Guide needed for Video Capture and Encoding

[jsmithson]

Hello All,

I was hoping to get some help. Is there a tutorial or a guide that explains the entire capture and encode process? What (hopefully free) software do you recommend to use (for capture and then the subsequent encoding)? What settings should I use, etc?

With regards to quality, I'm striving for "torrent" quality:
170-200 MB for 20 min
350-400 MB for 40 min

I don't want to do anything too complicated, just digitize a few VHS Tapes.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance!

[redwudz]

Depends on what format you want to capture/encode to?

I would guess 'Torrent' quality would be about 700MB of Xvid/Divx format. MPEG, as in a DVD will take up about 4+ Gigabytes for good quality.

What do plan to play this back on? A set top player or a computer?

If you just want to do a couple of VHS tapes, then a cheap video capture card that takes a composite video input would probably work.

What do you want to spend? (In US dollars, please)

And welcome to our forums.

EDIT: There are some capture guides to the left:<<<< https://www.videohelp.com/capture
Encoding guides are under 'Convert': <<<< https://www.videohelp.com/convert

[jsmithson]

Hey Red,

Thank you for the welcome. I'm confused what you mean by "format [I] want to capture/encode to?" If you mean file format, then .avi seems preferable (I think Xvid is for HD encoding and I'm not really after that).

With regards to playback, a computer seems to be the most optimal choice. If I need to play on a TV, I can always attach a few wires (besides, new DVD players can play .avi files directly).

With regards to $...hmmm I guess an answer as little as possible is just a little too vague. I already have a TV Tuner/Capture card, with regards to software expenses, I'm hoping to go via the opensource (ie free) route.

Thanks for the guides.

[redwudz]

Try VirtualVCR. It might work with your card. If you need a capture driver for you card, maybe btwincap WDM Video Capture Driver. You can also try Windows Movie Maker or VirtualDub for capture. But it depends on what capture card you have.

If you have a lot of hard drive space, you can capture with a high quality, low compression codec like HuffyUV and re-encode it to your chosen format later. Capturing in highly compressed formats like Xvid take a fair bit of computer power, but you could give them a try.

Usually 'format' refers to the codec you use to do the encoding/capturing. AVI is just a general container name, not a format. There are quite a few formats that could be classified as AVI. Xvid, HuffyUV and a dozen more. Most set top DVD Players need Divx/Xvid or MPEG formats.