Analog capture to DVD

radioman

I'm new to all this so I'm hoping somebody can help me.

I'm converting some of my old c-vhs home videos to DVD. To do this I've been capturing the video in high bitrate (8mps) using Windows Movie Maker and editing from there. The result is a good quality video with no problems. I'm running in to trouble when transcoding this wmv file to mpeg2 for the DVD. I've tried using both Nero and WinDVD and they both give the same result which I can only describe as 'choppy or 'jumpy'. I have also tried bypassing WMM and capturing direct to Nero as mpeg2 but this results in a lot of dropped frames.

Running Win XP with 1.5ghz processor and 512mb ram

Any suggestions?

Lump

512 megs of ram isn't very much when running XP, that might be causing the problem.

John

anthony4335

512MB is fine for XP ,but not it you intend to do anything heavy on it such as encoding, an easy way to check is bring up the task manager and click the performace tab this will tell you how much memory is been used "PF usage" and start recording if the usuage is above 512 you will be using the disk as virtual memory and this will slow things down ,and will be the cause. You will probely see that windows movie maker will not use as much memory.
Either get more memory, a new capture card that has a hardware encoder or look for a better coverter to convert WMV to MPEG2 (try betanews.com)

Lump

anthony4335 wrote:

512MB is fine for XP ,but not it you intend to do anything heavy on it such as encoding, an easy way to check is bring up the task manager and click the performace tab this will tell you how much memory is been used "PF usage" and start recording if the usuage is above 512 you will be using the disk as virtual memory and this will slow things down ,and will be the cause. You will probely see that windows movie maker will not use as much memory.
Either get more memory, a new capture card that has a hardware encoder or look for a better coverter to convert WMV to MPEG2 (try betanews.com)

SO what I said basically...

John

rogue-entity

OP, I have the same problem myself. I have a PC:
P3 733MHz (clocked at 500MHz to avoid cooling issues)
384MB SDRAM
20Gig HDD
I also have a Macbook Pro.

My PC has a TV tuner card with S-Video input. I can just use the DVD recorder to transfer the footage to a DVD, but the menus are ****e. I can use TMPeg to import the DVD files and edit the MPEG2 files themselves and apply a better menu before burning the result back to DVD. But it cant re-author DVDs so this is only good for creating PAL discs of what I record on the camera, and also the edit options are limited. I want to be able to downsize the resolution for NTSC playback so that I can send the discs to my friends in the US. Ideally I would do this on my Macbook, but I only have iMovie and iDVD, I was considering getting Final Cut Express/Pro but only if it provides better format support when importing video. The problem I have is that I dont know what programme I can get for Windows that will capture in 720x576 and 720x480, uncompressed and in a format that is Mac-readable. I have Quicktime Pro on the PC but I was rather hoping that Quicktime could read "raw" avi that is created by VirtualDub as it would be faster and simpler.

To the OP I suggest you get a VHS/DVD Recorder combo, it will let you transfer your videos to DVD and you can then use TMPeg to chop out the leaders and footers and then add a nicer menu too.

radioman

thanks for your suggestions, I would go the vhs-dvd recorder route but I don't have access to a dvd recorder at the moment. I may add some extra memory though when I can afford to

on another note, is capturing through s-video connection generally better than capturing through composite?

joeblogg1

I use the Dazzle Video Capture , connects to USB 2.0 and came with Pinnacle Studio in the Box. Bought it in Dixons in Dublin for € 80 or so and it does the job great.

I can connect my camcorder to it and also connect the VCR using a Scart connection.

I use the composite rather than S video as a mate told me to do and it works well.

If you get it make sure to buy the Dazzle 90 not 80 as the 80 is USB 1 not 2


http://www.pinnaclesys.com/PublicSite/us/Products/Consumer+Products/Home+Video/Dazzle/Digital+Video+Creator+90.htm

SouperComputer

512MB is fine for XP ,but not it you intend to do anything heavy on it such as encoding, an easy way to check is bring up the task manager and click the performace tab this will tell you how much memory is been used "PF usage" and start recording if the usuage is above 512 you will be using the disk as virtual memory and this will slow things down ,and will be the cause. You will probely see that windows movie maker will not use as much memory.

Meh, you just need to be patient. Im transcoding MPEG2 to Xvid with an Athlon 800 and 256MB. It will do the job, just leave it to simmer

Before that ive used a K6-300 with 128MB RAM to encode MPEG2 for SVCD's, I can be done reliably enough.