Which will get better quality?

[yoshi1668]

Which one will give better quality video?

Analog(camcorder) --> AVI file --> MPG file or

Analog(camcorder) --> MPG file directly.

I'm talking about converting a total of about 50 hours of memorable tape to MPG file. Anybody can give me suggestion?

[lmennuti]

AVI.

It'll take up a LOT more space, but you should ALWAYS bring it in 'pure' format (AVI that is) first. That way if anything happens or you get bad results with MPG conversion, you'll always have the original AVI to start over with (instead of having to recapture the Analog)

[yoshi1668]

Thanks. I also heard about the 2GB problem. How long a video can a 2GB file hold? Each of my tape is two hours long. hard drvie space is not a problem. Any suggestion for a video capture card for this purpose (capturing AVI file)?

[NeVeRLiFt]

Fat32 has a 4gig limit. NTFS has no limt.

[thxkid]

Using the YUV2 setting on AVI I can get 9 min. at 480x480 and 16 min. at 352x240 using virtualdub and before hitting the 4Gig limit.

[pelles]

What I do is just set virtualdub to start a new file for the capture every 1900 megs. Then at the end open the whole appended movie in Virtualdub and frameserve to Tmpgenc to avoid having to mess with joining mpeg files.

[sracer]

I'll go against the tide here and say go straight to MPEG...PROVIDING you have a good hardware-based MPEG capture device, like the Dazzle DVC. I've used my DVC for all of my capture needs and the results have been outstanding. Check my homepage for a sample capture from the DVC... It is easy to use, fast (no lengthy re-encoding process), and small file sizes.
http://pages.prodigy.net/tcperconti/
_________________
VideoCD Collection

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: sracer on 2001-11-07 16:21:52 ]</font>

[Anonymous65]

If you're into VCD only, you can also get the PV231 for $85 from a US dealer. It's the best hardware encoder I have tested (outperforms AVI capture and Tmpeg encoding).

[Vejita-sama]

You can get around the limitations of fat32 by capturing with Virtual Dub or AVI_IO. Both allow multisegment copies:

http://www.vcdhelp.com/faq.htm#spillsystem

I normally use AVISynth to frameserve the segments to TMPGenc or CCE.

The AVI format as a 2GB file size limit. FAT32 as a 4GB limit for ANY file. NTFS actually has a file size limit too, IIRC it's 10,000TB anyone know for sure

[asprinwizard]

I have looked up the Pro Video PV231. Is it really that good? I have not been able to find any reviews of it but is it worth upgrading from my ATI All in Wonder 128. This of course produces 'acceptable' results. How much better are those of the PV231?

Plus one final point. Can the PV231 and the All in Wonder 128 be used in the same system? If anyone can answer any of these questions I would be most grateful.

[Anonymous65]

If you use the ATI to do software capture to VCD, you will see quite a difference in quality between it and the PV231 (the PV231 being best). If you use the ATI to capture AVI and then use Tmpeg to convert it to VCD, it will be close in quality. PV231 will perform better on static and slow moving images, and Tmpeg software encoding will perform better on high action images.

The PV series of cards have not been sold in the US until last month, so that is why nobody knows about them. It has been an Asian item until now.

The PV231 is a stand alone PCI card that should not have anyhting to do with your other audio and video devices, so it should work fine with ATI video cards. You just need an empty PCI slot. It also runs on its own capture software, so it will not interfere with other video capture software.

[asprinwizard]

Thanks for the info. I was wondering though, would it make more sense to go for the PV-256. This allows MPEG 1 and 2 capture so would be useful for when DVD comes and engulfs us all. I only have two reservations. The first is will it capture to MPEG 1 as well the PV-231? I know it seems a strange question but the PV-231 is an MPEG 1 only. Would that make it more specialised or would they use the same hardware on each card? The second problem is where can you buy these cards? I live in the UK and found somewhere in Europe where I could get the PV-231 but no luck with the PV-256. Does anyone know where to buy this? It doesn't matter if I can only get it from the US, I'll just have to check the shipping costs.