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  1. Hi all,

    I'm very new to the world of creating DVD's and this is my first post here. Finding this website was a blessing and almost everything I know about the process has come from this site. I hope this forum can help me out too, and who knows, maybe one day I can pass on some knowledge.

    The main project I have is capturing the 100's of basketball games I have collected over the last 15 years from VHS to DVD. Some of the tapes are great quality, some not so great, so I understand that not all the DVD's I create will be things of beauty.

    However, after trying out capturing and burning using PCTV to capture and Sonic MyDVD to burn, I have two basic questions.

    I have been using PCTV to capture because the capture mechanism on Sonic has been giving me issues, but I have had problems with PCTV as well.

    No matter the quality of the tape I am campturing, PCTV just will not let me capture using the "DVD" setting (which I assume is MPEG2) The quality of video is horrible, it is so jerky that sometime images overlap one another, and is totally unwatchable. So I have been capturing in Super VCD quality and burning them onto DVD. The quality is okay, but I wonder if I could do better.

    When I capture with Sonic the picture quality itself is actually pretty good, but the colours are all wrong. Anything white in the picture comes out as a bright blue, making the capture essentially useless. I can't find any settings on Sonic to change the colours, and whatever settings I have changed create the same result - a satisfactory quality picture with bizzare colours. Does anyone have suggestions as how to fix it, because I feel if I could get the colours right, Sonic would provide better quality.

    Thanks to anyone to takes the time to reply.
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  2. Welcome to the forum Andy....

    You said something in your post that made cold chills run up my spine. You said you have 100s of 15 year old recordings to put onto DVD..... I could see several large boxes full of old dusty VCR tapes being carried in and set by my computer desk. Quite a job to say the least, but very much possible.

    Doing that many tapes I suggest you get a Time Base Corrector. The Datavideo TBC-1000 Time Base Corrector is supposed to be a good one. If those tapes, expecially the older ones, are in very bad shape you will probably need one. It will make your life a lot easier to live and will give you better end results.

    You need a better MPEG2 capturing program than Sonic. It's lame and you will agree with me very soon. I would consider Ulead VideoStudio but the only version available is 7, V6 is far better, but 7 is ok I suppose. That program can capture high quality MPEG2 video and will give you the ability to edit the video with titles, etc, easily. Download the trial version and check it out. Also, check for updates. I think it has some available

    I understand you don't have an ATI capture card but you should visit www.lordsmurf.com site. He has a lot of good capture information there. It will help you, believe me.

    Best of luck.
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  3. Member FulciLives's Avatar
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    May 2003
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    I second getting a TBC such as the DataVideo TBC 1000

    I would also suggest getting the Canopus ADVC-100

    Those two units together will give you VERY good quality and not many "issues" that you get with other capture cards ... the biggest problem being audio sync issues.

    Or you can get the new Canopus ADVC-300 which is the Canopus ADVC-100 with a built-in TBC ... expensive but about the same price as the Canopus ADVC-100 and the DataVideo TBC 1000

    - John "FulciLives" Coleman
    "The eyes are the first thing that you have to destroy ... because they have seen too many bad things" - Lucio Fulci
    EXPLORE THE FILMS OF LUCIO FULCI - THE MAESTRO OF GORE
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  4. Thanks guys for the great advice. I'll start chasing some of those ideas tonight after work!
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