VHS Capturing Quesiton <---Newbie Alert

[domtheman2k]

Hello all. Newbie here. I did make some attempts to search before posting so at least I'm not a total loss!

First the background info.

AMD Athalon 900Mhz
384mb ram
GeForce FX 5200 Video/Capture Card

I'm basically trying to do the old VCR home movie to DVD conversion. I've experimented with several of the commonly mentioned tools on this site and am having mixed results. My biggest problem seems to be that the video that I capture is "choppy". I've messed around with the bitrate settings and the resolution sizes but seem to not be able to find something that works well.

1/2 DVD does capture pretty well but is still slighly choppy. The interesting thing is that if I capture live tv signals it is very smooth and looks great but VHS capturing is choppy even though they are both coming in on the same capture device and input. Any thoughts on this?

ObviouslyI can buy a new PC and improve things with processing power but I'm hoping someone out there can share some tips as to what I can do to improve this capture problem. Especially because I can capture video from a TV source that looks good.

Currently I've tried Virtual VCR and WINDVR 3.

Thanks again.

[DaveS]

when you say choppy, how so..e.g. what are you looking at the video on...your PC off of an avi/mpeg file or a monitor / TV off a dvd you burned?

what s/w are you using and at what settings?

[FulciLives]

sounds as though you are capturing direct to Half D1 DVD MPEG-2 and your computer is having trouble keeping up when the source is less than perfect.

A stand alone TBC might help that. Otherwise upgrade the computer or capture to an AVI file using HuffyUV or PICVideo MJPEG

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[domtheman2k]

DaveS -

I'm playing the captured video right off the PC. I figure why burn it if it doesn't look good even on the PC.

I've tried multiple types of capture settings. The last one was 320x240, frame rate of 29.97 and a bit rate of 1800 kBits/sec. That was using WinDVR version 3.

I am capturing directly to MPEG-2 so that may also have something to do with it??

Thanks everyone!

[bobinga]

I use a Canopus advc-100 to capture; edit with Pinnacle Studio 7 and convert to avi; then burn with MovieFactory 2 after after adding chapters.

[johns0]

domtheman2k,according to your capture settings thats gonna look nasty,capture using avi at 352x480 or higher depending on what your system can handle then encode to mpeg.

[Dr_Layne]

DaveS -

I'm playing the captured video right off the PC. I figure why burn it if it doesn't look good even on the PC.

I've tried multiple types of capture settings. The last one was 320x240, frame rate of 29.97 and a bit rate of 1800 kBits/sec. That was using WinDVR version 3.

I am capturing directly to MPEG-2 so that may also have something to do with it??

Thanks everyone!

Video on a PC never looks as good as it does on a TV. PC's are not optimized for NTSC vewing. Plus you will get interlacing artifacts on a PC that do not show up on a TV. Burn to a rewritable dvd and view it on the TV.

Steve

[DaveS]

Burn to a rewritable dvd and view it on the TV.

Steve

My suggestion too so that you can see what you have on a platform that can serve up your bitrate (low as it may be)...this way if you PC is having trouble keeping up w/ playing your file, you won't think that's in the source.

Also, see suggestions on bitrate, etc. above...

Burn on a re-writable & let us know how it looks

[vhelp]

.
.
the best encoding output would obviously be from a source that is purely
Progressive. By that, I mean that the frames are 720 x 480 w/ no Interlace
to be found. However.
When your source has Interlace in them, as far as any encoder is concirned,
it's just another obsticle to haul over, and hence it has difficulty and results
in a need for higher bitrate (hence poorer quality) That's just the plain facts.
It's distortion that TMPG (or any other encoder) sees. Anyways, for better
quality, you'll have to do two things:

* Increase your resolution (as Fulci/johns0 recommended, 352 x 480 for starters)
* and, Increase your bitrate

Note 1, To me, by "live tv" that means to me that your source is Pure Interlace
such as News or Sports or Soaps etc. These will be Pure Interlace and give
you some trouble w/ quality encoding it. However, it will look great on your
tv set through your VHS.

Note 2, If you don't know your source (ie, Telecined [aka Movie] or Progresive
or Interlace) you'll also have trouble. You will need to learn how to identify
these (your) sources when your output as an .AVI file for offline processing.

* Definately give http://www.100fps.com/ a look'seez because it's indispensable to lots
here :P
Do wait for the pics to D/L so that you can understand what the dicussions/
lessons are describing/talking about.

You should see an improvement

Good luck,
-vhelp

[domtheman2k]

Hello Everyone. Thanks for the great advice. I'm now capturing in 352 x 480 and have messed around with increasing my bitrate and have found a pretty darn good solution.

On my 900mhz Athalon with 384mb ram would it make any difference if I added another 256mb ram or is my processor simply my biggest obstical for capturing at a higher resolution and/or bitrate?

Thanks again everyone for your help and guidance.