What compression settings are you using for capture of cab..

[Guest]

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Howdy,

I have been playing around with VirtualVCR for the last couple of days, using it to capture CableTV (NTSC)
to a divx AVI format. Once captured, I convert to VCD or SVCD after cleaning up the audio a bit.

I am interested to know what bitrates those of you doing a similar thing are using for capture. I have
been using divx settings of "Standard" at "2400 Kbps" with audio set to PCM uncompressed. These settings
will allow me to record an hour and change before the resulting file runs into the two gigabyte limit.

My main question here is, do these settings seem typical for what you would use?

Any suggestions or insight appreciated,

Jon

 

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Jon Danniken wrote:

> Howdy,
>
> I have been playing around with VirtualVCR for the last couple of days, using it to capture CableTV (NTSC)
> to a divx AVI format. Once captured, I convert to VCD or SVCD after cleaning up the audio a bit.
>
> I am interested to know what bitrates those of you doing a similar thing are using for capture. I have
> been using divx settings of "Standard" at "2400 Kbps" with audio set to PCM uncompressed. These settings
> will allow me to record an hour and change before the resulting file runs into the two gigabyte limit.
>
> My main question here is, do these settings seem typical for what you would use?
>
> Any suggestions or insight appreciated,
>
> Jon

First, I'd stay away from out-dated VCD and SVCD formats.

When doing DivX or Xvid, consider storing the audio at 128 or 256 kb/s MP3 audio. This will save a lot of
space and any player than can handle DivX will handle the audio fine.

You can also save a lot of space by doing a 2:1 reduction (give a 352x240 size which will scale perfectly to
full frame on playback). After I edited out the commercials, one movie I recorded from cable fit on a CD. Of
course it didn't look as good as the original 7 GB mpeg-2 file but it was good enough and better than anything
on a tape considering playback was on a TV rather than a PC monitor.

Lastly, you need to upgrade your OS to one that can handle NTFS and you won't have file size issues. I don't
know about Germany, but here you can get XP Pro "OEM Edition" from many mom & pop computer stores for less
than $150 (I bought a copy yesterday for $146 plus $3 for a mouse to qualify as "hardware" required by MS to
be sold with the OS), that's a lot less than buying the boxed edition...

 

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Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

"Keith Clark" wrote:
> Jon Danniken wrote:
>
> > Howdy,
> >
> > I have been playing around with VirtualVCR for the last couple of days, using it to capture CableTV
(NTSC)
> > to a divx AVI format. Once captured, I convert to VCD or SVCD after cleaning up the audio a bit.
> >
> > I am interested to know what bitrates those of you doing a similar thing are using for capture. I
have
> > been using divx settings of "Standard" at "2400 Kbps" with audio set to PCM uncompressed. These
settings
> > will allow me to record an hour and change before the resulting file runs into the two gigabyte limit.
> >
> > My main question here is, do these settings seem typical for what you would use?
> >
> > Any suggestions or insight appreciated,
> >
> > Jon
>
> First, I'd stay away from out-dated VCD and SVCD formats.
>
> When doing DivX or Xvid, consider storing the audio at 128 or 256 kb/s MP3 audio. This will save a lot
of
> space and any player than can handle DivX will handle the audio fine.
>
> You can also save a lot of space by doing a 2:1 reduction (give a 352x240 size which will scale
perfectly to
> full frame on playback). After I edited out the commercials, one movie I recorded from cable fit on a
CD. Of
> course it didn't look as good as the original 7 GB mpeg-2 file but it was good enough and better than
anything
> on a tape considering playback was on a TV rather than a PC monitor.
>
> Lastly, you need to upgrade your OS to one that can handle NTFS and you won't have file size issues. I
don't
> know about Germany, but here you can get XP Pro "OEM Edition" from many mom & pop computer stores for
less
> than $150 (I bought a copy yesterday for $146 plus $3 for a mouse to qualify as "hardware" required by
MS to
> be sold with the OS), that's a lot less than buying the boxed edition...

Thanks for your response, Keith. The main reason (for the time being, at least) I am finalizing with
VCD/SVCD is to take the occasional show to a friend's house. In any case, though, while I am using DivX
for the video encoding, I can't seem to get any of my capture applications (VVCR, VDub, others) to encode
to MP3 "on the fly" during capture (post-production works fine to encode the audio in MP3).. I tried the
LameACM and even the Fraunhofer/Radium thing, but regardless of MP3 codec I choose it crashes the capture
app (I'm still looking in to why this is occuring)..

I am using a WinTV (Hauppauge card), capturing NTSC at 320x240 right now, and am using Win2000 with NTFS;
the two gigabyte limit is for AVI (isn't there a two-gigabyte limit on AVI?).

My main question, though, concerns how much video compression I can get away with on the original capture
without a great impact on quality. I do know that the incoming broadcast isn't very high quality, but how
much more bandwidth I should allow for compression is what I am trying to figure out. In other words,
what bitrate will give me the best practical quality for capturing cable television, without going _too_
far into the law of diminishing returns.

I know it is a subjective opinion, and everyone will have their own settings, but I'm just looking for
some feedback as to what others are using when doing a similar activity, i.e., capturing cable-tv with
Divx compression.

Jon

 

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Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

Jon Danniken wrote:Thanks for your response, Keith. The main reason (for the time being, at least) I am
finalizing with

> VCD/SVCD is to take the occasional show to a friend's house. In any case, though, while I am using DivX
> for the video encoding, I can't seem to get any of my capture applications (VVCR, VDub, others) to encode
> to MP3 "on the fly" during capture (post-production works fine to encode the audio in MP3).. I tried the
> LameACM and even the Fraunhofer/Radium thing, but regardless of MP3 codec I choose it crashes the capture
> app (I'm still looking in to why this is occuring)..
>
> I am using a WinTV (Hauppauge card), capturing NTSC at 320x240 right now, and am using Win2000 with NTFS;
> the two gigabyte limit is for AVI (isn't there a two-gigabyte limit on AVI?).
>
> My main question, though, concerns how much video compression I can get away with on the original capture
> without a great impact on quality. I do know that the incoming broadcast isn't very high quality, but how
> much more bandwidth I should allow for compression is what I am trying to figure out. In other words,
> what bitrate will give me the best practical quality for capturing cable television, without going _too_
> far into the law of diminishing returns.
>
> I know it is a subjective opinion, and everyone will have their own settings, but I'm just looking for
> some feedback as to what others are using when doing a similar activity, i.e., capturing cable-tv with
> Divx compression.
>
> Jon

Hopefully someone more experienced will have a better answer but the way I understand it there's no file size
limit on AVI files except for one type of DV-AVI.

For a while I was using ShowShifter to capture directly to Xvid (open source mpeg-4) from a WinTV-Go card and
was using a quality based compression rather than bit-rate based. I set the quantitization to "2" and that
gave good results.

It's been a long time but I think ShowShifter was able to put the audio into MP3 in real time.

You might want to download a trial version and give it a try.

I was also trying something from "XMedia Studio" and it would also capture directly to Xvid. You might give
that a try too : http://www.xmediastudio.com/

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

> Howdy,
>
> I have been playing around with VirtualVCR for the last couple of days,
using it to capture CableTV (NTSC)
> to a divx AVI format. Once captured, I convert to VCD or SVCD after
cleaning up the audio a bit.
>
> I am interested to know what bitrates those of you doing a similar thing
are using for capture. I have
> been using divx settings of "Standard" at "2400 Kbps" with audio set to
PCM uncompressed. These settings
> will allow me to record an hour and change before the resulting file runs
into the two gigabyte limit.
>
> My main question here is, do these settings seem typical for what you
would use?
>
> Any suggestions or insight appreciated,
>
> Jon

Encoding directly to DIVX and then to (S)VCD is not going to give you very
good quality. Most people capture to a non-lossy format such as HuffyUV with
raw PCM audio, and then encode that to whichever format you need afterwards.
The only drawback is the raw capture files are quite large, but the quality
is considerably better than going the DIVX->(S)VCD route.

If you are using Win2K with NTFS, you shouldn't hit the 2GB limit at all,
although some software or codecs might have such limitations "internally",
so to speak.

I use a Win2K and a Hauppauge WinTV with AVI_IO capture software which
splits the raw capture files into 2GB chunks anyway. I use VirtualDub to
edit and TMPGenc to encode.