VisorCentral.com - Video Capture Cards

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Posted by D ev R ay 4Real on 03-06-2001 03:30 AM:

Ive asked little bits and pieces of this question from time time, but I never really got it so i'm gonna ask it all now.

Anyway I want to take a movie, import it onto my computer, then take parts of the movie about 30 seconds long, with sound, and get it to be under 5mb.

If anyone knows any books that will tell me how to do this, or some kind of web resource that will tell me how todo this. Thanks for any help you guys can give me.

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Posted by MarkEagle on 03-06-2001 03:34 AM:

I can supposedly do this with my new ATI All-in-Wonder Pro 128. I haven't tried any external video sources but have recorded from the TV tuner. It will capture AVI's and MPEG's.

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Posted by D ev R ay 4Real on 03-07-2001 02:17 AM:

quote:
Originally posted by MarkEagle
I can supposedly do this with my new ATI All-in-Wonder Pro 128. I haven't tried any external video sources but have recorded from the TV tuner. It will capture AVI's and MPEG's.

Thanks for the help but I have that bit done. What I need to know is what program I need to compress the MPEGs down enough to be less than 5 mb

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Posted by Matthew Nichols on 03-07-2001 07:00 PM:

Have you tried QuickTime or Microsoft's ASF? ASF convertors are free and if you encoded at high enough quality it might be okay, its designed for web so you might have to go with like "T3 Quality" or something. Its been a while since I've used it, I used to store old Late Night w/ Conan episodes in ASF and burn them to CD.

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Posted by ProjectZero on 03-07-2001 08:05 PM:

What video capture software did you use? It might be able to save the AVI file out to MPEG.

If not, try using MegaPEG or AVI2MPG2. Both can be downloaded from Hotfiles.com and they convert AVI to MPEG-1 or -2 formats

Posted by EricG on 03-07-2001 08:29 PM:

I have a Dazzle DVC Http://www.dazzle.com, I use it to record in real-time video to MEPG1.. (i.e. Star Trek Voyager) For an hour of video it's about 600mb. From this MPEG1 file, I edit out all the commercials, I end up with about 45 minutes of video in mpeg-1 format. From this edited MPEG1 (i.e. .mpg) file, I then use WinOnCD (I hate Adaptec EZCD creator) to burn it directly to a video-cd, video cd's use mepg-1 standard, not mpeg-2 like common dvd's.

Since I have a standalone Sony DVD player that can see CD-R's, I can now play this video disc in my DVD player, granted, it's not the same quality as DVD and at best about the same as a dubbed VHS tape on EP, but it works for me!!..

I have also used this technique to transfer my commercial VHS tapes to VideoCD (i.e. Star Wars, Back to the Future) that will probably not see the light of day on DVD..
The neat thing about having the video's on CD (2 cd's for most movies),is I programmed out tracks at 5 minute intervals so I can skip to the section I want quickly. Also on some Video CD's I made my own DVD like title screens w/ thumb nails.. (a lot of work), I mostly use generic templates I have previously made (based on the time length of the video).. I also transcribe my home movies in this way.. Also, once a video is on a VideoCD it can be copied just like any other cd-rom, and just as quickly using an average cd-rw drive.

Since I don't have to convert the video from AVI or MPEG2 format the whole process goes quickly.. Also, mpeg-1 format uses less disk space so I don't have to worry about any file size limits for most movies and home videos.

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Posted by Matthew Nichols on 03-07-2001 08:35 PM:

I believe you can make "super VCDs" that use MPEG-2, not quite sure though. My Sharp won't play burned movies & PS2 won't play VCDs at all. One day I'm gonna setup my computer with a nice capture card & output card and hook it up to my TV to go along with my TiVo.

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Posted by EricG on 03-07-2001 08:51 PM:

Super VCD's are weird beasts.. (there is a Chinese variation to the Video CD standard that uses a higher bit rate/resolution mpeg-1 file, but I won't go into that flavor here) they are DVD style disc layouts burned on CD-R media (with the cd-r size limit in effect). Alot of standalone dvd players wont accept them.. The idea is you go about the process for making a DVD, but use a lower resolution or you will only get a very small number of minutes of video per cd. (the cd-r capacity is fixed at 700mb max). When you have the DVD layout all set, you burn it to a standard CD-R or CD-RW using a UDF format (i.e. Adaptec Direct CD uses a type of UDF format). Most PC cd-rom drives will accept them (i.e. they don't care about the underlying media so long as the layout looks right), but standalone players probably wont. That's why I just stick with mpeg-1 standard video cd's. When I get a DVD-R burner (that is compatible with video DVD), I'll use mpeg-2.

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Posted by lennonhead on 03-07-2001 08:54 PM:

Isn't the resolution of a MPEG-1 VideoCD only 320x240? I have only seen them on my computer screen, so I don't know what they look like on TV, but I'd think the quality would suffer quite a bit.

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Posted by EricG on 03-07-2001 09:17 PM:

Yes, but so isn't your tv... NTSC is 320x240 (interlaced it's 320x480).. The quality varies, the better the source the better the resulting VideoCd. Also if you record to a high quality (higher res) AVI file or Mpeg-2 first and use a software converter to convert it to mpeg-1, you will get a better result, near DVD in some cases. I've seen some DVD rips to VideoCD that are pretty darn close the the original thing..

But like I said, I use these cd's on my TV and not on my pc so it looks fine for me. A TV tends to be more of a sloppy output device and tends to blend the pixels together resulting a more natural video image, a PC monitor is FAR less forgiving.

It also depends on how much of a purist you are.

Right now, video cd is the only way I can make a video disc that will play on my stand alone Sony DVD player.. Video CD is a very tight specification that doesn't have a lot of lee-way to it.

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Posted by D ev R ay 4Real on 03-07-2001 11:34 PM:

Wow thanks for all the help you guys. Oh and im not sure what kind of VCC I have, but it is the very cheapest there is. If someone could reccomend a good one (that can also capture sound??) id appreciate it.

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Posted by lennonhead on 03-08-2001 12:02 PM:

I'm not sure about the TV being only 320x240, but you're right about it blending the pixels together. When you work with NTSC video on a computer you usually work at 720x480. I just always assumed a TV was around that resolution.

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Posted by EricG on 03-09-2001 02:52 AM:

quote:
Originally posted by lennonhead
I'm not sure about the TV being only 320x240, but you're right about it blending the pixels together. When you work with NTSC video on a computer you usually work at 720x480. I just always assumed a TV was around that resolution.

Technically you are correct, 720x480 is "true" broadcast quality (i.e. commercial television), most home users (consumer grade) work with at effective resolution of 320x240 or 320x480 interlaced (well up until the last few years anyway).. But tv being an analog device, these are only approximate vertical resolutions.

but more to the point, it works for me so I am happy with it.. (the VideoCD specification doesn't give you much of a choice anyway, you have a few other format option such as PAL and FILM, but they don't offer any significant difference in resolution). All I can say is burn a test VideoCD and try it on a real television, not a computer monitor. There is a big difference between the two. In this case, the fuzziness of a tv display helps the final image to look more natural, this would be lost on a sharp, high resolution monitor or HDTV display.

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