Is this computer fast enough to make VCD's?

[menaz]

I have a Celeron 433 with 96 megs of RAM. I want to turn VHS tapes into VCD's. Would it all be possible to do this with my current setup. I am not planning on upgrading processors, adding up to 256mb of RAM is an option. Please let me know. Also, what is the cheapest card you guys recommend for this. I do not want to do much editing and the quality of the VCD's doesnt have to be perfect. slightly less than the original is just fine with me.

thanks

[judicator]

you should try using winvcr or powervcr
that might work and it`s software only .

about hardware cards thats a different story
but the prices are not so cheap
furthermore you might be better of upgrading your system than buying a mpeg1 encoder hardware

[gambit32]

For a cheap capture card, try the Cybermail one. It's only $14.50 US dollars. I bought one from http://www.compgeeks.com/ after reading here for a while. If you do a search in the forums on it you'll find tons of info regarding the Cybermail card. I know a few of us here bought them since they were so cheap. I'm more than happy with it.

[etlprws]

I'm no expert....

...but I have been playing around with video capture and conversion for about 6 months now on a PIII 500 with 384Mb RAM, UDMA100 HDD using both All In Wonder 128 Pro and DV capture through a firewire card. I have never achieved satifactory results for VCD or SVCD. I,ve tried AIT MMC 7.1, VirtualDub, Ulead VideoStudio, Premier, TMPGEnc, etc, etc.

So....yesterday I upgraded to an AMD 1.4Ghz (expensive business - new motherboard, new PSU, new case, rebuild W2K).

What a difference. VCD and SVCD straight from the AIW/MMC is great (altough I have a sound problem at the moment). AVI/MJPEG capture in VirtualDub works fine (CPU <50%).

What I am saying really is that I think your processor is going to be the problem, maybe you don't need to go to 1.4GHz but somewhere around 800MHz. Also you need a fast disk (7200RPM UDMA/100) if you are going to try and capture AVI files and convert them to VCD (better quality). Memory doesn't seem to be too important, although everything in windows will run a bit better with 256.

[Riot_Inc]

to answer your topic title: Yes.

[BadAsh]

I would recommend upgrading your RAM to 128 or 256MB but your machine sounds fine.

You actually have a decent machine... check out my shamefull piece of junk:

Pentium II 266MHz MMX
128MB RAM
40GB Drive Space
4MB S3 Video Card
Hauppauge WinTV PCI dbx TV Capture Card

I know... what a shame... but it works and quite nicely I might add.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: BadAsh on 2001-07-12 06:29:57 ]</font>

[Chopper Face]

I've got a 466mhz and I make VCDs just fine. Takes a hella long time to convert. My m-jpeg capture isn't perfect but at 1600kb/s 640x480 res it's more than enough to be well converted to 352x240 when the VCD is made.

[Riot_Inc]

with the 366mhz amd k6-2 processor and 160mb of ram, with 20gb hard drive on this computer works fine for DV capturing and converting to vcd. Although the editing process and converting section is painful, it works nicely, just like others have said

[Vejita-sama]

I've got a K6-2 400 and 128MB of ram. Will it work, YES! I've been making VCDs of DivX, avi, and mpgs for a while now (just got DVD-ROM, got some minor issues there with interlacing but will soon solve).

However, encoding to MPEG-1/MPEG-2 is very very slow. About 7x the runtime of the video. That is to encode a 19min TV eps takes me ~2:15. But if I dail the settings up that can increase to 28x the runtime (note really 14x, I used 2pass VBR in TMPGenc which as the name states doubles the time).

So I'm getting a Tbird 1.2Ghz next week If you don't mind the wait almost any system will do. I know guys with 266Mhz PII that just leave there computer one 24/7 for 18-36hr encodes.

[griffin224]

Upgrading RAM is always a good idea, probably won't help encode speed but will help your machine run better! And as for a cheap card - I lkie my WinTV Go card, hook up the external component and capture to an avi, then encode to what you need.

Why i believe that ram doesn't help encode speed:
My machine - PIII 850 with 128MB of RAM
My father in law's machine - PIII 750 with 256MB of RAM

I encode a two hour film in 3 hours it takes my father-in-law 6 hours to do the same movie.

[ktnwin]

I get the lousiest system compared to what everyone posted here. PII-266 Mhz, with 64MB RAM !!! I wish I had menaz's system. The only difference is I got 3 HDD: 6MB for OS and apps, two UDMA-66, 7200RPM drives, one 60GB for capture video and one 30GB to store all my MPEGs video.

I have made wonderful SVCDs for my home movies (8mm and Hi8 tapes so far).

It takes forever to encode to VCD or SVCD.

Well, by this weekend, my ordered Athlon 1.2GHz with 256MB RAM should be at my home.

[hitechjunkie]

no problems with my AMD K6-3 350MHZ, 256MB ram machine. if you are considering a memory upgrade, now is a great time with memory prices at an all time low!!! pricewatch has got listed PC133 256MB for $19 !!!

[pixel-cacher]

BadAsh, ktnwin, and anyone else with a slow cpu,

I have a P233MMX, 196M RAM, 5400 disk, Windows NT, WinTV card. I've tried capturing to avi with VirtualDub 352x240 24bit with raw, huffyuv, and PICVideo MJPEG codecs. I can't do more than 20 to 26 fps without dropping excessive frames. I get best results using PICVideo at 18, 20fps. When I use huffyuv none of the configure options are available (shift-C in VirtualDub).

How are you guys doing it, and what results? I'm considering getting a DC10+, which takes the load off the cpu, but would still really take my system a long time to encode from its MJPEG format.

[Riot_Inc]

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
now is a great time with memory prices at an all time low!!!
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

He's right

[ktnwin]

Hi pixel-cacher,

I would say you may want to upgrade your system, it's so cheap now. Get a barebone or just the motherboard+CPU+RAM on it.
Sorry to mention that I capture via Firewire, that's why there is no dropped frames. A system like ours cannot capture analog video without dropped frames, I knew it that why I fot Firewire card instead.

By the way, yesterday evening, I just received my new Athlon 1.2GHz + 256MB RAM (barebone: CPU+RAM+sound card bult-in + case). Cost me 360$ incl tax+shipping. Takes sometimes to transfer my H/W from the clunky 266 to the new ones then fire it up with Win2K.

Stay up until 2:00 AM to try everything.

Lot of improvements seen: editing works much smoother, rendering is much faster and AVI to VCD encoding is 2.25X (was 12X), AVI to SVCD encoding is 5.5X (was 24X using TMPGEnc).

Well, I will try DVD rip as my next step after finishing with all my home video tapes. Got to get a DVD-ROM first.






<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: ktnwin on 2001-07-13 11:07:40 ]</font>

[menaz]

where did you get that barebones system for so cheap?

[ktnwin]

menaz,
I got it at http://www.mwave.com
If you like it, you may want to include a DVD-ROM in the box (if you did not have one) to save on shipping fee.
MWAVE seems to be a reliable place to order online. I already ordered two systems (barebone) so far plus many other misc. things.

[statuspending]

man. it sounds to me like you got ripped off on that barebones deal. @ http://www.pricewatch.com, you can get the following

$220 athlon 1.2ghz barebones w/ video, network, case.

you paid a hell of a lot for that damn ram and integrated sound. ram would have only been 20 bucks.

[ktnwin]

I did check pricewatch.com before I buy my barebone system.
This is a concious decision. The 220$ figure does not include tax and shipping fee. w/o those, mine cost 310$. It also depends on the quality of the part in there.
I have worked out a very cheap combo and it actually comes out around 220 like you mention.
But I got one cheap system like this a few years ago and I ended up spending more money to replace video card, sound card, memory, IDE controller !!!
MWAVE is a very reliable source for me. So I stick to it for peace of mind and to really save money on the long run.