Quality of Capturing into VCD

[Natawidjaja]

I have Pinnacle Studio with a/v input and recently just bought Snazzi III USB.
My pc's spec are P4 1,8 Mhz with 512 DDR and USB 2.0.
I captured from Analog camcorder which is in Hi8 format.
With Pinnacle, I captured to AVI files then using Studio 8 the avi was edited and
converted to MPEG 1 (VCD)
it looked like this :


With Snazzi III USB, I Captured to MPEG 2 (DVD) with the highest bitrate using Movie Mill
2.1 build 57, then edited the mpeg 2 file and converted to MPEG 1 (VCD)
the result as shown :




Why is it better picture with Pinnacle studio?
Both screen shots are from the AVSEQ01.DAT (File inside a VCD DISC)
Is there any setting that I need to change to achieve at least same if not better with the
old Pinnacle Studio Card?
Or is the Snazzi III USB just not a better product to do this VCD capturing?
Tried Capturing directly to VCD format using Snazzi III USB, edited and result is worse than
the method I use above.
I also have tried to edit the mpeg 2 using studio 8 and converted using TMPENC with highest Quality (SLOW),
Noise reduction activated, It is still no better than the one I captured with Pinnacle Studio

[allaboutduncan]

I think you answered the question yourself.

Just look at what you did differently between each one. The first was an AVI, which I'm guessing was an uncompressed format (you didn't specify).

The second clip was a MPEG 2 Capture. MPEG 2 is high quality, but it is still compressed.

Therefore, your source was of a higher quality on the first. On the technical side, it has to do with the amount of skipped and interpolated frames in the MPEG file. MPEG guesses what the next and previous frames will look like and when that is re-compressed, it will be lower quality.

Also, that's a very motion intensive image you have there with a lot of detail. That's going to cause part of the problems there. Video is always more problematic than something like animation, which has less detail and is more forgiving.

Check LordSmurf's guide for capturing with MPEG2. I use it and it looks great.
http://www.lordsmurf.com/

[Natawidjaja]

Thanks for reply.
Is there anyway I can capture in AVI with SNAZZI III USB?
Movie Mill only has VCD, SVCD, and DVD options to choose.
Also suppose I continue capturing with Snazzi III USB in MPEG 2 highest bitrate, how can I minimize the blocking pictures?

[allaboutduncan]

From looking, I don't think so. It seems that the Snazzi III has a hardware MPEG decoder chip built into the unit that converts the video before it sends it to the PC. You may be able to increase the capture size (720x480, 8000 bits) and so on, but it will not allow AVI.

USB 2 is fast, but not fast enough to pipe uncompressed video. I suspect the problem may be in the chip used to convert the video to MPEG, as I capture video at MPEG2 and convert to DVD and VCD with very little artifacts, definitely not as bad as what you show.

[Natawidjaja]

I wonder what kind of capture card do you use ?
What program(s) do you use to convert the mpeg2 into VCD?
If any, what settings do you use?
Sorry, to much questions to ask since I am new in this capturing things.
Thank you.

[allaboutduncan]

Rather than type it all here, I'd direct you to Lord Smurf's guide. He's got a similar setup to mine and actually help me refine my captures quite a bit using my ATI All In Wonder Radeon Card.

Check it at
http://www.lordsmurf.com

He's got a basic edit and capture guide up right now, but plans to add more and more.

[spiderman2k1]

usa TMPG best VCD encoder