vhs to mpeg2

[blidge]

I'm looking to transfer my PAL VHS collection to DVD / SVCD. I've tried various methods of analogue capture with varying success and as yet I have not found a decent quality method.

Because of the hassles associated with capturing to AVI then converting to MPEG2 I'd like to capture and convert to MPEG2 on the fly. I can do this with Videowave 5 and Videostudio 5 but each has it's pitfalls. VW5 will not allow me to change the audio bit rate to a DVD compliant format and VS5 doesn't give me an option to capture at 352 x 576 which I understand to be the optimum resolution for VHS capture.

Is there any cheap / free software that I can use to capture and encode direct to MPEG2 on the fly that will meet all my requirements. After spending the last few months exploring all the methods and discovering the pitfalls of analogue capture I'm beginning to pull my hair out!

Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.

[Macros746]

What kind of TV card do you have? MMC is a mostly bad program but it does offer pretty good realtime MPEG2 capture that is totally customizable (set your own bitrate and resolution). I still think the only way to go for quality is capturing in VD and then reencoding but.....

Macros