VHS Capture - Size, Quality for DVD

[zaraspook]

Hey all,

I'm using Ulead's Video Studio 10 to capture home videos from VHS-C (30min.). I'm using my old ATI TV Wonder (not AllInWonder) and the DVD 720x480 setting. I was hoping that through compression, I could get 4 tapes on to one DVD.

My question is, should I just put 2 per DVD and skip the extra step and loss of quality? Will four fit without too much loss? Is there an authoring program out there that will automatically compress the mpegs to fit the DVD or will I have to use a bitrate calculator?

Is there a system out there that would be far superior to this without spending more than $100? I see the Dazzles don't get high marks.

Thanks.

[edDV]

What is your goal? quality or compression?

What is your computer spec?

Under $100 you won't find much better capture hardware.

Realtime software compression (i.e. DVD capture setting) will save time but not get best quality. Alternate is to capture each 30min tape uncompressed and then separately MPeg2 encode.

9500Mb/s with AC3 224Mb/s gets 2 tapes per DVD
6500Mb/s with AC3 224Mb/s gets 3 tapes per DVD
4850Mb/s with AC3 224Mb/s gets 4 tapes per DVD

For me 4850Mb/s is not worth the potential loss of quality. DVD blanks are cheap. I'd go 9500Mb/s for camcorder sources.

[zaraspook]

My goal is to maintain the best quality that I can given the bad quality of the VHS.

My machine is a MSI NEO Platinum, Athlon64 3200, 1GB RAM, Radeon 9600XT, 2 SATA drives 400+ Gigs.

I'm trying to capture uncompressed as I write this. Damn, they're big files.

Thanks.

[edDV]

My goal is to maintain the best quality that I can given the bad quality of the VHS.

My machine is a MSI NEO Platinum, Athlon64 3200, 1GB RAM, Radeon 9600XT, 2 SATA drives 400+ Gigs.

I'm trying to capture uncompressed as I write this. Damn, they're big files.

Thanks.

Big yes. Do a test and see if uncompressed+encode is better than realtime encode. For VHS, you may not see the difference that you would for a higher quality source.

Your machine should be fast enough for realtime encoding at the higher bitrates.