Mpeg2/DVD question

[MadMike]

I have a Hauppaugge WinTV PVR250 card that I
use to capture my home video in Mpeg2 format.
My question is, there are 3 default settings
for capturing with mpeg2 which equate to
2, 4 or 8 Mb/s. If I am to use these generated
clips to author a DVD to watch on a stand alone
player, can I capture at 2 or 4 Mb/s to get more
on a DVD, or are the files 'padded' back up to
8Mb/s in a similar way as VCD?


THanks,

MadMike.

[bb]

It's a question of quality. You probably won't be satisfied with 2MB/s, so use 4 MB/s or 8 MB/s. Filesize will be larger when using 8 MB/s. There's no padding, so you will get more stuff on your DVD using the lower bitrates.

bb

[artful]

MadMike

I have recently bought the same card for the same reason. The choice is DVD Standard, DVD Long and DVD Extra Long. As bb says, use the highest quality possible for each VHS depending on it's length. From memory Extra Long requires about 30 MB per minute so for me that's about 135 mins of movie as I've got the 4GB FAT32 limit to live with at the moment. For really long films I've tried Mpeg2 Half D1 setting which is not bad and requires about 15MB/min. The resulting mpeg plays at half width in MediaPlayer but full width in PowerDVD and on my standalone.

However, I'm having a problem with my produced mpegs - the quality is OK but the timestamp in the mpeg2 is frequently reset to zero and I can't process them. Are you having the same problem ? The resulting DVDs only play up to the point where the timestamp first resets.

I don't know whether it may be just some sort of PCI conflict on my system. I've emailed Hauppauge but haven't heard from them yet.

[MadMike]

No problems with viewing the mpegs: The largest file I have recorded
so far is about 1 hour's worth at full DVD quality.