Divx Convertion questions

[ra294]

I have read all the FAQs and I still have some questions:
I have WinFast TV2000 XP Expert card on Windows xp SP2.
I would like to capture TV and play it on my DVD player that supports Xvid/Divx.
My problem is that I can not use lossless Huffyuv codec or MJPEG codec since I my HD is not thet large.
I thought of using Mp2 (DVD) for capturing (3.4 GB per hour) and then convert it to Divx.
My question is:
1. Is that the best algorithm for my needs (in terms of easy process and good quality) ?
2. Someone recommand me of Ulead Video Studio 8 for the convert, is he correct ?

Thanks for your time.

[jggimi]

Disk drive pricing has dropped to the point where it might be economical for you to capture losslessly. You may be able to acquire another disk drive for less than the cost of Ulead's VideoStudio.

Ulead's VideoStudio can do MPEG-4 encoding into AVI, but it is (in my opinion) cumbersome to use for that purpose, since one has to set up every feature of the encode as "custom", and encoding multiple passes means doing that more than once. Bitrate calculations must be done manually. No compressibility testing is possible, etc.

VideoStudio is designed to use for video capture (both analog and DV), editing, and then VCD/SVCD/DVD encoding and burning. Don't take my word for it, though, find out for yourself. Ulead offers a 30-day free trial of their software.

When I first began analog capture, I used MPEG-2, because that was what the software included with the card could do. I was very dissatisfied with the results. I needed high bitrates and high resolutions, and found that unless I set the MPEG-2 encoding to 100% I-frames, the dropped frame counts were huge. I still had dropped frames, but the count was much lower.

I eventually switched to MJPEG capture, and was much happier with the results.

To encode MPEG-2 to DivX, I used Gordian Knot. DVD2AVI (now DGIndex) can accept MPEG-2 input files into the GK process.

[Pyscrow]

At 3.4gig per hour you are capturing your mpeg2 at a much higher resolution than analog TV (The winfast is an analog capture card from memory, and by the size you state you are probably using full DVD resoltion, which really matches a digital capture card). Try a lower capture resolution more compatable with the quality of your captured signal, and you might find you do have enough space to use a lossless codec.

[ra294]

You are correct, I am using full DVD resoltion to cupture Analog TV with my winfast card. Which resolution do you recommand to use (PAL) in my case ?

Thanks for the help.