I am looking for a second MPEG-1 capture device for my brother who wants to create VCD's.

Does the ATI All In Wonder 128 Provide Good quality MPEG-1 Video? What is the maximum bitrate to capture in MPEG-1? Does it have the audio/video sync problems like some of the other MPEG capture devices? Finally, Can I use this along with another video card in my system?

What I want to do is Capture MPEG video/audio at 3mbps or higher, then use panasonic encoder to convert to vcd compliant MPEG.

Thank you!!!

-- MrVCD (mrvcd@juno.com), February 11, 2000

Answers

Hello MrVCD!

Video and Audio sync is fantastic.The Mpeg Capture at 3mbps and higher is nearly like a professional VideoCD File.The Problem on my Computer is that the System often crashes while capturing,sometimes after a few minutes sometimes after an hour and more!!! The PanasonicEncoder 2.3 has also a very good quality by encoding MPG -> MPG(VideoCD Standard).An one hour Clips needs nearly 4-5 hours to convert.

So long...Zagato

-- zagato (michaelag@debitel.net), February 11, 2000.

I have just tried the ATI AIW 32MB capture card. Please take note that the Mpeg1 file is not VCD compliant, you need another software to make it VCD compliant Mpeg file. However, I managed to use Ulead Video Studio 4.0 to capture VCD compliant Mpeg file directly. However, the capturing is not stable. A lot of drop frames and sometimes crash. As quality wise, it is slightly above average, nothing to be proud of. I get lousy result with 3mbps but improve with at least 4mbps. As compare with my Pyro 1394 capture card capture in AVi format and then covert to VCD Mpeg file, I still prefer Pyro than ATI. Thanks.

-- Mave Lee (mave_lee@hotmail.com), February 12, 2000.

ATI will produced VCD 2.0 compliant mpeg1 file. Use the template provided with the software and don't change the motion estimation slide setting from it's default position! EZ CD won't have any problem with this file. Changing the motion estimation slider to a higher setting will reduced square pixelization on your mpeg1 output but your audio/video will be out of sync! PC playback is ok because the 'putter can handle the clock rate and adjust for it; However, DVD players can't!

-- lnguyen (wingstarzz@hotmail.com), February 13, 2000.

Hi Nguyen,

Many thanks for your help, advice and information.

I get very confused of what capture device I should buy :

ATI all in wonder 32 MB ? MP10 ? or DC30 ?

First of all, I'm really interested on ATI, but when I read your support on the forum :

My questions are :

1. Is ATI surely can make .mpg-1 VCD complaint in real time ? If yes, why some people who already had it didn't know about that ? (On the box, it said MPEG-2 real time but not MPEG-1).

2. Is ATI support capturing in 352x288 at 25fps and 352x240 at 30fps ? (Because it didn't tell about the supported capturing resolution / fps on the box, and to make it worse the vendor didn't know anything all about it...he-he-he...:-)

3. As you wrote : "Changing the motion estimation slider to a higher setting will reduced square pixelization on your mpeg1 output but your audio/video will be out of sync! ". Does it mean ATI isn't optimal to make a good quality VCD ? it will be blocky ? Or maybe do we need to re-encode that .mpg-1 VCD complaint created with ATI with another .mpg-1 VCD complaint software ?

4. Do you think it'll be better if we capture VHS to .avi uncompressed first through ATI card then encode it to .mpg for VCD with, say ULead video studio ver 4.0 ?

5. Is the video-quality differences between ATI AIW 32MB and Pineaccle DC30 veeery high ? (because in my country the price is very different, ATI is 300 US$ while DC30 is 900 US$ !).

6. Will the .mpg-1 file created with ATI be recognized by my WinOn CD 3.7 ?

7. When I want to buy the Barracuda ATA66 / 7200 rpm 20 Gb, the vendor told me it needs special motherboard. Since I don't understand anything about my motherboard - now it's my turn that the one who is dumb....:-), so I cancelled to buy ...:-). Would you please give me any suggestion ?

Thank you very much for your support Nguyen, and I really appreciate it.

ATI ? MP10 ? DC30 ? ooooohhh....very confusing....:-)

Sunar.

Mave Lee,

Yes, I use Ulead Video Studio 4.0 to capture VCD compliant Mpeg file directly also, and the same problems it dropped more than 50% of total frame, ( I really hate when I saw the dropped frame display on Ulead is is speeding up trying to catch the total frames...he-he-he ) and audio-desync. But to my surprise, I never understand although there are so many dropped frames while capturing 4 minutes video, the end-result when I play the file has almost 4 minutes total time ! ( 3 min 20 sec ), did you notice this Mave Lee ?

Sunar.

-- Sunar (rekotomo@denpasar.wasantara.net.id), April 03, 2000.