Mpeg2 on the fly

[The Stinger]

I know this has probably been asked before, but I can't seem to do a search. It says "Search temporarily disabled".....Anyway, how do you capture in Mpeg format on the fly? I am capturing in AVI format, but I want to get the mpeg a try?

[zeppage2]

Ulead's DVD Workshop will capture in mpeg-2 from your dv cam via firewire.

However, be aware that editing in this format is problematic...

[macleod]

for analog captures like from TV or vhs, you can use powervcrII. It offers decent real time captures.

[kitty]

You can possibly use your existing card that captures and converts to MPEG2 in software. Quality is usually ok but not as good as a dedicated software encoder like TMPGenc or CCE.

You could also get an MPEG2 hardware capture card like the Hauppauge WinTV PVR 250/350. You can set the parameters you want and the quality is very good getting close to TMPGenc quality.

[Nelson37]

I have the AIW 128, and have been playing with real-time cap to mpeg 1 and 2 for about 3 years now. Have seen continuous improvement through several processor upgrades and updates to MMC. SFAIK, your card has the same capture hardware.

Latest MMC 7.8 is giving very good real-time SVCD and CVD, at about 45 and 60 minutes per CD. Quality is not as good as a CCE re-encode, but is getting very close. Definitely good enough for casual and short-term use, and 1-hour TV episodes. Editing is possible with M2-Edit and Tmpgenc, and I can be watching the CD copy about 45 minutes after the show is over, with commercials cut out. If I use CVD res and 48 K audio, these should be DVD-ready.

The ATI card requires a fast machine to get good quality, the hardware compressors do not depend on your processor. BUT, the hardware cards also do not BENEFIT from a processor upgrade as do the software-based cards. I have upgraded 5 times in 3 years with the same video card, now that is probably more than most, but many upgrade often. Why lock in a dedicated processor when future upgrades to CPU may well solve the problem? Also, at DVD bitrates, there may be no significant difference between the two.

[ronnylov]

Another option if you live in a country where you can receive digital TV in DVB format (satellite, cable or terrestial) is to get a DVB card. Then you can capture the MPEG2 transport stream directly without loosing any quality you can convert it to DVD format (just demux and author as DVD). But you can't capture anything else than DVB broadcasts with this type of card, it's useless for VHS capturing, DV capturing and analogue captures.

[jfebus]

You can possibly use your existing card that captures and converts to MPEG2 in software. Quality is usually ok but not as good as a dedicated software encoder like TMPGenc or CCE.

You could also get an MPEG2 hardware capture card like the Hauppauge WinTV PVR 250/350. You can set the parameters you want and the quality is very good getting close to TMPGenc quality.

Hi ,

Can you please tell us more about the capture quality of the wintv 250? I am planning to buy one and want to play safe!

Thanks,