Which would be better quality

[Brent]

Looking at some threads from Grigory and others, I wonder what would be better if I am trying to save some hard drive space and minimise dropped frames plus get the most out of capturing Hi8 and dumping to VHS?-
Using half frame capture and maximum MJPEG quality or using full frame and the default half way setting for MJPEG on the RRG?

[fluggo99]

I haven't compared data rates, but my first guess is half-frame full quality. Just look at a JPEG file that you've compressed with low quality.

[This_Idiot]

Hi Brent,

I'd go further and suggest that you try comparing a direct transfer from Hi-8 to your VCR against a 1/4 screen capture, edit and print.

That way you'll have a good idea in practical terms of the comparisons and will be able to compensate according to your own ideals and the capabilities of your particular mix of equipment.

[Brent]

Thanks for the tips guys. I'll do some tests to see what suits me. I used to just set everything to maximum but I have moved the RRG to a slower less well endowed machine and feel that for the purposes of a VHS end output, the extra time rendering and hard drive space, I might find a lower spec capture that is appropriate.

[Grigory]

Hi,

I think you have to compare half width captures with full width captures.
1/4 is definitely worse because it contains omly one field of two.

I did this coparison for myself half year ago. I used VHS-c camcorder cassette in VHS VCR, and then recorded edited video back to the same VHS. In this case, full width captures looked better on PC creen, but everything was identical ater recording to tape. Rendering time was doubled for full width video. So, that time I decided to do half width videos for VHS. I do the same now when I make VHS-originated mpeg2 files with my home video.

Grigory