Am I doing something wrong or is this as good as it gets?

[bryanjohnfields]

My VCD’s look like watching TV with very bad reception. Am I doing something wrong or is this as good as it gets?

I have been playing with Video Capture and archiving for over a year now and my results have not been what I expected. I started with a ATI TV Wonder USB (about the only adaptor officially support on Win2k when it came out) on a PIII 550 running Windows 2000. It was great for watching TV on my computer but it lacked resolution and good capture capability. Because of it flaws I gave up on Capturing Video. The a few weeks ago I talked to a friend using PowerVCR and a ATI All-In-Wonder and digital Cable. His results were excellent. So I started looking to Video Capture again.

I got back on the discussion groups and decided to buy a Tivo but I shill still wanted to capture and watch TV on my PC. My Tivo is great, but I went back to my PC because Tivo is limited in storage, I wanted to put Video on my Iqap, some of the shows I watch my wife doesn’t feel are suitable for our children, and I want to archive shows onto CD.

PowerVCR worked great with my ATI TV Wonder USB but nothing I could do could get the sound and video in sync, plus it only has 320x240 resolution. I bought a Hauppauge WinTV dbx model 401. PowerVCR wouldn’t work because it has VFW drivers and I couldn’t get the WDM Drivers to work. I tried Vitualdub with PicVideo MJEPG diver it has great capture with no dropped frames but there is no scheduling are far as I know. I tried AVI-IO great capture, scheduling but won’t change the channels on my card. I tied Snapstream, OK capture, changes channels but crashes.

After capturing the files I used TMPGEnc to convert them to VCD. All the Files look good when played on my Ipaq, and at 100% (normal size) on my PC, OK at 200%, but BAD at full screen on my PC. I attributed this to my Proximity to the monitor (a ruler held at arms length laying in bed watching my 19in TV in my bedroom at 2.5 inches, a ruler held at arms length setting in my living room measures my 35in TV at only 3.75 inches, and a ruler held at arms length setting at my desk runs into my monitor making it more than 10.5 inches so I wasn’t supprised the image was BAD).

I then burned a few onto CD and give them to my friend to watch on his DVD Player on TV (my DVD player doesn’t play VCD’s). He told the image was like watching TV with very bad reception. I stuck one in my computer started playing it with WinDVD and I agreed with him. My fiend tied some of the files he created with his ATI AIW with both PowerVCR and the Software that cam with his card with only slightly better results, I attributed this to the fact that he has digital cable and live in town, I have analog cable and live in the county (my cable reception is BAD). I even tied ripping one of my DVD’s and putting part of it on a VCD, the quality is better but still not as good a VHS.

I understood that VCD was supposed to be as good as VHS tape if not better, but what I am getting is nowhere near that.

[bobotns]

1) Capture with PicVideo Quality 19 @ 352x288 (or x240 for NTSC)
2) open your avi-file in Panasonic MPEG1 Encoder 2.51
2) select the VCD-PAL (or NTSC) profile
3) Noise Reduction: Weak
4) Video Filter: Fixed/Weak

You'll get your VHS-Quality now!