Help please! Full frame video looks horrible!

[jlawlor]

Hi ^_^ I'll make a long story short:
I want to capture full-frame video for output to VHS.
But, when I try, the video I capture looks HORRIBLE. It drops frames, and/or the edges of objects are jagged and interlaced, and they break up if it moves...

The strange thing is that I have a pretty powerful computer, and a good video capture card. I keep hearing how the ATI All-In-Wonder captures great video and all, but for some reason, I have never been able to get it to work properly for full-frame video.

Here's what I have:
Hardware:
ATI All-In-Wonder 128 16MB PCI with the latest drivers (4.13.7192)
933Mhz AMD Duron Processor
40GB Harddrive (25 GB Free, I need to clean it up)
248MB of RAM (256, but 8MB is sucked up by the motherboard's disabled video chip >.>)

Software:
ATI Multimedia Center 7.1
Ulead Videostudio 4.10
VirtualDub (But it only uses Video For Windows, not Directshow capture (WDM) which is all that is offered by the latest driver)

Could someone please help?
I need to know:
What program to use (I'll be glad to download freeware/shareware/etc)
What codec(s) to use
and most importantly:
What settings to use to capture the video.

My main input device:
VHS-C Camcorder, with composite (RCA) video out and composite mono audio out.
I might, in the future, want to do something from the TV tuner as well, and I often use it for testing

My main concern is quality, but I would like to be able to keep the filesizes managable.

While I'm a semi-expert with computers, detailed instructions would be most appreciated as I can be completely clueless some days...

I really appreciate any help! Thanks!

[Craig Tucker]

Why do you want to output to VHS why not just record direct to VHS ?

Anyway, it sounds like you are trying to play an interlaced video on a progressive scan display (i.e. your monitor). To watch it on your pc or to make a VCD you need to deinterlace it. If you want to make a SVCD you can leave it interlaced because SVCD supports interlacing.

Use VDub to capture and also apply any filters and deinterlacing required.

Craig

[Craig Tucker]

By tha way there is a VFWWDM wrapper that is available to allow you to use VDub. search this forum for it.

Craig

[VisiBill]

I agree with craigtuckers comments. Just like to add that you are also best to leave it interlaced if your destination format is VHS.

Try a later version of MMC for capture. On my AIW128 Pro + 1G Athlon I got lots of dropped frames with MMC 7.1, but much better results with MMC 7.5. ATI have now released MMC 7.6 on their web site (although you won't find it listed under the older cards - you have to search for drivers for the newer models).

Alternatively, download the older drivers from the ATI web site that support Video For Windows. Then you can use Virtual Dub or AVI IO etc for capture. One big advantage of this is that VFW files are much easier to edit than the MPEG captures with MMC, if that is what you want to do.

Bear in mind that the resolution of VHS is poor - on a similar level to VCD, therefore capture at very high resolutions is a waste of disc space. The SVCD formats are more than good enough.

[Spicuzza]

jlawlor,

If I'm understanding the totality of your post you want to capture from your VHS-C camcorder, do some editng, then feed the finished product back out to VHS tape to watch on the TV?

At least that is the premise for my suggestions, post a reply if I've totally missed the mark, try this:

1) capture video 352 x 480 uncompressed AVI
2) do whatever editing you want in VideoStudio
3) encode MPEG-1 352 x 240, 4000 kbps (might be limited to 2000 kbps in VideoStudio 4.0, that's OK)
4) record back to your VCR tape playing the video full screen on the computer monitor

Don't worry about the high bit rate, it doesn't matter since the target playback device it a VCR as long as your computer plays it without choking. You'll then have nice project that is about the same visual quality as you would get when you copy a tape from a tape.

I do this all the time with my children's sports tapes so I'm not talking about theory.

Good luck,

Gary Spicuzza
cic7@juno.com