From TV to PC capturing question

[spooky]

I am wondering, what capture format would be best for highest quality using WinTV-FM card ( it does not have the Hardware Encoder )
I am trying to capture from Digital Cable to PC, the picture looks great when I am watching the station but as soon as I capture it into VCD mpeg the quality goes down.
I have plenty of HD space & if I want to capture 2 hrs of video/audio which way would be best to capture really high quality.
You can see below my PC spects ( I know that P4 would increase the performance )

Thank you

[keshni]

8)

Hello,

First, don't capture in Mpeg directly.
Try to capture in AVI with the famous lossless codec Huffyuv.
After this, use VirtualDub to make cuts, to add filters, crop...
At the end if you want to have a good Mpeg quality, use TMPGenc with appropriate parameters...(VCD, SVCD...)

Keshni.