MPEG File size after converting from VHS

[someonesomewhere121]

I have a comproPVR capture card and am trying to record a VHS tape to MPEG to put onto DVD. I do not want to edit the movie at all.... The resulting MPEG file size is HUGE about 40GIG.. the movie is only 60 minutes..

How can i reduce the file size and not lose much quality?

Thanks

[redwudz]

Typically, VHS tape is somewhere between VCD and SVCD quality. In fact I use 1/2 D1 for most of my VHS conversions. (352 X 480) I'm not sure what bitrate or format you would use to come up with a 40GB one hour file. That would be very odd for MPEG-2. Even DV is only 13GB/hour. That sounds more like a HuffyUV or raw AVI capture.

But anyway, if it's that high of bitrate, you should be able to re-encode to a more normal MPEG bitrate of about 6000 - 8000 KB/s for a MPEG-2 one hour in duration and preserve it at VHS quality or better. Just use your favorite MPEG encoder. You can put in the one hour duration in a bitrate calculator, but it should come out at about max DVD rate of about 9500 KB/s.