Home vid capturing resolution

[Yakker]

Hi all, Newbie here and I'd like to 1st thank everyone for the wealth of knowledge this board provides.
I recently purchased an ADVC100 and I'm trying to convert my old VHS and HI8 movies to digital for the purpose of preserving them on DVD. My question is, Is it worthwhile to capture VHS and/or HI8 movies in the highest resolution possible i.e. 720X480 in my case with Studio 8 or does the original quality not justify capturing in this resolution. Files are quite large (28 gigs for 2 hours worth of VHS) and conversion to MPEG2 format is time consuming(28 gigs took 9 hours to convert, is this reasonable with Studio 8 or is there a better/faster program available for free?)
My system is a P4 1.6, 768 mgs 266 DDR but I don't have a second hard drive yet. Am capturing thru firewire port on my SB Audigy.
TIA

[Tommyknocker]

It depends on how you feel about the quality of your finished product. Of course, you are the final judge in such matters. My suggestion is to make sample captures in various resolutions, labeling each one, and then see what quality you are willing to trade off in exchange for lower resolution.

[ADS Ivan]

Me, I'd capture the best quality I could, knowing that I would have to compress it down later anyways...

Note that you can always compress it down, but you can never really ramp it back up...

-i

[chazzie]

I see no reason in exceeding 352x480 (NTSC) 352x576 (PAL) for VHS, since it would be overkill to use any higher. These resolutions are also DVD-compatible.

For the Hi8, it might be wise to use 720x480 (NTSC) 720x576 (PAL), to prevent any loss in quality. But again, you're the judge in the quality issue.

Chazzie