To create High quality VCD with VHS casettes

[Premichander]

How do I create High quality VCD using ATI AIW 128 32 MB Pro card.
I am using MMC 7.1

I want to capture in real time mpeg1. I don't want to get into the conversion stuff of Encoding and all.

What are my systems requirement?

My input is VHS video Cassette. I have created some VCD's but they are not upto the mark. They are not good. They lack in quality.

Please help me? I had been working on this card and VCD creation for more than 20 days.

I will be greatful if some one helps me and also thankfull to them.

My PC is PII 400 MHz, 128 MB ram 6GB of hard disk always free

PLEASE HELP ME. I AM OUT OF MY HEAD SINCE 20 DAYS.

[op10etudes]

I'm not sure what you can do to make better-looking video CDs if you are only willing to capture MPEG-1 in MMC 7.1. Capturing with Virtualdub and then encoding is a lot slower, but you get to apply filters and color adjustments that you can't do with realtime MPEG-1 capture.

For instance, you can perform noise reduction with Virtual Dub, a crucial feature that removes many color anomalies. You can also apply blur and smoothing filters which eliminate some of the blocking. Virtualdub can be used to strip out commercials with ease. This is possible because AVI is an easily edited format (unlike MPEG). You can't do any of this (as far as I know) in a realtime MPEG capture.

Also, in what way do your VCD captures look "bad"? Do they look bad a computer monitor. You have to keep in mind that VCD is really designed to be played back on a standard television, and that it will generally look "better" on a standard TV.

[Premichander]

Thanks for for ur reply.

The recorded video is somewhat good on computer, But when I play it in a VCD Player with TV connected, Its bad. No Sharpness in the Image, Blockiness is more and I see some patches all around the face, on the face. I can't identify myself in the VCD its so blur. I clean clearly see the blocks in the VCD picture playing on the TV.

[GRANPINO]

Home made movies do not encode very well with standard VCD, especially at low light.
The only way I get good video is to increase the video rate to around 2mbps.

[Premichander]

Mr Granpino,

Thanks for ur suggesstion. As per ur suggesstion, if i increase the video bit rate to 2mbps, then it will not be VCD compatible. how do i create a vcd at this video bit can you suggest me how to. I will be greateful to u.

[treborf]

I have a similar setup, but I'm using MMC 6.3. Some say the MPEG 1 capturing for VCD is better in 6.3 (it uses a different encoding engine). I have to agree with you though: the quality is not high. I'm consistently hearing that you cannot achieve high quality VCDs from a VHS source, because the source resolution is too low to begin with. This problem is compounded by doing real time software encoding vs. post-capture encoding. If the VHS source is copy-protected, Macrovision will destroy the quality.

I hope you don't mind me saying, but you may need to change your expectations to avoid getting too stressed out! Would SVCD be a better choice?