VHS Capture options question

Right now I am using a Medion PC 2.66Ghz, P4, with GeForce 4 card. Needless to say, it is pretty well stocked. But I still seem to have a problem.

Before I do a capture, I run EndItAll to make sure there are no useless apps running and I turn my cable modem off. Then I open VirtualDub and run the capture program. If I use DivX 5.0.5 codec on the fly and resize to VCD standards (352x240 dim [if I recall correctly], 44.1 kHz audio, 29.97 fps), everything comes out really nice with very few dropped frames.

But when I try to capture without resizing (480x360), I get a huge number of dropped frames and there is a tremendously horrific amount of interlacing (even with interlacing filters in place - which BTW causes even more dropped frames). I have tried using a bunch of different compressions (DivX 3 and 4, Xvid, huffyuv, 3vid, even Microsoft MPEG-4) and none of them have the picture quality of DivX 5 (that isn't an endorsement, just a personal observation).

I would like to get as many opinions as I can on a number of options.

1) Would I be better off using an A/V box with a FireWire output (right now, I have a built in capture card that came with the computer)?

2) Should I use a different program for capturing (anything less demanding than VirtualDub)?

3) Are there any other methods for freeing up RAM or temporarily optimizing the hardware for capture (I did read the sticky already and put most of the ideas into practice).

I know that capturing at anything higher than VCD size is ridiculously demanding, but if I can make any improvements at all, it is worth the effort.

Thanks.


For those who don't know, Medion is an international company that combines top notch hardware components (Sony, GeForce, etc.), builds the unit and sells them at very reasonable prices (mine only cost me $500, new) at some place called Aldi.

[jdizzy40]

Just for you information your Medion brand of computer is not built from top notch components. Start with the motherboard and you'll see that you got a back alley taiwan pressed MOBO that works good enough to get the Computer in the box. Well stocked, not so,the GeForce video card is at the bottom end of the video card list, heat sink no fan and is barely considered to be a 420 MX card. And Aldi, which is a grocery store is the last place one would find a top notch computer to buy. Fancy bunch of jacks to plug stuff in the front, but thats just a gimmick. Your capture problem lies first with your motherboard, then your 5400 RPM hard drive (bundled with your system), memory and lastly your video card. That said, it's time to rebuild that one. There's 2 in the shop here now that won't boot, with failed power supplies and fried Mother Boards. No add on piece of equipment is going to fix your problem. And if a P4 can't run a piece of software like you are using, that's a hint that your computer isn't up to the job. Sorry to bring you bad news.

[mic_]

As for HuffYUV giving worse quality than DivX; HuffYUV is lossless while DivX is not. So a decoded HuffYUV frame will be an exact copy of what came in to your video card when you recorded it (at least if no RGB-to-YUV conversion was done). That said, if you want to capture at high resolutions you really should use a lossless (HuffYUV) or near-lossless (MJPEG with quality 18 or above) codec and then reencode the video to DivX or whatever you like once you have it on disk. That way you can take advantage of the 2-pass encoding features found in DivX/XviD. Actually, if you're going for quality you should *never* record directly to DivX/XviD. ..imo..

As for HuffYUV giving worse quality than DivX; HuffYUV is lossless while DivX is not.

Oops, that one got shuffled in. My problem with HuffYUV is in the size of the captured files. Is there a way to make them smaller, like DivX size, or is that sort of defeating the whole purpose?

If they can't be made smaller, is there a calculator that can tell me how big the files are expected to be, so I can make sufficient room on my hard drive?

[pixel]

HUFFYUV can't be made smaller, as you said, it defeats the purpose. There is no calculator to estimate the size, but a set file size, can't remember what though.

The best way is to capture a 5min segment of vid at the resolutiuon you are using, then multiply it to the length of vid you are capturinga nd you should have an answer.

(Remember that 5mins of HUFFYUV captured at 720x576 will be bigger than 5mins captured at 352x288).

[mic_]

My problem with HuffYUV is in the size of the captured files. Is there a way to make them smaller, like DivX size

What you do is you capture using HuffYUV and then reencode it to DivX once you have the video on disk. If you don't have enough room on your disk, then try PicVideo's MJPEG codec instead. It's super-fast and gives better compression than HuffYUV, at the cost of being slightly lossy.