filters to use

[killingspree]

i've just captured an analoge family video and tried to encode it into divx to save a little space...
while the capture (mpg 1) is at an acceptable tough not overwhelming quality, the encoded file is close to being unwatchable. (does this word exist?!? :-P - sorry, english isn't my first language!) especially faces and all other details suffer a lot, although i've used quite a high bitrate (around 1200)
do you have any recommendations which filters to use to minimize the quality loss during the encoding prozess?

thanks for you help and Merry Xmas everybody!

steVe

[dar1us]

How exactly did you capture it.

What makes it unwatchable, is it full of noise, is it interlaced, are the colours all wrong. I suggest that you get yourself TMPG: www.tmpgenc.net and load up your capture in that. Then hit 'advanced' or whatever it is called. Play around with the 'Noise Reduction' tool and other things. Sharpening, simple colour correction, things like that. Then when you are complete, save the project (FILE/SAVE PROJECT) and then get VFAPI, found on the doom9 software page somewhere.

Install VFAPI, the codec that is, drop your TPR file (the TMPG Project file) into it, then hit OK, then convert. It will create a fake AVI file that you can re-encode. The process shouldn't take too long, if it is a long movie, maybe a half min or possibly more.

Then you can load up that AVI file in a program like VirtualDub and re-encode it. You can find out how to do that at, guess where, doom9 in the guides. But as you have already posted a large number of posts, I guess that all of this is totally easy to do, but I do suggest that you fiddle with the file in TMPGenc

Enjoy

[killingspree]

i'm going to try all you said.
i do know how to encode a movie with vdub (:

thanks
steVe

EDIT: is there a way to load multiple mpg files into tmpgenc?