Improve quality of capturing from analog camcoder

[enna]

Can anyone out there give me some advice on improving the quality of my 8mm tapes when digitizing them? I'm very much an amateur at video editing and I know the equipment I have isn't great. I pretty much only edit my family home videos. I capture my analog video directly to my computer via the ATI All-In-Wonder Pro card. I save the files as MPEG 1 (352x240, 29.97fps) then use Ulead Video Studio to do my editing. I then render the file in Video Studio (same rate 352x240) with the default video data rate of 1500 kbps (I have no idea what that is???). I then encode the file through TMPGEnc (default settings) and then use Nero to burn to VCD. For the most part, this works OK. The biggest complaint I have is that the MPEG file (whether it's before or after encoding) looks blocky at times. I don't know if it's because my settings are off or if my PC is the issue. Here's what I have: HP 500MHz Celeron processor with Windows 98, 192MB RAM, ATI All-In-Wonder video card, 30 gig 7200 hard drive & Sony 8mm camcorder. By the way, when I copy the 8mm directly to VHS the quality is much better. So I know my issue is somehow related to the capture process to my PC. So far, I've heard the following suggestions

don't use Windows 98
need a Pentium not Celeron processor
processor needs to be at least 1gig

My question is two part: Is there a way to improve this with the equipment I have? If not, what can I upgrade to get better results (aside from completely new EVERYTHING). I am planning on getting a mini DV camcorder later this year, but would still like to create VCDs or some day DVDs from my 8mm tapes. Any input is much appreciated!

[gfj]

First of all some good news: When using software encoding, like TMPEG, the computer hardware doesn't matter for quality. It only matters for speed.
Your ATI capture card should give a decent quality also, when capturing analog video.

To improve your quality you can do several things.

First: Capture in a resolution close to the final resolution (352x240), but with the highest bitrate available. I think the ATI card uses MJPG compression which can introduce a lot of noise, if the bitrate is to low. This may not show on the computer screen, but it will have a negative effect on the result after encoding. Anyway the higher the bitrate the better.

After editting in Ulead (no problems there) render again in the same bitrate and resolution used for capturing. Doing so will also improve rendering time as only the editted parts of your movie will be reencoded.

In TMPEG you could try the noise filter. If your VCD/DVD player supports it, you could try the SVCD format. (In which case you better capture in a higher resolution) You can also try to increase the bitrate here up to a maximum of 2500 kbps. As always, higher bitrates give better pictures, but also larger files. Note: these files may not be standards compliant, so not every VCD/DVD player wil accept them.

Windows98 is ok if you like it. 2000 or XP are better if you run into the 2 gigabyte filelimit (about 10-15 minutes of capturing in high quality)
Only think of upgrading if you are sure that your hardware is supported.
A Pentium is not better than a Celeron, but faster processors give faster encoding. 500Mhz should be sufficient for capturing whitout dropping frames.

Mini DV is very nice, but DV files on a computer are very big, so 30gig may become to small. Also the processor may become a problem then, but you can always try before you upgrade. There are 1.5 GHZ systems that drop frames, and 400Mhz systems that work perfectly.
You also may consider a Digital 8 camera. The video quality is the same as with normal DV cameras, but they are cheaper, and they wil also play your old tapes, and as a bonus you can use the camera to digitize your old analog tapes directly to DV.

[enna]

Thanks for the advise. I'll try it & let you know if it helps with my problem. You brought up a good point about digital 8 vs mini DV. I've been going back & forth with that -- which one to get. The reason I was leaning more towards Mini DV is because that's a newer product right? If I'm going to upgrade, I thought I should go with a more recent technology. However, being able to play my old tapes on the digital 8 is a plus. Also, I have a really good digital camara (3.3megapixals) and don't need to capture stills from the camcorder. Isn't that what makes a Mini DV more desirable anyway? Any thoughts on that?

[Spicuzza]

enna, to get better quality I would suggest you capture 352 x 480 uncompressed AVI, do your editing with the AVI file, then encode the AVI 352 x 240 @ 2300 kbps or more, until your computer or DVD player chokes. Your final movie quality will then be just under the original source material.

Also, read this thread,
http://www.vcdhelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=238654
do what Mavrick did and you'll have instant success.

[enna]

Thanks for the advise. I checked my settings in Video Studio (were I do my editing) & the bit rate was only set to 1500. The max is 14,648. So I'm still playing around with it to get the best picture. 10,000 blew up (video plays for 1 minute & then either freezes or I lose all audio), but 5,000 worked & looks much better. I think there is still room for improvement. I'll keep trying. Spicuzza, I checked out the posts you suggested & they were very informative. I still have A LOT to learn. Thanks.

[BKL]

I have found I get the best captures using a Hollywood DV Bridge to convert the analog video/sound into DV using Firewire to bring the DV into the computer. I had been using my Sony Digital8 camcorder as the passthrough converter from analog to DV, but was afraid of wearing out my camcorder. I have been very happy with the DV Bridge. If your system is fast enough, Ulead VideoStudio 6 will capture straight to MPEG-1 or 2. The Dv Bridge costs $250-300(US). Some people like the PV-231 card since it provides hardware MPEG-1 capture for under $100.