Stupid newbie question: How does anyone make those 350ish MB AVIs TV eps that I can download?

There are some TV shows that aren't on DVD that I'd like to get. I have some of them on VHS and I've found a way to capture that to AVI, but it's huge.

So, how did those others get those 350-ish MB files? I've downloaded all of several series, mostly in AVI and they are all 350-ish per episode. I convert them to 450ish MB MPGs and burn them to DVDs (3 eps per disk though someone out there managed to get 8 on a disk and I'd like to ask him how he managed that!).

I have little money to put to this project. I have a WinTV USB device, VirtualDub and TMPGEnc. I can't get VirtualDub's capture to see my USB device but I can use the VCR function within the device's own software. I just get the very big (3.36GB per episode.) file. Seeing as this particular show ran for 3 years, that would be a whole bunch of DVDs if I only got 1 ep per disk. I'd like to at least get it down to 3 per disk. If I could only get those nice little 350-ish MB AVIs....

Any help? Let me rephrase: Any easy, step-by-step help involving freeware or at least cheap-ware?

Related question: I've seen a device called ADS Express on Ebay that will convert VHS to digital files, but does anyone know how big those files are or what format?

 

The examples you are talking about are generally HDTV caps. They capture the transport stream directly, then compress the audio to VBR mp3 and run a 2 pass XviD encode on the video, resizing and filtering (?) as necessary.

You simply won't get the same quality from a VHS rip no matter how big the final size.

 

Aha. Thanks. No HDTV for me. Can't afford it. So I guess I'm out of luck in that area.

What about cheapware for shrinking the capture files from 3.36 GB to something a bit more reasonable?

 

Virtualdubmod with the XviD codec.