question on size capture vhs

If you can capture larger than 320x240 you'll need to use a different colourspace. RGB is probably the next best thing.
Don't choose 640x480! It's nowhere near a DVD acceptable aspect. Either do 320x240, 320x480, or 720x480. All 3 are DVD spec (NTSC) ratios.
The larger the better, for quality (generally) because the encoder will not attempt to resize anything, it will simply encode at the same aspect and framerate.

 

I'll try 720x480. I just bought a capture card. It should be here soon, I'll let you guys know when I get it how it works.

 

just got my video transfer card today, tried doing a test capture with virtual dub but all it does is 'capture in progress' for a second then quits... i dont know what the problem is, i can capture fine with the software included with the card but that software is useless for what i want to do. any suggestions?

 

i finally figured out what was wrong... looks like i cant capture the audio with the video transfer card but i can capture the video and audio together from my sound card. i dont know why this would be different? good news tho i can capture great @ 720x480, i did a little test and captured 2 gigs with zero dropped frames, used about 31%cpu on average. i guess the only question i have for now is what color space should i use? i was using UYVY and it looked good. i dont understand the color space setting, is there anywhere that i can read up on it to learn more?

 

There are hundreds of complicated articles and white papers on colourspace. Do a search.
Basically, If you are going to encode these to DVD mpeg-2, then RGB is preferrable, because that's what most encoders use anyhow, although some of the better ones just use the source colourspace, depending on what IT is, and what the final output is.

If you use something else, it just adds to the encoding time, because the encoder must change the colourspace. No big deal.

 

If you are captireing in AVI which will later be uesd to encode to Mpeg-2 for dvd then you should capture in the "YV12" colorspace because it is the Same Colorspace that Mpeg-2 uses to you looks so quality doing colorspace cobversions....

If you want to read up On Clolorspaces and how they relate to Video then read this and it might help:

http://www.animemusicvideos.org/guides/avtech/colorspace.html

Cheers