Should I capture high then down convert?

[str1der]

If I'm capturing analog video with the intentions of making a svcd, should I capture at 480X480 or should I capture higher then convert to 480X480? Does it matter? Thanks.

[holocaust]

nah 480x480 is good enough unless you want to capture at a higher resolution if you were making a video cd id say capture as high as you can but i made my first svcd the other day i captured at 480x576pal and converted it it looks great

[resnullius]

it depends on the source quality, if it's digital cable or satelitte the higher you capture the better the end result. Anologue cable or antenna or vhs 480 x 480 will be fine.

[Bstansbury]

It depends on the Capture card you are using. I have no facts from any specific card manufacturer, but, I have learned from experts that "Most" all capture cards use the highest "Sample" rate they can put into there memory on the card. REmember, this is an Analog input signal, "Conmposite Video", and the Scan lines are defined by TV to be 480 lines. This is embedded into the video signal and that can't be changed. The amplitude portion of the analog signal is sampled by the capture card, converted to a digital value, and stored in memory. At the point of output, the card "Resizes" the input to put it in the format you have asked for. The real issue is how do they do this recise task???

Therefore, there is no need or benefit to capture at any higher rate than 480x480 for SVCD. The best answer for your card is to do the testing. I have been capturing in MMC 7.5 with my ATI AIW Radeon card using MPEG-2, "I" frames only at 480x480, then using TMPGen to compress down to SVCD. I do this because my system can capture in MPEG-2, I frame only at 640x480 at 15Mbs with motion detection at 100%, with very little dropped frames (<1%)

Hope this helps