capture screen size and video editing resize

[muffinman123]

standard AV cable with S video capture only gives me 720 x 480 maximum, and I am wondering what screen size I should use when I capture videos of 16:9 source.

if I capture in 720 x 480, is it better to upsize or downsize to 16:9?

my device can also capture in 704 x 480, so I can downsize to 704 x 396.
this brings another question, if I am to downsize to 704 x 396, should I pick the width to be 720 or 704? will horizontal interpolation happen regardless whether I pick the input width to be the same as the output width?

[manono]

standard AV cable with S video capture only gives me 720 x 480 maximum, and I am wondering what screen size I should use when I capture videos of 16:9 source.

Not enough information. You could keep it at 720x576. There are many thousands of DVDs whose resolution is 720x480 and encoded as 16:9 to output a 'widescreen' picture.

[muffinman123]

video game video source that outputs video at 16:9, and I am capturing using AV cable capture device and it doesn't let me capture beyond 720x480

typically do you capture and upsize or downsize?

[manono]

Typically I both capture and encode at 720x480. But I cap VHS tapes and later reencode for DVD. You could always get a different capture card and use different connections so you can cap at higher resolutions.

If making square-pixel videos (like for YouTube), I'll resize to 640x480 for 4:3 material and 852x480 for 16:9 material.