAM, ASUS P4P800 Deluxe motherboard, Leadteck Winfast TV tuner capture card.

The camcorder is connected to my capture card with a S-Video lead. The problem I am having is that when I use SVCD format (selected on Video Studio 7) to capture the videotape signal and then burn it to SVCD, the images are a bit choppy and pixalated especially fast motion images, so the final product is worse than the actual VHS tape. However when I use AVI format to capture the signal and then burn it choosing SVCD then the images improve a lot, however the file I end up which before encoding is about 25 GB for 35 minutes of video. I am pretty sure I am doing something wrong somewhere!!!!!! When capturing from a camcorder, do I have to use AVI or can I use DVD, or SVCD ???????????

[scottb721]

File size may be a little big for that length. The AVI size don't really matter too much though as you'll encode the AVI then delete it.

I did some testing today to check out some things.
I did the same piece of footage from my handycam using a few different methods.
By far the worst output was capturing directly to SVCD MPEG2.

I then tried capturing as AVI (Huffyuv in VirtualDub) at 352 , 480 and 720 x576 then encoding each one to SVCD MPEG2.
To be honest, for SVCD quality, I could barely pick the winner out of the 3 different AVI capture resolutions.
I even tried a 352x576"SVCD"
My Philips player played it and it looked fine.

Others may say to capture directly to Mpeg2 but the quality just isn't there for me.

I am using Compro's Videomate Cinema hardware for my capture.

[sigmma]

Thanks for taking the trouble and perform some testings.....I'll keep on searching for more answers....thanks once again...