Hi, everybody!

This is pretty much my first post at the boards here, and I think this is a capturing question, so here goes....

First off, I'd like to thank Lord Smurf for posting a link to his site, showing the best ATI card capture method, that helped a lot!

Ok, here's what I've got for specs:

Pentium 4, 3.07Ghz processor
512 MB DDR-Ram
Audigy 2 Platinum sound card
ATI All-In-Wonder 9700 Pro video card
Pleanty of hard drive space (680GB)

I've got movies on LD that I don't believe will ever make it to DVD.. I'm using the S-Video in connection for video capture and the optical in on the Audigy card to give the best quality possible when capturing from the laserdiscs. The movies are between 1hr and 30min to 2hrs (letterbox format), and I can't seem to get the whole thing to fit onto a disc without sacrificing quality.

Then I read on the board about compression, etc... and was wondering.... what is the best method for getting these to fit on DVD and retain as much video and audio quality as possible? Is it best to use compression after a full-quality transfer (and if so, what program/s should I use to best do this), or is it best to lower the bit rate when capturing (any suggestions what those rates should be given the info I've noted would be great) I know there are many ideas of "best", and it's an odd term, but generally, I'm looking for the better direction to go and a good start on how to go about it.

Thank you all so much for the help you've given me by reading these forums, and I hope you can help on this. Thanks!