Bitrate for direct MPEG-2 capturing

[naripeddi]

Hi,

I normally record B&W movies from Satellite box using Canopus ADVC 110 into a DV-AVI file, remove commercials, encode, author and then burn to DVD.

However, the process takes a lot of time, especially at the stage of encoding.

Since these are only TV recordings, I am thinking of directly capturing into MPEG-2 DVD format (in software) but using the same Canopus hardware. I know this works, because I tried on a small clip. I am also interested to use my recently bought ATI TV Wonder 600 USB, but I guess it cannot capture PAL MPEG-2.

If I am to capture MPEG-2 DVD format directly, how do I factor-in the commercials for setting the bitrate? I won't know the duration of the commercials in advance, so any bitrate I allocate for the duration of the commercials will be wasted since I will be removing them from the MPEG-2 file anyway. Then how do I set the bitrate for capturing into MPEG-2?

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks.

[lordsmurf]

Unfortunately, no, the ATI TV Wonder 600 USB only captures MPEG-2 as NTSC. It can capture AVI as PAL or NTSC. I've looked for ways to make it record MPEG-2 outside of using ATI CMC, but have not been met with success. Live MPEG-2 recording in general was never a good idea on a computer, outside of a few specific pieces of hardware, using dedicated made-for-the-hardware software.

What are you using to capture PAL MPEG-2 with a Canopus DV box? <-- I'm quite curious about this one.

I'm also not sure how the DV box will handle 16x9 content, which is pretty much the only way we receive TV now.

[naripeddi]

Thanks.

Well...My old laptop came with WinDVD Creator software and it did capture in MPEG-2 directly with Canopus hardware. I capture mostly Black & White movies, which are mainly 4:3 so no problem there.

Regards

[lordsmurf]

Yeah, WinDVD Creator (formerly WinDVR) is a very infamous low-quality MPEG capturing tool. The biggest problem was that it did terrible deinterlacing, dropped frames, and was just overall soft and blurry quality. Along with PowerVCR and neoDVD, they were pretty much despised throughout the 2000s. I don't at all suggest it.

I'd almost suggest using a cheap DVD recorder instead.

[naripeddi]

Thanks LS. If not DVD Recorder (since finding one is very difficult in my part of the world), what good software you would suggest for MPEG-2 capture? And what should be the bitrate settings? Should I try getting one of ATI's MPEG-2 cards (TV Wonder 750 or something) from USA?

[kpmedia]

The only ATI cards that guaranteed capture MPEG-2 in PAL are the older ATI All In Wonder Radeon cards -- all are internal, not USB.
AGP, PCI, PCI express.

A full list is here in post#6: http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vide...html#post13441

[naripeddi]

Thanks kp.