Capturing mpg4 from RRS, possible?

[CrispuloV]

Hello, I use the Matrox Rainbow Runner Studio to capture video from VHS for conversion to VCD (mpg1). From the MJPEG AVI, I use VirtualDub to convert to mpg4 at bitrates from 3,300 - 4,000. The mpg4 AVI is then converted to mpg1. A really time consuming process, 10 hours to make a 1 hour VCD.
To cut out one step from the process, I tried capturing in mpg4. But this resulted in countless dropped frames. I wonder whether this is due to my slow processor (Duron 700 at 770). I have only 128 mb of SDRAM, would an increase to 256 (or more) help? Or would this be impossible even with a faster processor.
My IDE 7200 drive is adequate for the MJPEG captures at 740x480, so I suppose this is not the bottleneck.
Hope you can suggest something. Thanks in advance.

[dsp]

CrispuloV,

You could cut you time down by cutting out the MPEG4 encoding and going straight to MPEG-1 from MJPEG (and it will look a bit better probably).

Also I don't seem to have any trouble capturing 320*240 DivX Low Motion video on my system. 704*480 needs at least a 1GHz system (if not alot more) for DivX/MPEG4 or MPEG-2 encoding.

Hope this helps

dsp

[CrispuloV]

Didn't think of that, thanks

Thank you for the insight. It did not enter my mind.
I hope there is a way to make the RRS capture to mpg1, though. Will post as soon as I am able to try that.

[dsp]

CrispuloV,

About capturing to MPEG-1 straight it can be done but you need a program for that, like Power VCRII from www.Intervideo.com. I got it free with a PC Plus magazine and it allows for capture in either MPEG-1 or MPEG-2.

The reason I didn't mention this before (besides forgetting) is that as has been pointed out many a time offline MPEG encoding has a higher quality than realtime encoding.

MPEG-1 works perfectly on my machine in capturing live video on my machine.

dsp

[CrispuloV]

I see

I'll try that using tmpeg. Thanks again