Realtime DV to MPEG - what software??

[jpb1977]

With this new development, (just heard about it , why would I use my TV-Wonder (other than for TV captures) when I can use my firewire high-quality connection to create mpeg! Please let me know if this is freeware, or if I have to go searching for a product etc... Thanks!

jpb

[EricB]

I have tried a couple of the "realtime" encoders, including ULEAD VideoStudio6.

On my computer (1ghz, 384M RAM) if I set the quality level above "1", the transcode buffer starts to fill and you are no longer realtime. When you stop capturing, the buffer takes quite a while to empty. It gets full in about 15 minutes which stops the process.

The capture in DVD compatible MPEG2 is fair at best and without further massaging could only be burned to DVD. At $7 a piece, I'm going to use a lot better encoder than this! I didn't experience audio synch problems, but other people have reported them.

Capture in VCD mode is limited to straight VCD bitrate (again unless you want to further massage the file). This again is watchable, but not near the quality of a TMPGenc.

If these encoders improve, and computers get faster, and DVD blanks get cheaper, then this might be a reasonable approach. Of course, these are only my opinions.

[jpb1977]

Thanks for the reply? Any success stories (with freeware!)???

[Tommy]

IMHO doing this realtime with a pc will only output crap.

[jpb1977]

Worse crap than I am currently getting at 320X240, 1.75Mbps second using the s-video jack of my ATI TV WONDER?!?!?!? (although, it is pretty damn good for mpeg1)

[Faceman101]

Just the sound of it doesn't sound HQ. I doubt the results are 1:1 like some MPEG2 cards offer (expensive as hell, would rather buy a 78-80 Malibu I've been craving). I would like to hear people's reactions who actually have used this.

[Anonymous65]

The best real-time mpeg encoder I have used is Ulead Videostudio 6. Other than having random crashes during the capture, the quality is pretty good. However, forget low bit rate captures, it's not up to quality for low bit rates captures. But, capture at 352x480 @4 Mb/sec, the video was artifact free during normal viewing. The capture was done using CBR. VBR is possible, but sucks a lot more processing power. With a 1.5GHz P4 I could capture CBR with the quality setting at max without dropping frames in 352x480 mode. When I changed to VBR and not reducing the quality setting, the frame drops were over 50%. A 2.2GHz P4 might be able to capture VBR at full quality setting without dropping frames...

PowerVCR also does pretty good job at real-time mpeg captures, but no support for VFW, 48KHz audio, and 352x480 video size. Also, the video was deinterlaced, so is not very useful for making a VCD, SVCD, or DVD for playback on a regular TV set.

[Rich927]

I'm glad I'm not the only one having trouble with Videostudio's DV/MPG capture. They have had me reinstall, rewrite files and even sent me another file. Still crap. I still get the Flushing DV transcode message. They had me rewrite the Dswplug.ini file and replace the DswUleadMpegCap.dll file. I can now now capture without it stopping. It now does the transcoding when I stop the capturing rather than every every 45 seconds.

[jpb1977]

This sounds great - I'm going to give Ulead VideoStudio 6 a try!

jpb

[jpb1977]

Is the trial of Ulead VS 6 fully functional (especially in regards to realtime mpeg??)