vhs(pal) to dvd - virtualvcr capture settings

[dmz]

Greetings,
Id be grateful if someone could verify the settings which seem to be suggested for virtualvcr to capture a PAL VHS tape from my VCR.

File tab - no problems here. (whats a compatibility index?)
Video tab - i Use Custom settings. One document I read on doom9 said that for PAL I should use 720 X 576 frame size, but a document on the Lordsmurf site says I only need to use 352 X 480. Which is correct please? Colour format should be UYVY I guess and the frame rate for PAL should be 25 yes? Under use compression I select the huffyuv I installed. Under device settings why are there so many PAL options? Do I just select PAL_B - does it matter? Should I change any defaults under the prop button for huffyuv?
filters tab - I guess I just leave that one blank for now.
audio tab - I select capture audio and the only thing I change is from stereo to mono as my vcr does not support stereo. 44.1khz should be ok but i did see one article that said it should be 48khz. Is that important? I am not compressing the audio. Should I? and should I use PCM?
av sync tab - I saw one document that said it was good to turn on resample audio and to leave it as dynamic. The other boxes I leave unchecked.
stop and view tabs - fairly straightforward
devices tab - I only have the nvidia wdm driver for video and the SB live! driver for audio so no chioce there. Video source i guess is composite as Im coming in from my vcr to the funny 9 pin thing that comes with the winfast myvivo card. The device settings i just leave as audio capture filter and set the pin line to line-in (dont know why but it seems ok).
Tuner tab - irrelevant.


Am I on the right track here for all my future captures?

thanks heaps

david

[twodogs]

relying on memory as my capture PC is at home, but here's what works for me:

Frame size is always XXX x 576 for PAL (XXX x 480 is for NTSC).
In Oz we have PAL-B, which answers another question.

For VHS captures you can use 352x576 (Half D1 DVD spec resolution), as there is little benefit to be achieved by going to 720x576 (Full D1). 720 just chews up more disk space when capturing.

I use colour format YUY2. For Huffyuv, leave defaults.
Personally, I dont use huffy, I use PicVideo MJPEG codec. You can download a demo version of Picvideo (which leaves a watermark) from www.jpg.com .

For audio, use 48khz as that is DVD standard. If you capture in 44khz, you'll need to convert to 48khz, so might as well cap in 48.
Capture PCM/uncompressed audio.

you'll know from being able to see a picture if selecting composite or s-video is correct.

i dont select sync av.

using these settings I get good results and drop no frames, unless the vhs is shithouse quality.

good luck.

[dmz]

Thanks. I only seem to get colour format UYVY. YUY2 doesnt appear in the drop down list box. Is there something else I need to install?

Also 352 X 576 looks all squishy on the screen and doesnt play as smoothly as 720 X 576. Do I just ignore the squishiness and everything will be ok?

thanks

david