vhs/tv capture

[maxwell3]

Im looking for a little advice . I have a 2g p4 , 250 g harddrive ati9700 vid card . I want to capture tv /movies from cable to put on dvd and also convert some vhs to dvd . Im using a tv @nywhere to capture I have many programs I can use to capture My question is Can someone please advise what are the optimal encoders and codecs I should have on this computer . Please if your only going to post to tell me to search the forums save your energy . I realize I could spend hours looking but Im hoping some kind soul will just provide me with this info .I have huffy and cce 2.5 already . What Im mostly confused about is codecs. There are many codec packs etc. I read somewhere that too many is worse than none . Thanks in advance
Forgot to mention Im using XP .

[jggimi]

Video codecs needed: none
Audio codecs needed: none

You'll be capturing in HuffYUV video and Linear PCM audio (.wav), I assume.

You'll be encoding the HuffYUV video into MPEG-2 for DVD.

You can leave the audio in Linear PCM. You could convert it to Dolby Digital (.ac3) if saving some space is desired, though there is likely no need to do so. But if you decide you want to do that, you will probably want to add AC3Filter (http://www.doom9.org/Soft21/Filters/ac3filter_0_70b.exe) to your Windows platform, along with the appropriate AC3 encoder, such as BeSweetGUI (http://www.doom9.org/Soft21/Audio/BeSweetGUIv0.7b4.zip).

There are no step-by-step guides for analog capture to DVD. But there is an analog capture guide to capture to avi, and there are three guides for avi -> dvd. One is in the DV Forum, the other two are on Doom9's main website.

[trevlac]

Originally posted by maxwell3
What Im mostly confused about is codecs.

In case it is not clear. As you capture, you can compress the video file. This is what a codec does (It also decompresses a compressed file). Many use Huffyuv to compress. You do not have to compress as you capture. However, the file will be VERY big, and there will be alot of data you system will need to keep up with. If you want make a DVD, you have to convert your captured video to MPEG. This is what CCE does.

So, if you capture uncompressed, and use CCE to convert to MPEG, you don't need any codecs. If you capture with Huffyuv, that is all you need.

[jggimi]

Thanks Trevlac, I should have made that clear; no additional codecs required beyond what is already installed, AC3Filter may be desired for playback if transcoding to Dolby Digital.

CODEC is an acronym for Compressor / Decompressor. AC3Filter is a decompressor only, so you could think of it as a "__dec" if it helps.

[maxwell3]

Thanks very much for your help gentlemen .When you say capture with huffy (ive never used it but I know there are guides avail. ) is there a particular capture program youd recommend ( I have many collected from here and there ) also I wonder if there is any advantage to doing it the way you recommend or can I get as good a quality capture if I use a program to capture directly to mpeg2 on the fly (such as my DVD)

[jggimi]

Now I will point you to the Capture FAQ (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=32575).

For software, I recommend questions 6 and 7.

HuffYUV is recommended for analog capture rather than MPEG-2 or any of the MPEG-4 variants, see question 13, second half, and question 14.

I hope that's acceptable?

[maxwell3]

Very helpful thankyou . But heres the thing . I started to get into this awhile back but I just got myself overloaded with information which is sometime as bad or worse than not enogh and I wound up doing nothing . I wish someone would simplify the process to convert vhs to dvd and also captureing from tv/cable . I wonder in reality just how much of a difference there is between captureing in lossless compression and later encodeing or .. just using a PVS type program (ATI, etc) and captureing in mpeg2 . Thanks again

[trevlac]

Where do you live? I'll come over and do it for you. :p


Sorry, just kidding of course. I consider VHS -> DVD one of the most involved processes there is. It includes digitizing analog, probably digital filtering, encoding to mpeg (maybe ac3), and authoring a DVD. To do this process, you have to have trade offs between 3 things.

1)Control/Quality
2)Ease of use
3)Money

Almost by definition, if you have a quick and easy process, you will sacrifice some level of quality (be it video quality (tweaks), or audio options, or how fancy your production can be). You can also buy better equipment/programs to improve the other 2. For example, settop recorders are supposed to produce nice encodes, but they cost a bit and are probably limited in their options. DV capture devices are easier to use, but they cost more than a cheap card, and they only encode in DV. Procoder is supposed to produce much better interlaced mpeg than others, but it's not cheap.

You have to decide what you want. Don't care about the details? Buy a settop box or Tivo. Can you make some nice stuff with cheap hardware and free(ish) software? Yep. Is it worth the effort if the process isn't fun for you? Probably not. ;)