I cant get good mpg2 captures

[Heywould3]

I hope some one can shed some light on this for me. First ill give computer and OS specs so you can keep that in mind when reading the rest of this post.

2000+ XP AMD
512 DDR 2100
2x IBM deskstar 7200 80gig Raid stripe
1 ibm 30 gig
TDK CDRW
liteon `16x DVD rom
ATI AIW 8500 not DV
XP pro

CAp SW installed
Pinnacle studio V8.3.13
Ulead video studio v5
adobe premier 5
pinnacle expression v2.??
ATI MMC v 7.7
vdub and a slue of others simmilar.

Ok here is my question/problem. I have my computer hooked up to my DSS system VIA the AIW and svid cable. Direct TV is a digital source and the signal broadcasts at a resolution of 500 lines, ( i know some sources are lower) the picture looks awsome live. I try to capture with any of these programs in SVCD or above 480x480 2250kbs svid complient GOP etc. the captured video looks absolutly terrible when viewed from anything i try. I use bitrate view and it confirms that the bitrate etc is high enough for svcd. I thin pull in lets say a VCD 380x240 1150kbs and it looks 100% better its uncanny. even the samples that you get with each of these programs are awsome in compairson. I also use this computer to rip DVDs and at the lowest setting i have tried the DVD rip look incredible compaired to these captures. If i try t ocapture in AVI even with my 190 gigs of space i wouldtn have enough space to do what im trying.. besides i dont want to spend days converting avi to mpg2.

anyone know what the problem is? or is this just what im stuck with? If i capture in DVD format it looks ok ( what i mean by bad is bad bad pixels and motion blur macroblocks etc) anyway DVD format is ok but not close to what i can get even if i recorde from tv to VHS then send the vhs to my computer via vid in. that looks like dvd compaired to my caps.. I dont want to cap in DVD or higher because then i have to reencode it to SVCD later that is what im trying to get away from.

TIA for any info/help

ill post images at some point to show you what i mean

[BKL]

I too cap from DirecTV, but I feed the video and audio into a Hollywood DV-Bridge which converts the analog output from my DirecTivo unit to DV. I then bring the DV in via Firewire and convert to MPEG-2 using TMPGEnc before authoring to DVD with Ulead MovieFactory 2 SE. I find it takes my XP2100+ system approximetly 22 minutes to convert 9-1/2 minutes of DV to MPEG-2, meaning a 2 hr show convets in around 5 hrs or so.
The DV-Bridge provides excellent conversion from analog to DV! Canopus makes a similar product.
I would love to be able to capture straight to MPEG-2, but I have yet to find any software that does so efficiently. I have been impressed with the quality of capture from Ulead MovieFactory 2, but the best quality only puts 1 hr on a DVD. I guess I should check the lower quality settings, but with TMPGEnc, I can get 4 hrs of great image quality on a DVD.
www.meritline.com offers a bundle for $30 that includes Nero, WinDVD and Ulead MF2 SE. I haven't found any difference between the Ulead MF2 free trial download and the SE version in the package.

[Heywould3]

BKL

Thanks for your input... I agree that mpg2 realtime is not easy. I am able to cap a max DVD setting 9k br and max resolution and it looks great i can then convert. My main question to others is if there is anyone else that also does this and has good results?

I would like to not have to convert full res DVD to svcd.. and i dont really want to do DVD with TV source even thought it is digital. i guess i could try avi.. but thats defeating the purpos of doing it fast/no converting. if a program is capturing at 2250 or higher bit rate shouldnt the picture look better than a VCD? i have taken full res 9k+ and converted it to vcd and it looks better than a stright SVCD cap..I thought it was just the programs algorithm causing the low quality and thats y i asked the question.. i know that there is a better way..

Please.. anyone else?

[BKL]

Try downloading the 30 day trial of Ulead DVD Movie Factory 2 from www.ulead.com. It handles VCD, SVCD and DVD. Like I said, I was impressed with MF2's straight to MPEG-2 captures. Maybe this will make a difference. I have used earlier AIW products and encountered frustrations then as well. Free download - maybe it will give you the high quality caps you seek.

[spiderman2k1]

I have the AIW radeon is your doinf SVCD you have to turn up the bitrate go to tool's there a AIW hack work's very good. I did witch to DAZZLE 1 capture card real time MPEG2 grea great card driver's are great in windows 2000 and XP not bad in 98 but bettet in 2000 and XP also I heard Hauppauge make's good card's for the Dazzle 2 there are two timer's so when your not home it will capture for you this is a message board for Dazzle 2 http://stop.at/dazzle2 this site has good price's on Dazzle and other stuff http://www.shopharmony.com/ I have the AIW in two pc and two Dazzle's I only USa Dazzle never use the AIW any more just go to http://stop.at/dazzle2 to see if your AMD board will work with the Dazzle 2 some of the old board do not work the problem is with VIA chip set was saving money buy take out some thing in the chip. As for the AIW use the ATI AIW MMC 7.5/7.6 Reg Tool for SVCD I like 2600 for VBR AND CBR for DVD 5000 VBR AND CBR

[telemike]

hmmm... have you tried Intervideo's WinDVR2?

[Fozzee]

Create custom profile....

480 x 480 mpeg2 bitrate 7000 --> 8000 (you decide).

You can then convert from that. The original will look gr8.

Fozzee

[Heywould3]

Well i did a bunch of tests.. and the mpg2 with 480x480 at 8000 br looked better.. BUT since i have to reencode i thought i would try other things.. i used MMC 7.7 avi and tried various codecs. i have more than i can count installed.. i tried most but huffy seemed to look the best actually it looked great aside from the interlace lines. im still bummed.. i didnt want to have to encode the file.. I WANT REALTIME MPG2 lol.. oh well.. if others have ideas please post.. i would like to try more things.. i can get just about any software from work or where ever.

thx

[Fozzee]

I'm sorry m8 but........

I will be shocked if you find any software that will give you a high quality capture at only 2500 bitrate.

Time to accept the best way to go is high quality capture followed by encoding. This will give you the best results.
I have tried most mpeg2 capture software.

Fozzee