AVI to MPEG2 conversion 2

[SurgeonGeneral]

hey there!
ok here's my setup, im trying to vconvert old VHS and 8mm video tapes to my PC then burn them to VCD. my capture card is a MSI GF 4 Ti 4800. the software im using to capture is pinnacle studio 8. once i have the raw (avi) i use either TMPGEnc or Dr. Divx TMPGEnc have better resolution but it seems to be "grainy".

my question is, is there a better way to capture the old VHS and 8mm tapes? also, is there a better avi to MPEG2 conversion software out there. i've heared of Adobe Premier and Vegas but these software seems to advacned for me. all i want to do is digitize then burn. no editing. i mean, for now.

so, can you guys suggest better video capture hardware and software as well as avi to mpeg conversion?

thanks a lot!

 

[SYAR2003]

Just some input's...

Have you tried NeroVision Express 2 (part of Nero 6 pack)
(Support for TV tuner cards and analog capture cards)
(Record directly to disc using real-time MPEG-2 encoder)
Heard it's good .
Get a analoqe PCI capture card . No need to throw out
the GF 4 Ti 4800 .
My friend makes tv-episodes using a similar setup, he captures them with wintv then compresses them to mpegs and burns them as a video cd .
Then the quality will not ever be any better than the analoqe video output fron the camera/VCR .
Digital capture can be done to a firewire port .

 

[dakota81]

TMPGEnc does have some noise reduction options, but I've never used them to be able to comment on quality.


You do not want to use a software real-time MPEG2 encoder with your current hardware. A software encoder must take shortcuts in the MPEG encoding process to be able to keep up time-wise (you can see how TMPGEnc takes soooo long to encode, proper encoding cannot be done in real time). These shortcuts lead to loss of quality. If you are serious about recording VCD's, or later DVD-R's, I would highly suggest a hardware mpeg encoding card, like the Hauppauge WinTV PVR250; I picked one up a month ago, and it's spectacular quality, and the recordings can be burnt directly to disc, there is no need to re-encode them.

 

[SurgeonGeneral]

thanks for the inputs SYAR2003.

@dakota81
im also thinking about the Hauppauge. another hardware im considering is the Pinnacle DV500.

i guess software MPEG2 encoding is really poor. when i capture video to AVI everything really looks good but when you start to convert them to MPEG2 quality begins to deteriorate.

 

[SYAR2003]

If i had the money i would go for a ATI All-In-Wonder 9800 Pro .

 

[dakota81]

ATI's AIW's still use software mpeg encoding, so no advantage there. The DV500 is good, though almost triple the price and does not include a tv tuner; the DV500 does have firewire support, though, which the WinTV PVR250 doesn't.

Regardless, TMPGEnc should do a great job on turning an uncompressed AVI into an mpeg file, so I'm not sure why you're seeing problems, unless it's something with the settings (TMPGEnc has a ton of settings, I don't know what most of them do). I'm guessing that the Dr. Divx program you mention is actually blurring the video a bit in the encoding process to clean up the picture.

 

[SYAR2003]

Then what does this mean:
The Cobra Engine

Usually found in high end pro-sumer video cards, the AiW 9800 brings hardware MPEG-2 decoding and MPEG-2 encoding to the consumer level. The Cobra Engine is capable of Inverse Discrete Cosine Transform (iDCT), which is really a fancy way of saying it can decode MPEG-2 streams with minimal CPU usage. This can make a difference when viewing DVDs on your PC, as you no longer have to shop for a dedicated DVD decoder, and no longer have to rely on software based decoding.

Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT), or MPEG-2 encoding, is done in hardware, which for casual video editing buffs, means less work on your CPU. ATi claims a maximum of 20-25% of the encoding process can be taken off the CPU, which could result in less time needed to encode a movie file, or at least, more CPU processing power to perform other tasks.

Videosoap is a feature found within the Cobra Engine that cleans up the image. It isn't designed for MPEGs you already have, but rather, it uses four filters to clean up the signal coming in from the input video. Other than cleaning up the image, it also serves to reduce the file size since noise isn't something that can easily be compressed, so with less noise, you'll end up with smaller files.

 

[Graywolf96]

A couple years ago (when I purchased the DV500 Plus, which is old now but works fine even though the company is a bit pompous and they abandoned their link to Adobe Premier with their replacment product), I tested every codec I could find (free or demos) and surprisingly the TMPGenc was first or second in my book. At the time, it didn't have hooks into Premier so I went with a low cost high performance choice with Ligos.

http://www.ligos.com/

One factor to consider when codecing...make sure the capture size is the same size of the finished product or you will definitely have degradation.

 

[dakota81]

Appologize; the past ATI cards I've had were software mpeg encoded. Like their standalone tv tuner, the TV Wonder, is rather poor; the display was grainy, poor deinterlacing, and sub-par mpeg compression. I haven't looked into ATI's tuners since. If they're better now, great for them.

 

[CreamCake]

I'm in agreement with Dakota81, if you want video capture, steer clear of ATI. THe All-in-Blunder catalyst/wdm drivers are a real pain to deal with, and the picture is only so-so.

I'd try a Matrox RT.X10 if you can find a used one.
Hauppage would be my second choice, as they seem to be compatible with several freeware capture programs.

Oddly enough, I have the same MSI TI4800 w/ vivo, but since it has no built in TV-tuner, I never pulled my PCI ATI-tv wonder. (I could use a vcr as a tuner , but I only have one and it's hooked up downstairs) It's decent enough to watch what little TV I have time for, but I don't bother capturing anything with it.
Was pretty hyped when I bought the Geforce capture card, but man am I lazy.
Never installed the Soundblaster Audigy2 Platinum I got at the same time either...
If I care about the show that much, I'll walk downstairs and turn on the 36" tv...
It all went downhill when I got the RT.X100 at work, suddenly I'm less inclined to capture/edit at home anymore...

 

[norty303]

I've not had a problem with the catalyst driver on my Sapphire 9100 vivo. You plug in and it captures! The quality appears to be fine too although I'm only able to compare with DV firewire capture but i can't see the difference....