Some Guidance Needed Please

[adamp007]

I have a couple of questions regarding capture etc that would save me a lot of time since you experts here have probably gone through all this.
I will be capturing and encoding into both MPEG1 and MPEG2 for each file.
I have a DC30 and also an AllInWonder 128 card.

1. For capturing HI8 via composite - what is the needed capture resolution. Is it better to capture at 704x568 or 352x288 - is there much of a difference
2. With regards to 1. is it better to capture at a higher res. and a higher compression or lower res at low compression.
3. For long tapes (ie an hour or so) would I be better using the AIW128 card under MPEG2 compression for capture or keep using the DC30.
4. I downloaded the HuffYUV codec and tried to capture using that but could not see the codec when i looked for it while using the DC30.

I would be most grateful for ANY answers.

For the record, the captures at QSIF and Full PAL looked very similar - and the quality was nowhere near as sharp as I could see in the viewfinder of the camera. I havent tried outputting to TV as yet.

Thanks
Adam

[Ricardo]

>1. Is it better to capture at 704x568 or 352x288 - is there much of a difference

I think so - 352x288 is only one field (no interlace)and only half the width of full D1 (720x56. So you could say it's only a quarter of the resolution. But if you intend to put this onto a VCD then it makes perfect sense to use 352x288 as it makes encoding to Mpeg quicker and any extra detail from the 704x568 will be lost anyway.


> 2. With regards to 1. is it better to capture at a higher res. and a higher compression or lower res at low compression.

Good question - do a few tests and see what you prefer,.. I'd err towards higher res with higher compression.

> 3. For long tapes (ie an hour or so) would I be better using the AIW128 card under MPEG2 compression for capture or keep using the DC30.

I'd still go with DC30 as the software (realtime) encoding to Mpeg is normally ever as good as using something like TMPGEnc.


> 4. I downloaded the HuffYUV codec and tried to capture using that but could not see the codec when i looked for it while using the DC30.

I have the DC10+ card and it only seems to like Mjpeg, so it doesn't surprise me.

Hope this helps.

[Leon]

1. For capturing HI8 via composite - what is the needed capture resolution. Is it better to capture at 704x568 or 352x288 - is there much of a difference

I recommend to capture 720x576 which is the Full D1, DV and DVD rez so you can re-use the rushes and your learn editing at this rez for further DVD
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2. With regards to 1. is it better to capture at a higher res. and a higher compression or lower res at low compression.

Following recommendation N°1, you capture all 720x576 and usually on Low Motion scene you deinterlace blending the fields (more rich colour information) and for Hig Motion, you discard one field (back to 288, but 720 vs 352 horizontal - Luma - information).
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3. For long tapes (ie an hour or so) would I be better using the AIW128 card under MPEG2 compression for capture or keep using the DC30.

Many problems with MPEG-2: no video editor, I-Frame-Only isn't better than MJPEG. So I recommend not capture MPEG-2.
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4. I downloaded the HuffYUV codec and tried to capture using that but could not see the codec when i looked for it while using the DC30.

You can use Huffyuv for intermediate files because it's lossless (but huge file). Not for capture with MJPEG hardware card (maximum rate 6MB/s MJPEG is close to Huffyuv (8MB/s)).

Leon

Recommended readings:
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/lelab/video/videocd_en.htm
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/lelab/video/svcd_capture_en.htm
http://www.labdv.com/en/manuals/capture_virtualdub.htm
http://www.labdv.com/en/manuals/frameserver_virtualdub.htm

[adamp007]

Thanks guys - much to think about. The reason why I asked about the resolution was because of the lower res of the HI8. I have tried a capture at both resolutions and to be brutally honest i couldn't see much difference when I played it back on the computer screen. I haveread a lot in these and other pages that you should keep compression as low as possible especially if you are re-encoding into MPEG1/2 video streams.

Shame about the Huffy codec -
Cheers
Adam