Please Dummify VHS to VCD Please???

[Vince4587]

I will try to make this short and sweet. I currently am in dire need to convert 10-15 year old well-kept vhs video (20 tapes worth) of my favorite 80s shows to digital format before the quality of the tape gets any worse. Here are my current hardware specs:

Gateway Select 1100 with AMD Athlon 1.1 GHz and 256 MB Ram
CD-Writer
GeForce2 MX Video with 32 MB
ATI TV Wonder VE Capture Card

I ran a test and captured some video from a tape (set to record at MPEG-1 quality at 352 X 240, 44 KHz) and burned it to a CDR with Nero and played it through my VCD capable DVD player. However, the quality is not even at the same level as the VHS source. What I would like to do is do whatever I need to get the best quality video. Can I do it using my current specs or should I save up and record to DVD for the ample space to record at a higher resolution? Do I need a different capture card? I don't care. If so, please remember that I know NOTHING about some of these applications that have been discussed in this forum, so I need it dummified. I humbly request your expertise and would appreciate ANY feedback on this. Thank you.

[Chips144]

If you are not satisfied with the results when converting to VCD, try SVCD. The increased bit rate of SVCD will result in a far superior picture than the VCD. I have just finished converting about 22 hours of home movies and a few captured TV programs and I am very happy with the results. If you want, e-mail me at chipsnet@aol.com. I can send you a guide I have written where I detail all the steps in all the programs needed to go from DVD to SVCD (sorry, this was written by me, for a few friends, so there are no screen captures). There is a small section in this guide that deals with Camcorder (or VCR) to SVCD. I have also written several templates for TMPGEnc that cover various input types (interlaced vs. progressive). These templates are for TMPGEnc ver. 2.53. I should also point out that ALL my efforts are directed to NTSC, not PAL. My priority order is: 1. quality 2. time to transcode 3. number of cd-r's required.

IMPORTANT : The guide is written in MS Excel

Quality is what my eye perceives on my 65-inch HDTV Toshiba TV, NOT what it may look like on my PC. Quality is subjective. Obviously if I wanted the best quality, I would opt for DVD specs in transcoding, but considering the source material and the fact that I don't want to do DVD-r burning, I have settled on SVCD compliance and am very happy with the results.

Time to transcode deals with bit rates, motion search precision, etc. With the templates I have written, using a 1.7GHz P4, I get about a 2 to 1 up to a 3 to 1 transcode time based on the content. In other words, if the clip is 10 minutes long with little action, it will transcode in about 20 minutes.

I have found that my burner set at 16X speed and using 15cent cd-r's, I have had 0 problems playing the resultant disks on my Apex 5131. With the bit rates I have chosen, I get about 40 minutes on 1 80minute cd-r if the source is interlaced. If the source is progressive, I have what I call a high quality template (about 44 minutes on one 80minute cd-r) and a low quality template (about 55 minutes on an 80minute cd-r). I have done blind tests with the high and low quality templates and no one, not even me, can tell the difference. Incidentially, the low quality template is also significantly faster in transcoding.

[Chips144]

I should also point out that for best results, capture with your ATI card, but do not process with it. Capture at the highest rate available to you. Export the file in avi format ( the most lossless format) and transcode the avi file in TMPGEnc to an SVCD compliant file. The transcoding in TMPGEnc is far superior to the transcoding available in any of the capture card software that I have seen or read about.