Capturing Hi8 video - help with settings

[gschilling]

I have a Sony Hi8 camcorder and would like to transfer home movies to DVD. I use an AverDVD EZMaker capture card. My questions are:

1.) What frame size is optimum for a Hi8 source? 320x240? 640x480?
2.) When encoding to MPEG2, what settings again do I use to get the best results?
3.) How do I get a 720x480 (3:2) output without making the 4:3 input look stretched?
4.) What are the best tools to do both 1 & 2 ? I have been playing around with several tools including VirtualVCR, Pinnacle Studio 8, Ulead Movie Factory, and TMPGEnc.

Thanks for your guidance.

Gene

[thayne]

Does you camcorder have a firewire (iLink) plug? If so use that instead of capturing.

1.) What frame size is optimum for a Hi8 source? 320x240? 640x480?
720X480

2.) When encoding to MPEG2, what settings again do I use to get the best results?
Use TMPGenc, the presets work good.

3.) How do I get a 720x480 (3:2) output without making the 4:3 input look stretched?
Capture at 720X480

[gschilling]

No firewire on my camcorder. Only composite/S-video out. I have not tried capturing at 720x480. Won't there be issues with stretching of the 4:3 input? I know this has something to do with pixel size, I just want to make sure the final product looks the way it should.

Thanks again.

Gene

[thayne]

No, if you capture at 640X480 there will be. DVD is 720X480