Software for capturing to mpeg2?

[Emanef]

I've posted this before, but haven't got a reply.

I want a program that will let me capture straight to mpeg2, as Ati's MMC captures to mp2, which is long winded and a pain to convert to get to mpeg2. Any ideas? Tried Power VCRII, but picture unstable and crashes when I try to record, and NanoVCR won't tune in to the channels (it has the same tuning section as VirtualDub).

Thanks.

[Emanef]

?

[Mirror_Image]

I've posted this before, but haven't got a reply.

I want a program that will let me capture straight to mpeg2, as Ati's MMC captures to mp2, which is long winded and a pain to convert to get to mpeg2

The ati mp2 files ARE mpeg-2, with a different file extension. Just change the extension to .mpg, no trouble at all. Do you mean the .vcr files? Those are proprietary, but the .mp2 files are not, just plain old mpeg-2 with a odd filename extension.

[Ermalinda]

I don't know how much money you want to spend, but I found that the HARDWARE/software solution USB Instant DVD by adstech (go to www.adstech.com if you want to look) provides a very viable solution for converting direct to MPEG 2. You can capture at a resolution of up to 5mbs through an ordinary (the new 2.0 standard is NOT necessary) USB port. The picture quality is excellent, and at least for me, the conversion process has been flawless. Two demerits are the price (list is $199, but if you hunt around, you can probably get it for $179), and inputs are ANALOG....so you can input the usual RCA audio-video, or better, you can use the Super video input to increase the resolution a bit. On price...if I summed up all of the software I bought that didn't work, I'd easily hit the $179 -- wish I would have happened on the Instant DVD product sooner. On picture quality, if you are VERY discrminating, you may want a bit better, but the picture quality is excellent for conversion direct to MPEG 2 -- plenty good for my purposes....

You might want to take a look at the product.

[Tachyon]

There's also Intervideo's WinDVR (www.intervideo.com) and Ulead VideoStudio 6 (www.ulead.com), both of which can do direct MPEG2 captures. Ulead's DVD Workshop can do it as well, I think.

Tachyon.

[Emanef]

The ati mp2 files ARE mpeg-2, with a different file extension. Just change the extension to .mpg, no trouble at all.

I tried that, but it made no difference. I read somewhere that the audio is different in the mpeg2 (mp2) captures that the Ati MMC makes - 44.1khz as opposed to 48khz, so has to be demuxed before I can convert to dvd format, which significantly increases the time it takes to get it from capture to ready to burn, which is why I want to try something else.

I tried PowerVCRII, but the picture was unstable, and the program crashed everytime I hit record, and I tried NanoVCR, which only records 100 frames on the trial version, but didn't seem to put out even a small output file.

I'll have a look at WinDVR and VS6 (got VS5 with the card, but wasn't too impressed with the UI, but apparently the newer one if better).

Thanks all.....

[wiprecords]

i use a free program called dvdx 1.8 and you can make svcd/vcd or divx with it. you can look it up with www.google.com

[Mirror_Image]

Ati MMC makes - 44.1khz as opposed to 48khz

That's very true, and I have been unable to "fix" that audio sample rate by editing the registry. If I make a custom capture preset, and do a regedit and change the 44100 value to 48000 (since the option doesn't exist in the dropdown list), MMC doesn't like it and will delete the preset the next time MMC is started.

This (the option to capture audio in 48kHz) is definitely something that ATI could add to MMC 7.7, or 8.0, or whatever the next MMC release is tagged. Demultiplexing, resampling the audio in an outside app, then re-multiplexing doesn't take all day, but it shouldn't even be necessary (and probably wouldn't be if they'd make a tiny change to MMC and add the 48kHz sample rate to the custom preset options).

[Emanef]

That's certainly something I'm hoping they include. To be honest, I can't understand why it does use standard mpeg2 anyway. Presumably ATI had their reasons......!

I've tried WinDVR, which does seem to work ok (though I have to reboot if I want to continue using MMC after!). Only thing is that it doesn;t show details of dropped frames, etc of a capture, and I've had to download an MPEG2 viewer (chose VideoLAN) to watch them, as MMC doesn't recognise the format.....doh!

[Mirror_Image]

The .mp2 files ARE mpeg-2, plain old, standard mpeg-2. Just the extension is different. How are they not "standard mepg-2"?

[Emanef]

Sorry, you're right....MMC does allow the file if you changed the extension.....doh!

I meant normal mpeg2 in the sense of dvd format, ie the 48khz audio as opposed to the lower cd format 44.1...... Normal was probably not the word I should have used, but I knew what I meant.....!

[zzyzzx]

I tried using the ULEAD stuff, but I could not figure out how to turn off overlay so I could not capture above 240 lines. Any idea how to do it?

[DVO]

Asus digital vcr can capture mpeg2 and it's free. But it may require that your capture card got hardware for mpeg2 capturing and is a nvida/asus card.

[Emanef]

Know where I can get Asus digital vcr?

[CauCauCau]

Know where I can get Asus digital vcr?

http://usa.asus.com/download/multimedia/vga-app.htm

[next]

Ati MMC makes - 44.1khz as opposed to 48khz

This (the option to capture audio in 48kHz) is definitely something that ATI could add to MMC 7.7, or 8.0, or whatever the next MMC release is tagged. Demultiplexing, resampling the audio in an outside app, then re-multiplexing doesn't take all day, but it shouldn't even be necessary (and probably wouldn't be if they'd make a tiny change to MMC and add the 48kHz sample rate to the custom preset options).

So true. But a quick way to convert to 48 is to use Mpeg2vcr. The conversion takes a couple of minutes per 800 meg file.