I have a bunch of 8mm camcorder tapes I want to save on CD. Presently I can capture the video using cheap software that came with my video card (power director). It's the OEM version and only does mpeg1. The transfer to computer is via the s-video on my camcorder. The video quality is poor and I wish to upgrade my capture and CD burn software so I can get decent quality video discs. I think what I want is to capture to mpeg2 format and burn SVCD discs. My question is simple. What software should I buy? I don't want to do anything fancy. Just want to transfer my tapes to SVCD with good quality as cheaply as possible. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks in advance. Murph
Captureing to Mpeg2 at SVCD Resolution and Bitrate will not Give you very High Quality, You would Get Much better Quality if you captured to a Low compression AVI format at Full resolution then encode the Full resolution AVI files to Mpeg2 for SVCD useing a High Quality Mpeg encoder..Mpeg Capture softwares are not very efficient so they need a Lot more Bitrate to Produce the same Quality as a real Mpeg encoder could useing Half the Bitrate..But if you are really Stuck on Captureing to Mpeg2 then I believe the Best Mpeg capture Program is "InterVideo WinDVR 3.0"..It is the Best Quality Mpeg2 capture Program I have ever used and I have Tried them all...That Type of Capture Device are you useing to transfer the Hi8 Tapes to your PC??? Good Luck
Hi Minion Interesting. I wasn't aware of the limitation in MPEG capture. To answer your question, I have a TI4600 AGP card which apparently is my "capture device". I just run an s-video patch cord to it from my camcorder and fire up Power Director to capture the video. Also, not all my tapes are HI8. I have two more questions for you. I need to upgrade my video card and am considering the ATI Radeon 9800 Pro which has some capture/hardware encoding capability. What do you think about this? Second, whats the best way to capture to a low compression AVI format? as you suggest. Thanks, I appreciate your advice. Murph
Hi, Are you talking about the "ATI Radeon 9800 All In Wonder Pro"?? I personally wouldn"t get this card for it"s Capture ability which I"m sure is Quite good, but if you are looking for something that will Capture the Highest Quality Video I would go for something like "Canopus ADVC-100" which is an Analogue Digital Converter, It is a Breakout Box that Plugs into your PC Via Firewire Port, It Takes the analogue signal from your Hi8 Camcorder and converts it to DV AVI useing a High Quality Hardware DV Compressor...These Captured files will Be in DV Format on your PC and DV format is extremely Easy to edit and is Very High Quality ,then after editing you would just export the Files as Mpeg2 files for SVCD or DVD..These Run about $250 US and one of the Best things about it is that when captureing the Audio and Video gets Locked into the same stream which means that the Sync will allways be Perfect were with other capture devices that capture the audio and Video to seperate streams the audio and video Sync will allways be a Concern...I used to own an "ATI All In Wonder Radeon 8500DV" and it was a Great Card and had good Capture Quality and great for Graphics but nothing near the Quality of something like the Canopus ADVC-100... So capture to a Low Compression AVI format you will need a Low Compression AVI codec installed ,The best is Called "HuffyUV" you can find it on the new Pretty easilly ,It is Freeware...And you will need a Capture Program that captures to AVI format, There are lots of them and many are free Like "Virtual VCR" is one of the better ones : http://umn.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/virtualvcr/VirtualVCR-v2.6.9.exe .... The Good thing about something like the Canopus ADVC-100 is you can use a Program like Adobe Premier or Vegas Video 4 to Capture the Video then Edit and add any Transitions and effects then encode to Mpeg2 for SVCD or DVD then export as a file ready to be burned to disk all within the same Program.... The Problem with Hardware Mpeg encoders is that Mpeg files are not really meant to be edited, so if you have to do any real editing were you add some Transitions or add Filters to clean up the Image or add effects, then you will have to re-render the mpeg file which will lower the Quality of the final file, But with DV it can be rendered repeatedly without quality loss, that is why the Pro"s use DV as there Capture/editing format....
Minion I gotta say, that's about the best and most comprehensive reply I've ever received on a message board, and I've been on quite a few. Thank you. You have given me all I need to make my decision and more. To answer your question, the graphics board referred to is indeed the ATI all-in-wonder. I am mainly considering this card for its amazing graphics, and with the video capture and TV enhancements I would be killing two birds with one stone. I wouldn't buy this card just for the capture capability. Your input raises one more question I have to answer for myself. Do I want the highest quality and versatility, or do I just want to make some quick copies on the cheap? In the meantime, I might be able to experiment with AVI capture using the codec and program you recommended. You've given me alot to think about. I'll let you know what I decide. Thanks again Murph
