advice needed on vhs to dvd conversion

[Morgoth]

I am using a g200 marvel to convert vhs to dvd. What I do is this:

capture using win98, avi_io in mjpeg, 16bit stereo CIF format video size
edit in vdub and frameserve to tmpgenc plus
compress to mpeg2 (pal svcd format defaults)
burn (never got this far yet)

My results are ok, but a little blocky with compression artifacts. I would like to improve it, but not sure what is best. I notice the format I use uses a slightly higher res - not sure now, its not in front of me, but it goes up a bit during the conversion - is this a problem perhaps? Would I be better capturing at a higher res?
If so, what would people recommend as good capture settings? If I capture full size, I get masses of dropped frames, and thats on a scsi uw drive (7gb seagate barracuda). The CIF size seems the best I can do.

If I am onto a loser, what would be the best hardware to buy to do the job? I saw Doc Mordrid mention the canopus advc-100 a few times in other threads. Is this my best bet? If I were to use it, I wonder if anyone can answer a few questions about it for me:
i) what form does the dv stream inputted to the pc via the firewire connection take? Is it an mpeg2 file? or some special codec avi?

ii) what software would I use to edit? I can't afford to spend a fortune, so a couple of hundred quid on edit software would scupper the project - I use vdub at the mo!

any other good hardware that might be worth considering?

I realise there is a lot of questions here, but I would really appreciate any answers anyone has, I have had a good search and can't find what I am looking for.

thanks in advance,

morgoth

[Dr Mordrid]

CIF for DVD will give you a low quality. Full frames are the best way to go.

The AVDC-100 captures either analog sources or IEEE-1394 from a DV cam to *.avi files with DV compression; 5:1 compression ratio using methods akin to MJPeg, but with a 4:1:1 colorpace in NTSC; 4:2:0 in PAL instead of broadcast videos 4:2:2.

Once captured these can be edited then encoded to MPEG either by your editor or by software like TMPGEnc Plus.

The MPEG bitrate and other settings will determine how long a video you can fit on the DVD withi decent quality, and the details of that are a whole other post in itself

Dr. Mordrid

[Morgoth]

thanks for the reply Dr Mordrid.

I have managed to capture my source full frames with no drops to my suprise by fitting it in a different machine:

athlon 1333, 256mb RAM
20gb ata 100 5400rpm seagate drive
win 98

spec does not seem an issue - 25mins of full frames, 16bit stereo sound, and no drops. I need no better now, but my mpeg quality once encoded with tmpgenc leaves much to be desired once encoded with tmpgenc plus. Would you recommend using variable bitrates? If this is a long subject, perhaps you could either give some basic tips, or point me in the right direction for places to find what I need?

If I can get a full size stream is the advc-100 worth getting now? I guess I am working in the stone age with an advc 100 but just wondered what you thought of the comparison of the quality? I'm guessing the advc-100

And if I can push my luck a bit more - some advc-100 questions - even though it is a stand alone box, I presume you get software with it then - specifically the dv codec it needs? I take it if so, that vdub can see this codec and use it? Do you also get some driver software to allow the input of the I1394 data stream and accept it as an avi file? Its just that I have never done that kind of work yet.

thanks again,

morgoth

[Adis]

Did you tried to capture with UMSP7 to mpeg/DVD format directly ?

[Morgoth]

no, I don't have UMSP7. I have a real old version of it that came with my marvel (before avid was the standard)

[Dr Mordrid]

MSPro7 can capture MPEG from IEEE-1394 on a decently fast system, along with a ton of other cool things for DVD production. It even comes with a version of DVD MovieFactory2 that can burn Dolby AC3 audio.

If your older version is 5.0 or newer you can get a sizable discount on MSPro7;

http://www.ulead.com/store/msp/runme.htm

Dr. Mordrid

[Morgoth]

with mspro7, for an analogue card like my g200 marvel, would it be able to capture as good as avi_io i.e. full frames, synchronised audio and lossless splitting at 2gb file limit?

[gt40]

I have used MSPro 6.5 with my rt.x10 to capture mpeg in realtime (with DVD settings) from the analog inputs, so this should work fine with most analog/1EEE-1394 setups