|
First off, my set up is old. I'm running a PIII 800MHz on an asus P3V4X with 256K Ram (and Win98SE). I bought a TDK Indicapture ($50 couldn't pass it up) which converts to MPEG2 and captures via USB2. It came with Arcsoft Showbiz for editing, encoding, and authoring. Because of my system I can capture at a max resolution of 640x480 without dropping frames, bitrates are adjustable and I'm running at 5000Kbs video and 192 audio (PCM format). The issue I have is having to reencode up to 720x480 for DVD format. Minion suggested the lower DVD format (D 1/2 I think it was) which I can capture at but showbiz won't let me author that resolution (as far as I can tell anyway).
Reencoding with Showbiz causes some graininess which is to be expected with hardware supplied software. I've played with MPEG2VCR which is great for cutting pasting scenes but the encoder was slower than showbiz and the final quality was the same. I downloaded the trial version of Tmpgenc and reencoded with that last night. A quick look at the mpegs and m2v file using Realplayer showed that the Tmpgenc encoding offered the best quality. I'll probably have to add (remux?)the audio back in and create an mpeg file for showbiz to author it properly. I tried to do that last night but the audio is PCM which Tmpgenc didn't like. I am worried about the audio going out of sync with this step based on other posts.
Please spare me advice on dumping everything to buy a new system with lots of hardware and such. I have gone over lots of posts here and already know what the best setups are. This is what I'm stuck with until I can step up to windows XP SP2 and an AMD64 (end of year I hope).
What I'm looking for is what other encoders to try (trial versions a must unless one choice would be unanimous). Since the encoding of my test 30 minute video takes 8-10 hours, I'd like to cut down my trial and error time. Does the Canopus procoder deluxe have any trial versions?
Would reviewing the quality of the mpegs on a computer be better with PowerDVD than Real Player, or does the interlace factor make viewing on a computer useless for comparisons?
Thanks for all the great advice so far.
Steve O
|
