studio pctv capture card, NEWBIE needs help bad!!!

[sippin40ozs]

Ok, here's the dilly yo: I've been searching under the keyword studio pctv and i looked at all the topics. problem is, i don't understand any of it. I just got my card today, installed it, and I can capture video with the tuner, from a vcr with the software provided. Now I have vcds i have bought, so i know that the data has to be compressed some how to fit on 2 discs basically. how do i go about doing this. I need a step by step tutorial on this. i tried the one on the how to, with vitual dub, but got dropped frames REALLY bad, so i need to know all the settings for EVERYTHING!! I know, a lot of work, but please help a man get his video capture on! Specs are:
pentium 2 500mhz
128 megs ram
13 gig hard drive
thanks

[WMike]

My first suggestion is to thoroughly read this site. Those topics to the left will answer most of your quesions.

Next, I'd suggest you take is one step at a time. Get your card installed and make sure it's not conflicting with anything else. Then work on nothing but getting capturing down. Once you've accomplished that, move on to editing, then to encoding, then to burning, a step at a time.

I have the PCTV card and had a difficult time configuring it to work with VDub. I eventually just started using AVI_IO which made it infinitely easier.

Good luck
Mike

[sippin40ozs]

I have read everything on this whole site, and I am still having problems. vitual dub will not even run, it freezes up my whole computer. so i capture with the studio software, convert it to avi, which seems to work fine, then when i convert it to mpeg with TMPGEnc the audio doesn't match!! HELP please!!!

[WMike]

Is the audio/video synch problem when the .mpg is played on your computer, or when you burn and play it on a player? I used to use a 400 mhz. computer and audio/video never synched when played on the computer while playing fine on the player. Verify that.

As far as VDub, install the new release and don't use it for capture, but only for editing. Use your studio software (if you're just making VCD's) or get AVI_IO and use that for captures. Above all, take it a step at a time and solve the problems one at a time.

Read on the BB about optimizing your computer settings, verify there are no device conflicts and that you have minimal/zero programs running concurrently. Video software can be processor hogs, your computer needs to be at optimum settings. Use the search function for numerous topics, i.e. DMA, Capture, computer freezes, audio synch, and anything else you can think of. You will get a BUNCH of information.

Mike