Capturing from VHS question...

[Gazza]

I captured a movie from a VHS tape last weekend through a VCR (obviously) using a Happague WinTV 2000 Card. I captured to VCD fine dropping only about 30 frames in 2 hours, but here is my problem:

1) The entire movie captured at a bitrate between 150 and 300 kbps the entire movie. It looks horrible. How do I increase the bitrate so it looks halfway decent and what would bitrate would you recommend for a VHS to VCD capture?

2) What is the native resolution of a VHS tape? I was thinkng about capturing to SVCD but I don't want it to end up looking distorted and pixelated.

BTW I used VirtualDub and NTSC for all of this...

[mikewg]

VCDs HAVE to have a bitrate of 1150 kps. If you don't record at that bitrate, it's an xVCD and not a true VCD, which might not be as compatable with your player. For more info http://www.vcdhelp.com/vcd.htm

[Dano]

Doesn't your card do hardware MPEG encoding?

[Dave B]

The guides on this site will be a great help to get you going. Read them first and if anything confuses you, ask in the forums.

Most people agree that the best quality captures are acheived through capturing with MJPEG or HUFFYUV codecs. Read about this technique here:
http://www.vcdhelp.com/mjpeg.htm

Other capturing techniques are also covered in detail here:
http://www.vcdhelp.com/capture.htm

150->300kbps is far too low to produce even watchable videos.

Hope this helps

[Gazza]

I followed the MJPEG guide exactly. Even with the quality at 20 it still maxes at like 400 kbps.