Capture from Hi8 -> SVCD. What resolution to use?

[lassebz]

I´d like to capture video from a Hi8 recording (thru SVHS cabel). What resolution shall I capture in to preserve the quality from the Hi8 tape? I don´t want the file size to be huge if it doesn´t improve the quality. Is it overkill to capture in 720x576 to have it compatible when I sooner or later will have access to a DVD recorder. Right now I will put it on a SVCD. Is Hi8 compareble to SVCD resolution 480x576? (I´m using PAL-standard)

Best regards//Lars

[Mavrick]

I'm making XSVCD's from my Hi-8 tapes also. It took me 4-ever to turn the capture res. down to 480x480 (NTSC). I was assuming that lower res. = lower quality on the TV. It does not...

Capture at 480x480 (or what ever is the SVCD PAL res) in uncompressed AVI format. Then convert to MPEG2. Remember the quality has more to do with the bitrate of the MPEG2 file. I'm using a VBR of 4000, and it looks like a DVD. My DVD player supports XSVCDs, and can handle the VBR of 4000.


Hope this helps.


Mavrick

[D_Knife]

or even better ( IMO ) capture at 352x576 and convert into CVD
CVD is a subset of DVD and gives IMO a better picture than SVCD - you don't have a resize in the middle of your conversion and there's a better chance you can capture at that res than 480x576 which is still not really a standard capture field. And since it's smaller than SVCD it either gives your more time on the disk or a higher bitrate

[dvfan]

If i capture at the settings for cvd and mpeg 2, do i burn it as an SVCD? or mpeg2? will my dvd player play it?

[D_Knife]

short answer - yep and usually
Nero accepts CVD's without to much complaining and they play ok in my SVCD compat players
i have a toshiba that won't accept any SVCD - other than that....

[dvfan]

Thanks for the reply, could you please recommend some settings for CVD? is it better the XSVCD?

thanks

[D_Knife]

is it better than XSVCD - yes
why?
CVD is ACTUALLY a DVD standard format, so when you get your nice new shiny DVD burner - you won't need to re-encode video into a DVD format, it's smaller in frame size than SVCD (any flavour) so you can either save on file size or bitrate on a video

For me I still prefer quality over anything else -
I use
3 pass VBR out of CCE 2.50 for my encoding and the following bitrate settings
300 Min
2000 Avg
2496 Max
from Avisynth to CCE via frameserving gives me about 3.5 times conversion speed - making it just quicker than realtime once the 3 pass is taken into account.
This gives me a image that is almost identical from the source ( HI8 )

you can play around with these though

you can also use TMPEG in 2 pass as well - but I have done some comparisons with CCE and found TMPEG to create blocks in some areas while CCE is smooth all the way - but that's another story

[dvfan]

Thanks for the reply, i experimented doing a simple cvd and burning it in Nero it looks GOOD on computer with Power DVD but on TV the pictures scroll, can you tell me what im doing wrong, i had reincoded part of a video with Ulead Video Studio that i had captured at good quality and reincoded custom settings mpeg2 352 x 576 VBR 2520 Played around with Frame Order tried it all different ways, I have CCE 2.64 but i use it when i create videos in Adobe Premiere, but im a bit confused why my video on tv scrolls the picture thanks

[D_Knife]

but on TV the pictures scroll, can you tell me what im doing wrong

Sorry, no - never had that problem

[dvfan]

I tried encoding with Premiere and CCE and it wont let me encode the audio when VBR is selected it said

[supersoccer2001]

Can you tell me what type of capture card that you are using or would recommend. I want to do some very similar video capturing/editing as you seem to be doing.

[D_Knife]

supersoccer2001 - who is that question directed to?

[supersoccer2001]

I was talking to lassebz, the originator of the thread, or to anyone who knows what kind of video card would be good for this type of situation.

[marscable]

dvfan

about ur TV scrolling when playing ur converted CVD probably u should be using NTSC setting when encoding instead of 352x576(PAL) use 352x480(NTSC) that should solve ur problem..
hope this helps


:^)