Quality

[peregrin]

Which gives the better quality when capturing either from VHS tape( ihave lots of tapes ) or direct from cable. Record the source at a bitrate that will fit on the DVD or record at the highest bitrate you can and use DVD Shrink to fit to the DVD. I've left out lots of steps here , I know I have to author etc etc .

[g_shocker182]

In professional opinion, you should always capture the best quality footage first, then apply compression afterwords. This way, you can go back if you don't like what post-capturing compression did. BTW, DVD Shrink is for DVD video (I guess you'd use this for later use) not captured media (AVI, MPEG). For that I'd use TMPGEnc.

Now that I look back at what I wrote, I realize I didn't answer your question. I suppose it would be the same, but I'd still go with after.

[peregrin]

Actually you did answer the question and gave me something to think about. I left out a lot of steps in my question and do relaize that DVD shrink is for DVD video

Thanks

[andkiich]

I'd say capturing direct from cable would be better than VHS, and encode with a bitrate that will fit the DVD, don't transcode the finished product if you can help it.

[Marco33]

I'm assuming you are capturing straight to MPEG2. It seems that way.

I've tried that, VHS to DVD with the shrink program. You can make a Tile set in a author program and use shrink to compress the file. I made a Tile set of a DVD that was over 7 gigs in Spruce up then used Shrink to get just the movie file and... shrink it.

Problem is, the same rules apply from DVD to DVD with shrink type programs... the bigger the movie file the more the compression. The overall picture quality will suffer.

I don't recommend you do it that way. g_shocker182 is right there are other ways that will yield a better picture. But, if you want to go this route... I would either do like andkiich says or, capture with a rate close to the overall ending rate. Within say... 1000 bits. I know "tie up you computer for 15+ hours for a few measly bits". What are you gonna do.