Philips 7133 card and VirtualVCR

[superblast]

I recently purchased a Philips 7133 chipset based card by Asus to compare with my CX23881 XCapture card and the analog input of my Canon DV camcorder. I did some test recordings of the same source with each and ended up liking the results from the Philips card the best.

So, now I'd like to start transferring my Beta, VHS and laserdisc material to NTSC DVD and want to make sure I've got all my settings right in VirtualVCR. In the video tab, I have the following settings:

Frame size: 720x480
Color format: YUY2
Frame rate: 29.970

I have the "Use Compression" box checked and I'm using Huffyuv v2.1.1 at it's default settings.

Is there anything else I need to worry about?

I ultimately want to mask the head switching noise from tape based sources to help in the MPG2 encoding but I would do that during the encoding and not the capturing phase, right?

I have read a lot here and at dvdrhelp forums and I'm not looking for handouts. I would like to confirm these things because there's a lot of conflicting information and not very much info in the guides in regards to VHS to DVD transfers. So, thanks for any answers and any further suggestions are much appreciated.

[Arachnotron]

Frame size: 720x480

I would suggest using 704x480 instead. Like most cards, the Asus probably does not cover the complete DVD area, and capping at 720x480 would leave you with an incorrect aspect ratio for DVD. But do check here for yourself to be sure, Asus may have programmed its drivers differently from other Phillips based cards I have seen.

I ultimately want to mask the head switching noise from tape based sources to help in the MPG2 encoding but I would do that during the encoding and not the capturing phase, right?

Correct. From NTSC sources I mostly have to letterbox only 2 or 4 lines at the bottom with my Terratec Cinergy 400 (is also SAA7134 chip).

[violao]

Originally posted by superblast
Color format: YUY2

If the destination format is DVD I believe there is no point in using YUY2, since DVD is YV12, so MPEG encoders will perform this conversion anyway and using YUY2 for capture you're only wasting disk space.

[Arachnotron]

If the destination format is DVD I believe there is no point in using YUY2, since DVD is YV12, so MPEG encoders will perform this conversion anyway and using YUY2 for capture you're only wasting disk space.

If you are going directly to DVD this is probably true. But if you intend to do any form of postprocessing I would stay at YUY2 to keep the extra chroma info available for the filters to work with. With the current crop of computers the difference in file size should not matter much.

[trevlac]

Originally posted by violao
If the destination format is DVD I believe there is no point in using YUY2, since DVD is YV12, so MPEG encoders will perform this conversion anyway and using YUY2 for capture you're only wasting disk space.

I think this is a possibly incorrect assumption.

MPEG is indeed 4:2:0, but you should verify if your mpeg2 encoder accepts YV12 as input. If it does not, your YV12 must get upconverted to YUY2 or RGB before your encoder turns it back into YCbCr 4:2:0 for MPEG.

It's good to know your entier process ...

And as Arachno says, YUY2 has more color resolution than YV12, so intermediate processing steps would probably do better.

However, I don't want to sound to strong about this ... it all depends upon many things. If violao is happy, then great!

Know your process and test ..... do what works for you.

[BITS]

quick question, why would 720x480 not leave you with a correct AR for dvd? i mean in your encoder like cce you can select 4:3 or 16:9 or whatever.

i thought aspect ratio was in no way tied to frame size (but something discovered by the renassaince painters :-)

is this analogy example incorrect when describing AR...below....

if your standing in a museum, looking at a painting on the wall that is 720x480 (720x480 for conversation here), no matter where you walked the frame size would always stay the same. however, your aspect (ratio) would change how you view the painting. regardless of the frame size no matter what it is, depending on where you standing gives you your aspect (ratio)?

is the above incorrect? i thought you could capture (if possible) at 123x456 and putting the ar of 4:3 (or whatever) would make it look normal (maybe really distorted, but porportionally normal).

[Arachnotron]

i thought aspect ratio was in no way tied to frame size (but something discovered by the renassaince painters :-)

I think you are confusing Aspect Ratio with perspective.

Anyhow, most SAA7133/34 cards cap about 704 DVD pixels worth of video. By capping at 720x480 and putting that on a DVD you are in effect resizing 704 pixels to 720 pixels, thus changing the Aspect ratio.

Try reading chapters 4, 5 and especially 10 of the analogue capture guide for more on this stuff.