Capture to AVI and then convert or straight to MPEG2?

[LarryJoe]

First post! I am eager to contribute and ask a few questions. I have been searching and reading for over a week, this is a GREAT resource!

May I ask you a simple question? I can capture from my camera in either mpeg2 format using PowerVCR III or I can capture a raw DV-avi. My goal is to put my home moives on DVD-Video. For the best quality, am I better off capturing in raw avi and converting with TMPGEnc or straight mpeg2. I burned my straight mpeg2 captures and the quality was OK (not great) on my TV. I have a JVC MiniDV Camera, Plextor 8X dual format burner and using TMPGEnc Plus, TMPGEnc DVD Author and Nero.

Thanks,

LJ

[bugster]

For the best quality, am I better off capturing in raw avi and converting with TMPGEnc or straight mpeg2.

LJ

Capture to DV-Avi (its actually a data copy, not capture in the commonly understood sense) and then convert to mpeg-2 for best quality. The reason being, if you encode during 'capture' the encoder has limited time to work in (real-time) and so has to compromise. Therefore quality suffers. Using an offline encoder, it can spend as long as it needs to maximise quality.

[LarryJoe]

Thanks bugster, this is what I suspected, but I did not realize that the DV-avi capture was a data transfer. I am a newbie at this.

Funny thing before I bought and hookded up my cam, I anticipated that when you connect a DV-Cams to PC via Firewire that it would show up as a drive letter and there would be an mpeg2 file sitting there to cut/copy and paste. Guess we are not there yet. Again, I'm learning!

[bottle-necked]

Your system may be fast enough to capture MPEG2 straight from the camera. It's easy to test. Just do a few clips each way, burn them on an RW with a test menu selection and compare. If you can go straight to MPEG2 you'll save yourself a bunch of time......

Good luck

[LarryJoe]

Will do Bottle-necked. I am running a P4 2.0 at 3.0. 512MB of PC800 Rambus overclocked as well. My capture card is an Avermedia PC Studio. I hear you on the time thing, it took about 20 minutes to encode/transcode my 45 minute dv-avi. Going straight to mpeg2 would save a lot of time.

Thanks!

LJ

[Craig Tucker]

Definately transfer DV via firewire, then convert to mpeg2 with tmpgenc.

[LarryJoe]

Thanks. Just re-read my last post and realized that the AverMedia card has nothing to do with capturing DV in either DV-avi or mpeg. Don't what I was thinking, it was early!

LJ

[bottle-necked]

P4 2.0 at 3.0. 512MB of PC800 Rambus overclocked

SMOKIN.....

[lechtin]

Capture in DV-AVI because:

- Much easier to edit afterwards than MPEG2 (because of the GOP structure - IBP frames)
- Can perform 2-pass MPEG2 encoding for better quality after the files are on your hard drive.

[LarryJoe]

P4 2.0 at 3.0. 512MB of PC800 Rambus overclocked

SMOKIN.....

Thanks man. This is by far the fastest and most stable system I have ever built for myself.

[Craig Tucker]

How do you cool it, 50% spped increase, thats some going.

[LarryJoe]

Air cooled. I have an after market fan on the CPU, but I don't really think this makes a huge diff between the Intel retail fan. My chip was the latest stepping when I bought it a year ago. As I write, I am encoding an AVI to mpeg2 and the chip is at 42C.

Got lucky I guess.