DAZZLE DVD Capture HD device question

[Butcher Wing]

Hope someone can help me.

I have been using the *DAZZLE dvd recorder* device for years. The regular original one. IT's like a capture card device for transferring VHS to dvd via your PC.

Anyway, no matter what I record with it on "Best quality" setting, it only ever gives me a 3.2GB mpg2 file.

I want way higher quality than that. So I thought I'd buy the newer *DAZZLE HD recorder device*. But I see in the specs that it says "minimum requirements" 3.2GB of harddrive space.

This leads me to think that even the HD DAZZLE device will only give me a 3.2GB video file.

My question is. Is this down to my PC's internal video card limitations or should 'DAZZLE' device be all that I need for high quality video capture?

Do I need a better internal video card?



thanks.....

[Emulgator]

I want way higher quality than that.

Dazzle devices contain an ancient MPEG-2 hardware encoder
that deliver the blockfest at any bitrate. I once had one in my hands.

Capturing in MPEG-2 is not High Quality anyway.
I suggest to capture in an as-low-as-possible-compression scheme,
probably uncompressed, then edit and compress as the last step using a dedicated software compressor.
HCEnc is already nice, free and surpasses many other MPEG-2 encoders.

[Butcher Wing]

Thanks for your reply.. And oh yeah, I was hoping the newer DAZZLE HD device would be able to capture in uncompressed AVI. It does according to the specs on the website.

But I was wondering if I needed a better internal video capture card in my pc, or if DAZZLE does all the work?

And yep, I plan to encode to mpg2 using a decent encoder. I currently use CCE. I will try HCEnc too, if it's not too difficult. Thanks.

[zee944]

If you happen to have a miniDV camcorder with a DV-IN port you can record anything in good quality (DV AVI format, very little loss) to your computer.

In case you're encoding DVDs: CCE is very noisy (or at least was the last time I checked) and overcomplicated, I don't understand why it's so popular, maybe because it was free for a while. Nothing can beat Canopus Procoder 1.5 in "Mastering Quality" mode, if you're going to make DVDs.

[Butcher Wing]

Thanks for replying. I just want it for transferring VHS and Laserdiscs in the best quality possible. Or at-least better than 3.2GB max size the current Dazzle device is giving me.

And yep, I only use CCE because I heard it was good and wasn't too difficult. But I found it noisy, you're right! I would love to use HCEnc instead but finding it bit hard to understand the AVIsynth script nonsense that's needed to use it. Mind you, I haven't really tried it yet. I just read some guides and thought... :scared:

[Emulgator]

AviSource("<path to file>.avi")
ConvertToYV12()

Install avisynth.
Save this text as HC.avs.
Point HCgui_026.exe to this HC.avs.
This is your start.

[Butcher Wing]

Thank you, Emulgator!

I have since managed to use HCenc using AVStoDVD, but I wanted to start using AVISynth instead, so this is of help. Thanks.

[zee944]

Thank you, Emulgator!

I have since managed to use HCenc using AVStoDVD, but I wanted to start using AVISynth instead, so this is of help. Thanks.

I don't know what sort of scripts HCenc need, but AVISynth is quite simple and logical. Some scripts you run into on the web may look frightening, but that's because peope usually does complicated things with it. Basic things like opening and joining different videos, cropping, trimming, resizing and such are easy.