Optimal settings

[desertpig]

Of the 3 avi files that I encoded for VCD one had the audio all screwed up, the second viewed on my TV in the upper right hand corner and the third was a combination of mediocre video and audio. All have different stats as far as audio and video from the properties. As I am very new to this my question is this: What are the optimal audio and video properties for the avi (i.e., data rates, pixels, frequency, etc.)? I know this is a matter of personal choice, but some kind of guideline would be very helpful in getting me use to the various properties. Thank you very much.

[TIbrO]

I do a lot of capturing and editing in Premiere myself. So I try to keep the highest quality possible throughout production, so when my final product comes out, it should look no different than the original recorded tape.

I capture at 704x480 when I want real high quality, or I just capture at 352x240 when I want to save space on the disk. For audio, if I need the audio from the tape, which I seldom do, I use CD Quality PCM option which comes out to be 172kbps 44.1Khz 16-bit Stereo. Once in Premiere, I resize all video to DVD quality, which is 720x480, and keep the audio uncompressed at 44.1Khz 16-bit Stereo the whole time, until TMPGEnc encodes it to my custom XVCD Template. It's pretty easy for me because I mostly do music videos for fun, and soon will be writing movie plot to shoot an amateur movie with some friends.

But yeah... 720x480 for DVD quality Video. 44.1Khz 16-bit Stereo for CD Quality sound.

[DiViNeLeFT]

one thing that i would suggest if you want to make vcds... DONT use avi's as your source... use a dvd... a dvd is the best quality source you can get (i know right now someone is gunna tell me some stupid technology that is better quality than dvd just cause i said that). better source = better vcd.

now if your capturing just disregard this post cause oviously you cant get the dvd of a music video or somethin like that.