converting leadtek winfast tv2000 captures

[phice]

I use the leadtek winfast tv2000 card to capture tv shows with the included application and default "mpeg-2 good quality" setting. Each 30 minute show comes out to around 1GB. I would really like to cut down the size of the files.

Anybody got any suggestions on how I can encode these files so that they're around 200mb? I've seen other shows in newsgroups that come out to around this size. I'm mainly looking to cut down the filesize but keep decent quality. The output files can be any format.

Any advice on different settings during the capture would be helpful also.

Thanks.

[dilligaf]

The best format quality wise you could direct encode to is mpeg4, which I believe this card can handle ok. Ive only just started using this card myself and have done a few test captures to this format but have'nt played with any settings.

[Don2050]

I would agree that DivX/Xvid gives the best quality to size ratio....but if you plan on doing any editing, ie..getting rid of commercials, uncompressed or lossless compression(Huffyuv) is the best way to go. It is much easier to edit.

[spooky]

All you have to do is change the bitrate for the MPEG2 it will change the file size.
Also try capturing into Mpeg1