What is best format for capture???????

[Terry]

I have captured in dv(avi) format as well as mpeg 1 and 2. By far, the best capture is avi. Am I missing something? I can edit and save in mpeg 1 or 2 via ulead 6.0 using custom settings and produce a better mpeg file than I can by capturing directly into mpeg. That doesn't really make sense to me. When I capture in mpeg, I get a very stuttered monitor picture and when I play back the captured mpeg, I get a pixilated picture at movement that I don't get when I capture in avi. I change the capture settings to 7000 bitrate and set the capture rate to slow. Am I missing something here?

[Poplar]

With the low-end equipment we have, the quality of hardware encoder is usually inferior to that of software encoder. So the best way is to capture uncompressed or lossless AVI, then convert it to MPEG1/2. And you have some excellent encoders to use, such as CCE SP, MainConcept, TMPG, or ProCoder.

[Bob W]

I just capture directly into NeoDVD Plus as DVD compliant mpeg2 and the results look fine to me.

[WeedVender]

Try capping using the HuffYuv codec. please note that u will need an NTFS formated drive to cap to exceed the 4 gb file size limit.

[mmasw]

capturing into a "lossless" avi probably does yield better final video, however with some of the newer cards, I do not believe the difference between direct captured MPG-2 and encoded MPG-2 is that great. Marginally....perhaps; significantly....no.

and then you have to weigh the "cost" in time it takes to encode versus directly capturing into dvd-ready video.

If someone has a large vhs library they want to archive, a card that captures directly to MPG-2 may be a far better option, slighly less quality....pehaps, yet only a fraction of the time to go from tape to dvd.

[txpharoah]

On my ATI AIW card, I capture interlaced MPEG2 at 8MPS CBR, as I-frame only, and produce perfect results. I dump the file in TMPGenc, and invert the fields so A-Field is 1st, and then add a noise reduction filter, and it re-encodes it in near-realtime. No visible loss.

If you have ATI's MMC 8.1, and it works for you, then you can use the noise reduction filters as you capture.

I have no frame drops either on my ATI card. I capture just fine.

Not inverting the fields will result in weird playback on your tv, at least on a setup involving the ATI card.

The final product is nearly flawless. It looks as good as, if not better, than my DirecTV.

I see no need to mess with the large AVI, CCE, or anything else, as it serves no purpose when DVD is the final product and you don't have to extensively edit material.

FYI: You can remove commercials by splitting the MPEG in TMPGenc, the rejoining the commercial-less pieces later. No loss to split/join the file like this.

Yes, no lie, REALTIME ENCODING! And quality is flawless to my eyes and to the eyes of many customers.