PRO's Please Help Me!

[chipvideo]

Trying to capture video from my directv system to burn onto dvd.

This is my hardware:

P4 1.7 Ghz.
512 Ram
120 gig HDD
ATI AIW 8500 128 Meg Ram

Capturing using a S-video cable from directv to AIW 8500.

Using 720x480 at 8mbps gives me only 1 hour. Movies are usually 90-120 min. I figure that I need the 720-480 to get best quality. I tried 4mbps and way too jerky. I have dvdit PE so I was wondering if there is any way of going AVI capture. However I noticed it does provide the best quality, I would end up using 100 gigs for 95 min of video recorded. I don't know if I want to let my computer transcode it for 40 hours from avi to mpeg2. What are my options?

[chipvideo]

Ok I finally am using tmpge and dvdmaestro. Using the tmpge to convert the avi into m2v and mp2. Everything is fine except for the video. I am confused on how to make all the settings in tmpge correct. Recoding from directv to video card via svideo and regular audio cables.

[chipvideo]

Forgot to add one thing.

The example is taken from a capture of cnbc. The stock ticker has terrible look with the avi capture. Any letter on the ticker has lines comming from each character on both sides. The same color as the symbol itself. Seems as though anything that has motion has this look to it.

[Swan]

What you see is probably interlace. If you plan to watch your captured video on a TV (perhaps put it on an SVCD, DVD), leave it be. It's good stuff. Don't deinterlace. Just don't. :)
If you can, output the video you captured from your AIW's TV-out to the TV and you will see a very nice and smooth ticker. Does the AIW have TV-Out? I admit, I have a Matrox card and know nothing about AIW cards.:)

Read more about interlace here: http://www.projectorpeople.com/news_info/pulldown_1.asp?page=2
Doom9 also has a lot of tips on URL's where you can read about it:
http://doom9.org/ivtc-tut.htm
These are my picks:
http://nickyguides.digital-digest.com/interlace.htm
http://www.lurkertech.com/lg/fields/fields.html

I don't understand what problem you are having. Can you please be more specific?
You're capturing to Mpeg-2? What do you want to do with the files you capture? Author a DVD? SVCD?

720x480 at 8mbps gives me only 1 hour. Movies are usually 90-120 min.
What do you mean by "gives me only 1 hour"? What happens after one hour?

Yes, you can capture to avi format. If your driver supports it. If you read the FAQ you can find a lot of info about that. But be prepared for audio/video sync issues.

/Swan

[chipvideo]

I want to get the best quality and put everything onto dvd's. I have a $20K home theater and just want everything on dvd's. I captured it in AVI format and that is where the crappy ticker comes out on. It is each letter on the ticker that has spikes on both sides of each letter. Seems to only happen on motion stuff. The audio and video actually synch perfectly.

[Swan]

Those "spikes" are the effects of viewing interlaced video on a progressive display (computer monitor). When you output the "spiked" (interlaced) video on an interlaced display (the TV) it will look correct.
Friendly advice: You need to read up on interlace. And on how TV works. ;)

/Swan

[chipvideo]

Ok how about this then. I took that video and authored it to dvd and played it on my home system and it looks the same.

[chipvideo]

Just so you know those "spikes" are sideways spikes.

[Swan]

Check this http://nickyguides.digital-digest.com/interlace.htm
Does the "spikes" look like the photo of Star Trek's William Riker on that page?
If not, can you post a screen shot of your "spikes"?

/Swan

[Ookami]

Swan, you are really a very patient man :D .

@chipvideo

Are you sure you did everything right with the TMPGEnc settings? A easy way not to mess up is to use the TMPGEnc wizard when importing (loading) AVIs. TMPGEnc should now automaticly set the first field etc.

And I think that Swan is correct, it is probably just the interlace effect. Did you even read the sites Swan gave you?

>It is each letter on the ticker that has spikes on both sides of each letter.

http://www.100fps.com/

"The text at the bottom scrolls from right to left and thus leaves you with mice teeth because this frame consists of 2 snapshots of time, as described above."

Again, do NOT deinterlace if you encode to DVD or SVCD (or Xvid with interlace support ;) )!

http://www.100fps.com/video_resolution_vs_fluidity.htm

"2) Strange but true: A frame can consist of non-interlaced parts and interlaced parts:"

This is also possible...

Cheers,

Mijo.

[Swan]

@Ookami Swan, you are really a very patient man
LOL, you got me smiling all day at that statement.:D

/Swan

[chipvideo]

Thanks alot both of you. I am getting better at this now. Seems as though UYVY is the best codec for AVI that I have found. Is there any better ones out there? Remember this is for directv with S-Video cable capture. I also found out that when using the taking out noise feature in tmpge it takes much longer.

[Ookami]

Originally posted by Swan
@Ookami
LOL, you got me smiling all day at that statement.:D

/Swan

:)

Originally posted by chipvideo
Thanks alot both of you. I am getting better at this now. Seems as though UYVY is the best codec for AVI that I have found. Is there any better ones out there? Remember this is for directv with S-Video cable capture. I also found out that when using the taking out noise feature in tmpge it takes much longer.

Er, did you read the FAQ at all? How about the VirtualDub online documentation (http://www.virtualdub.org/ )? I know, no one likes this kind of "answer" but it should be normal to search first, then ask...

I would not recommend to use TMPGEnc for noise reduction because it's so awfull slow. Use Avisynth or VirtualDub.

Remember, 99.9% of the answer are already here. Just use the forum search feature.

Cheers,

Mijo.