capturing newbie needs help

[puar]

After recently getting a new harddrive (thus giving me the space I needed), I've wanted to start capturing/archiving video to a vcd or svcd format (since my dvd player supports the playing of both).

I've gotten a good start from www.vcdhelp.com, but I definitely want to push the envelope. My current setup is as follows:

AMD Athlon Tbird 900 Mhz
512 MB PC133 Micron RAM
MSI 6167 motherboard
60 gig IBM Desktar 7200 rpm
12 gig Maxtor
GF2MX400 64 meg
Matrox G200 16 meg
Rainbow Runner G
SBLive X-Gamer
Windows 2000 Professional
PD 5.39 VT 2.04

I've been using HuffyUV with Virtual Dub to capture AVIs and then convert them using TMPGEnc.

First question, with everything stated above, what kind of quality should I be able to expect in my captures? I've been capturing at 352x240 right now, since it seems to be the only resolution I can capture at without dropping lots of frames.

Second question, if I should be able to capture at a higher resolution, what do I need to do/make sure of to do so?

I've tried to search through this Forum, and I find bits and pieces of information, but difficult to follow. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Bobby

[Job]

Should be able to 704x480....

Or whatever you NTSC'ers use.
I have the G200 8MB with Rainbow Runner and capture in MJPEG under Win98.
Your problem is with the Huffy Codec - probably running at 8MBps at your stated res. If you try to go to full 704x480 or 640x480 then you'll find your HD will not handle the 20MBps data rate required.

Options woul dbe to swithc to MJPEG and you will get more than enough quality for VCD and SVCD at full res. Capture at 352x288 for me for VCD and encode using TMPEGEnc produces a wonderfull result. Much better than any of the LSX or Panasonic $$$ encoding options and even better than BBMPEG.

SVCD - you should go for CCE or BBMPEG depending on your financial situation.

[Sciascia]

Huff definitely will recopmress with better quality than almost any other format. The problem is that you need some good sustained write speeds. I believe that an Ultra100 enabled HD will pull it off, but if you can go with a RAID0 controler that is better. It may be a little more than you want to spend, but the performance increase is definitely worth it. I personally found a site for modifying a Ultra100 into a FT100 and it works great!

The problem with lossless compression or uncompressed video is that it is huge. MJPEG is still my preferred capture/edit format. With Virtual Dub and a few filters, frameserved to either CCE or TMPGEnc it looks very good.

If you want to improve your capture quality and data rate for MJPEG, you can try this hack. Itr may be a little different depending on the G200 SW and the OS that you use, but for my G400 it is:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Matrox\RainbowRunner\0 \VidCap\CurrentValues\MjpegQuality]
@="50"

Matrox usees "50" as the default value, but you can change it anything a little higher. I prefer 83, as it is close to a 3:1 ratio and is not too much strain on the card. Beats the heck out of 6:1. The files will be a little bigger, but they are still the good old MJPEG format and edit nicely and are higher quality.

[Dr Mordrid]

Approximate HuffYUV data rates using the Matrox YUY2 mode;

704x480: 11+ mb/s

352x480: 6.5 mb/s

352x240: 3.8 mb/s

Most of the Maxtor and other high quality ATA100 drives should handle it nicely until you get to the extreme inner tracks of the HDD. A RAID + a 600mhz or faster CPU eliminates any restrictions on full frame capture.

Dr. Mordrid