Newbie Capture Help

[hdwaynes]

I am currently experimenting with capturing and am concerned about file sizes. I forget the exact specs, but my computer is new, fast, and has an 80 gig hard drive.

I am using a WinTV model 401 card to capture and at least for now the WinTV2000 software.

Liking to jump in feet first, I captured a 2 hour VHS tape. I left all settings at default: 320X280 or something like that, RGB24, 29.97fps. The resulting file was 45 GB. This seems to exceed all estimates of avi file sizes that I have seen.

I subsequently learned that I really should capture at 720X480 to get the quality I need for DVD. Getting a little smarter, I chose to just record a small sample. I changed the resolution to 720X480, left everything else at default, and a 1 minute file takes up 1.77GB, again far exceeding any estimates I can recall seeing for file sizes. At this rate a 30 minute video will eat up my entire hard drive.

So the questions are:

Are these file sizes typical?

What settings can I change to reduce file size without sacrificing quality?

Is there better software that I should be using to accomplish this?

As always, thanks in advance.

Dwayne

[thecoalman]

You can install the Huffy codec which will greatly reduce the file size and maintain quality. See her www.digitalfaq.com Follow the directions for using the ATI AIW but apply it to your card.

You probably already have other codecs installed on your machine too that can do the same thing. The huffy codec is reccommended because it's "lossless" and produces a relativley small file.

[hdwaynes]

Thanks for the help. I have installed the huffy codec and the file size was reduced by half.

Now I am wondering, is there an audio codec that works hand in hand with Huffy and further reduces the file size (presently using "no compression."

Thanks again.

Dwayne

[redwudz]

AC3 encoding will reduce the audio file size significantly. It's in the DVD specification.

[Gritz]

Hmm .... you're going to need a second 80 GB drive or better if you have anything at all on your hard drive. Dedicate it to capture and encode and after successfully encoding delete the original avi. You can reduce the encoding size somewhat but I'm sure you still want good quality. Anyway .... that's been my experience.