AIW Radeon & MPG or AVI

[dhardy123]

Hi, I have read alot around here but I do have a question.

I want to capture a bunch of VCR tapes and output them to VCD.

With this card (ATI AIW Radeon 32Mb DDR), do I really need to capture the source in VDub (AVI) and encode to MPG1 or can/should I just capture in MPG1? I realize that AVI has better quality, but as I will only be putting them on a VCD, I was wondering if I could just skip this step and go right to capturing as MPG1.

Or, should i capture as MPG2 and then convert to MPG1?

TIA and Happy New Year!

[Greg12]

If u have a fast CPU, direct MPEG 1 is possible.


MPEG 2 isn't really an option.

However, u could capture MPEG 1 at say 25megs a second and convert to MPEG 2.

[spiderman2k1]

I have a ALL In wonder Radeon my old PC is a P 2 400 And I can do mpeg 1 VCD format with no frame drop's the trick is to. shut down every thing at the start up clock then start the TV then shut it down then hit Ctrl Alt Delete keep explorer and systray open and all the ati program's running start from the top and work your way down once ina blue moon you might drop 1% in frames but you can not tell

[dhardy123]

ok, thanks...

so it sounds like MPEG is the way to go here, rather than AVI to MPEG...

[davidian]

Well it all depends on the quality you want! The mpeg-quality AIW produces is way much worse than what you can achieve if you capture to avi and convert.

The difference is really really huge.



If you want any quality at all; use avi.

[tjdmobile]

All this is kinda true...I have that card and a 1000 mhz duron processor, 256 ddr RAM, etc. Hands down, best quality is achieved with AVI using some codec like Huffy. Now, if HD space is limited for you (I have only 2 40Gig drives myself) then capturing within MMC does have the advantage of creating MPG's. HOWEVER... If you capture direct to VCD format, you will be VERY disappointed with what you get. I have been tweaking MMC 7.5 reg settings until I am about to go crazy, but still can't create anything that I am happy with. Ideally, the best combo is as follows:

Vdub - HuffyUV codec, capture at 640x480, use noise filter at about 15%. You can get about 1.5 hours on a 40 gig drive.

Load TMPGenc, select template for VCD (yes, the standard one). Change the motion detect setting to High-Quality (Slow), and away you go. Keep all other settings at their defaults.

Using this method, I can produce copies of Commerical VHS tapes (mostly my old music videos) which I believe to be equal in quality to their originals. NO noticable artifacts, and no sound problems. I have tried this same method with SVCD, but I find that VCD actually looks a bit better and is less than half as many disks.

You can use the "direct to VCD" method for junk you really don't treasure, or maybe TV shows. Thats my two cents worth.

Wish I could figure out my config though. When I reloaded my Windows 2000 (to fix a MB patch problem), Vdub suddenly started telling me that it couldn't find any capture drivers. That bites...I don't really know what to do, as I installed the drivers from MS (DX drivers that is...)

Hope this helps. Bottom line, forget being able to get studio-quality results in real time from the ATI. Won't happen. For quality, there is a price...that price is "lotsa time" my friend...


TJDmobile

[dhardy123]

Thanks All...

i was playing around with this last night and I think I like the AVI to MPEG route, but wasn't sure if there were "tweaks" to using MMC MPEG capture.

tjdmobile:

I read somewhere that this card comes with no VFW drivers, so, perhaps your old setup was using an old driver for VDub. I think now that you need to find a WDM wrapper. Again, I'm very much green so I might be totally wrong.

[tjdmobile]

Nice work Dhardy, I think you are correct. I do know that it works in XP though, had it working before my FDISK-FORMAT. Should have "Ghosted" first. When will I ever learn?

Glad you chose the AVI route right away. I didn't listen to everyone in these forums, and found out for myself what you already know...

[dhardy123]

"Vdub - HuffyUV codec, capture at 640x480, use noise filter at about 15%. You can get about 1.5 hours on a 40 gig drive. "

Where is this in VDub? I can select Noise Reduction but my only option is Enable?

[davidian]

tjdmobile - You're using just about the same settings as I do. But, is it really necessary to capture at 640x480? 352x480 should be quite enough, because of the original VHS "resolution".

Also, adding smart smoother filter in Vdub can do magic.

[davidian]

+ use Vdubs filter for resizing.. better quality than Tmpgencs.

[tjdmobile]

Dhardy,

You need to select the threshold - option is just below the "enable"

Also, it is correct that 640 horizontal res is overkill. 352x480 will get you the same result, I just don't remember being able to select that as a valid resolution when I tried.

Davidian,

Thanks for the extra info. I will give that a try when I get Vdub working again. Tell you what, I didn't realize what I had until I couldn't use it anymore...

[dhardy123]

i tried 352X480 but my picture is all squishy...should i capture at this size and then tmpgenc will change it properly for vcd size?

[davidian]

tdjmobile - I've been doing MANY tests these latest days, about these very things. I'm capturing an animated movie called "Silver fang" from VHS, and I'm making a VCD out of it.

So I've tried smoothing filters, noise reduction - both in Vdub and Tmpgenc.. and my conclusions are:

(I haven't tried using your method with the 15% noise reduction yet, I'll try it out!)

Capture at 352x480

Use multisegment in Vdub !

Use Huffyuv avi codec!

Then, the resizing.. well I've got a filter called 2:1 vertical reduction, it's not one that is included in Vdub. I got it from some guy at this forum. I don't know if it's any better than Vdubs internal, I doubt it. Use precise bilinear anyway.

The following settings are a little more unsure, but they're working great on this movie. Perhaps they're not necessary all the time!

I use smart smoother. Thereshold 50, but that depends a lot on the source which setting to use. Also the radius, depending on wether you like to remove artifacts or grains. (this filter is not included in vdub either)

Then, I also add noise reduction, "dynamic noise reduction" (not included in vdub either , at 31 (max). I tried both vdub's and tmpgenc's, and I didn't find any great difference, but vdub's was slightly better and much faster!

Finally, I just frameserv to tmpeg and load the default VCD template. You said it was enough to use "slow" at motion detect. I'm at this moment trying out the differences between fast, normal, slow, very slow etc.. but everyone's saying that slow is enough, and that very slow only adds extra time, so I trust you that "Slow" is sufficient

That's about it.. makes a nice looking VCD. The smart smoother and the noise reduction does magic. I often notice when capture from VHS, that the colors are .. "moving", especially on strong colors like red and blue. This gets really smooth and nice, without making the image unsharp!

By the way, I have no idea how experienced you are tjdmobile, this "tutorial" I wrote was not intended to you in particular, since you probably know a lot about this already It was just for anyone who likes some tips.

Cheers.

/Johan, Sweden

[davidian]

Yeah, the image will look all crazy - but it'll be fine in the end! Either let tmpgenc resize it, or better - let vdub do it. It'll look great in the end.

By the way, tjdmobile, I used to have problems choosing any resolutin I wanted before too. I suppose you've got the newest drivers and everything, and chose the resolution under custom resolutions?

Regards
/Johan

[tjdmobile]

And another thing to add:

If you use the noise reduction in Vdub (not a "filter" but rather a "setting", it will increase the compression achieved by the Huffyuv codec.

This is why I am crazy without my Vdub!

Oh well, I am at work right now anyway, so I will fiddle around with the computer some more when I get home. Will probably have to re-load XP, even though XP and my motherboard aren't too happy with each other.

I am not really all that experienced. I have been doing this for about 2 months. Went out, blew money on a LOUSY Belkin USB Videobus II, discovered this site, bought an ATI AIW RAdeon AGP 32DDR. Played - Burned - Tweaked - Repeat (about 200 or more times). I just think it's comical it took me this long to go back to Whitebook VCD.

Thanks for your information. I can't wait to get things back online. I haven't spent this much time in front of the computer since I bought 3D Studio Max!

Cheers,
Thom

[davidian]

I'm really glad to help.

I've been around this site for about a year, but I haven't really started making VCD's from VHS's seriously until quite recently.

One thing is obvious. To get a "perfect" result (which ofcourse, does not exist) it takes a billion tests first patience.. yeah well, I'm glad I'm not stuch with my old P-3 450, because I think it would take years to encode with all these filters I'm using. I think it takes about 8 hours right now, an 80 minutes movie at my P4 1,6 ghz.. geez.

I just read a post by skittelsen, and he has another tip: capture at 352x480, but use resize as a filter when capturing, if your computer is capable of it! Then your avi-file will be 352x240 - right size - and much smaller. I haven't tried it out, but I will.. someday. This forces me to do more and more tests. Gah.

/Johan

[tjdmobile]

Johan,

By the way, which OS are you using?

[davidian]

I'm using Windows XP. I was using Windows 2000 before, and I haven't noticed any difference.

/Johan

[davidian]

Actually I've written a guide about this subject, although it hasn't been updated for a while, and there are a few things that needs to be modified. For instance, some images are not correct, and I've added a deinterlace-filter that's not necessary.

http://medlem.tripodnet.nu/davidian/index.htm

I intend to correct these errors later this evening perhaps

[dhardy123]

Thanks Davidian...the guide looks great.

I used it and my VCDs are coming out perfect!

Question though..after encoding the AVI to VCD format, is there any reason to keep the AVI around or can I delete it?

Thanks

[davidian]

Well I'm just about to update the guide, because there are a few steps that can be done differently Like I said, when using 2:1 vertical reduction, deinterlacing is not necessary, and I'm also going to add a noise reduction filter which also improves quality.

Nice to hear you liked the guide anyway!

About that last question, you just do as you please? If you're done - delete them! If you still like to do more tests or anything, keep them until you're done.

[Macros746]

I am surprised there are no fans of the MJEG codec here. I feel it is almost identicle to HUFFY quality (if it is set at 18 or better) and uses FAR less space. Give it a try and see if you don't agree. I too am running an AIW....ah the joys of ATI....heh heh.

Macros