capturing using ATI-AIW-7500

[pglenn]

Is the software that comes with the ATI card "the best" that I can use for video capture, or would a different software, possibly VirtualDub or another, be recommended for better quality? I have attempted to use VirtualDub for AVI capture but the file size is way to large to capture more than a few minutes, and I am not sure how to compress the capture from VirtualDub to even determine its capture quality.

I am currently capturing direct video-in from a cable/coaxial source, and the video quality is far from perfect. I am not sure if it is the source (though the same source plays perfect on my TV) or the capture method. I have tried various options within the ATI software, and I close all other programs during the capture, all with the apparent same results.

("current" ATI settings are MPEG-2 at 6000kbps but the result is pretty much the same no matter what the settings or filetype)

[slukaczyk]

What exactly is wrong with the video? What is your setup, CPU speed, type of hard drive...? I also have a 7500 AIW and only a 1.8GHz P4 and am able to capture through the tuner (TV source) quite well by setting capture mode to MPEG-2, CBR, 720x480 and everything else default. At these settings a 1 hour TV program takes up about 3.6gb of hard drive space. I then use a "MOD" version of Virtualdub that is able to open MPEG-2 files, edit out the commercials then frameserve to TMPGenc and re-encode it for DVD low resolution (352x288), vbr 2-pass, setting resulting file size in TMPGenc to 25% of the capacity of a DVD-R disc. This allows for 4 typical 1 hour TV shows (- commercials) to fit on a single DVD-R and the quality is excellent even though the original MPEG-2 has been re-encoded! I should mention that you need at least version 7.6 of ATI's MMC to avoid video/audio sync problems but just upgrade to 8.1 - it's got extra settings and more stuff to play with (video SOAP etc..)