Capturing with MainConcept MPEG-2 Encoder

[bb]

Did anyone try it? The encoder (v1.4) has an integrated life source capability, so you can capture directly to MPEG-2 from your TV card. MainConcept's encoder is very fast, almost as fast as CCE, but CCE doesn't have a tv interface. I've tried it once or twice with very good results. You can tweak a lot, but you have to do the tuner settings manually each time you want to capture.

I believe this encoder needs automation: a vcr scheduler to automatically capture the desired tv channel at the specified time (maybe similar to what vvcrscheduler does for VirtualVCR). This would make it a (superior) alternative to PowerVCR or WinVCR.

bb

[Kb_cruncher]

I have been using WinDVR for a while now and the quality and configurability is very good.

I was using showshifter but found its capture format to be a real pain.

I may try vfw mpeg2 option in virtualdub altough i'm not sure if it works but i think it is the only way to capture mpeg2 in vdub.

I will give mainconcept a go(if i can find it)and post feedback.

[Swan]

I tried it and was not happy. If I didn't enable buffering, I dropped a lot of frames (perhaps my Athlon XP 1900+/768 Mb RAM/computer is too old, but I doubt it, as I can capture to Mpeg-2 directly using Ulead's software without dropping frames). When enabling the buffer, no more frames were dropped, but after capturing for ten minutes or more and hitting "stop" MC would buffer forever and hang. So no file was produced in the end. I'll experiement some more, using CBR, VBR, etcetera and see if it makes any difference.