Very Low Bitrate Hardware Mpeg1 Encoder?

[leebo]

Almost a year ago I Asked if anyone knew of a hardware Mpeg1 encoder that could capture at about 700 to 750kbps@352X240.

No one who answered knew of one. Someone told me Pinnicle Studio Pro 9 and their Dazzle USB hardware encoder could, so I bought it. But it can only go as low as VCD rates (1200kbps I think). It will let me set the rate to 750, but later when I check the file it's 1200kbps.

I'm still looking and was wondering if anything has come out since my first request.

[Mug Funky]

hmm. i was about to say the MPX3000 can do it, but it seems to only go down to 1000 kbps (quality is very good though, compared to what the thing does to MPEG-2 at that bitrate, even at half-d1).

if you've got a fast computer your best bet is simply capturing at SIF resolution (352x2XX) and piping that to a software encoder. ffmpeg may be able to do this, though i've never tried this sort of thing myself (not much call for mpeg-1 these days).

[leebo]

Thanks, but no.

For my application my client needs Mpeg1 at 700 to 750 kbps, live.

They do it in house (re-encode), so for me to offer them a service like this I'd have to be able to do it at the site for it to be worth my effort.

[olyteddy]

My Hauppauge USB2 PVR is able to record at that resolution / speed, as verified by AVICodec. I was also able to change the _LiveTV profile to that spec, and judging by the change in visual appearance, it did indeed lower to MPEG1. PM me and I can e-Mail you a sample.

[Mug Funky]

messing with webcams the other day i discovered that VLC might be perfect for your needs. it can use dshow capture drivers (so webcam, analog cap, possibly 1394 but i'm not certain), and transcode to mpeg-1, 2, 4 and AVC on the fly at pretty much any bitrate. then you can set it as a streaming server if your machine is set up for it (tried that the other night, but i really don't have a clue there).

i was able to use that to encode to mpeg-1, and play the stream off my hard drive with the same machine in realtime - there was a few seconds lag of course (there need not be though), but the playback never stopped until i quit either app.

as far as doing it onsite goes, it's a little trickier than an external capture device, but not much. just have to install some free software and set up the machine it's on.

[leebo]

VLC? Is it some kind of HARDWARE encoder?

[olyteddy]

VLC (Video Lan Client) is streaming and playing software. It is capable of transcoding by streaming your vid to a file.