Some years ago I captured VHS with AIW & MMC at 352x480 MPEG2 and looked great on a 32" SD TV, but no longer acceptable when displayed on a 55" 1080p HDTV compared to 15mbps 704x480 MPEG2 captures.
I read a bunch of threads on this and other forums about the JVC DR-M100S LSI encoder which apparently has better capture quality than AIW MMC, but was wondering if anyone has experience with how they compare at higher bitrates? I read the JVC max bitrate is 9Mbps (7.5/8/9Mbps modes are CBR) and MMC can capture up to 15Mbps (I'd also be using CBR), where I don't mind higher ATI MMC bitrate to catch up to DR-M100S quality.
My current workflow is JVC HR-S5800U -> DMR-ES15 (TBC-ish passthru) -> AIW VE 7500 PCI (Theater200) & TB Santa Cruz audio -> ATI MMC 9.02 & WinXPSP1 Home (Intel Q6700 Conroe; less than 15% utilization and no issues with dropped frames). I don't like the look on the 55" TV of upper/lower borders with 720x480 capture and "Record Cropped Video" checked, while 704x480 capture is perfect.
In addition, would a DR-M100S simplify the setup by removing the DMR-ES15 passthru (IDK if the DR-M100S has internal electronics that would do the same TBC-ish job)? I wouldn't mind picking up a DR-M100S if it would improve capture quality from the ATI MMC setup, and can repair most of the flashing "LOADING" failures by myself that I read about except for something like a failed DVD drive which would need a donor unit.
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