Realtime capture with Xvid + Virtualdub. I am impressed!

[SatStorm]

Well, this is a vcd/svcd forum, but I have to post it!
The last 2 weeks, I did a short break just to test a few things like divx 5.01 pro, xvid, asf (never used it before...) and some related programs.
So, I set up a second PC, dedicated for those tests. I used older stuff gathered from my previus PC upgrades, adding the cheapest possible needed parts.
So, I end up with an duron 1200mhz based machine, a chintech motherboard and a hauppauge win tv primio fm card (good old card..), with a cheap geforce 2 tv out vga and my older hercules game futissimo 2 soundcard.
I done many tests, including linux (the future is there, but for the moment I decided to stay to the present... Win2K & W98SE). Maybe in a year linux gonna be my basic OS...

Anyway, I tested xvid and I was amazed! I grabbed realtime on the fly at many resolutions, using some filters and uncompressed audio (I compressed it later to avoid lipsyncs) and with VERY low bitrates (about 500 - 600). The results was amazing! For real time on the fly grabbing, was far better any Divx 3.11, opendivx and DiVX 5 I made!
Even grabbing porn (you know the probs with porn grabbing...) produce me amazing results! I can fit 3 hours of porn on a single 80min CD with Xvid at VHS (at least!) quality!

So, I just wanna say outhere, that if - let say - you have some 3 hour VHS tapes with crap material which for your special reasons wanna keep, but you don't want to waste your time to convert them to vcd/svcd, then do it realtime with xvid!
xvid is the best currect solution for this!

[pia2001slo]

What are your settings for XVID Compression ????

Jolly

[SatStorm]

For realtime grabbing, better is to use the default settings with default bitrate. That is 1 pass CBR with 780kb/s and it gives amazing result.
Tests i done with 600kb/s still gave me amazing -for the bitrate and the on the fly grabbing - results.
For resolution, you can use all your favorite divx ones.
I prefer 384 X 288 ("natural" de-interlace that way) 'cause 352 X 288 don't fill up my whole screen.
Other good resolution is the 640 X 480 but don't go lower 700kb/s.

Tonight I gonna try to play those files through dreamcast to see how they look on TV (through pc's TV out the picture is the usually crap....)