Has anybody tried this software? It allows you to record directly to Video CD compliant mpeg-1 files. I'm just curious what the quality is like. You can download the trial version at http://www.cyberlink.com.tw/english/download/download.asp

-- Azrael (freeenet@hotmail.com), April 17, 2000

Answers

I used the software and I can't recommend it. The final MPEGs look like they were compressed with Xing (I don't consider that good). Also, there were more dropped frames when I captured directly to MPEG, but that is due to my system. I haven't tried the latest versions (never bothered to after using the beta and the first trial), so I do not know if they improved it much. There was another "direct to MPEG from your AVI card" that I tried, but it was nearly the same thing. Lately, I've just been capturing in AVI and using Panasonic MPEG encoder to make my VCDs, and I can say that the quality is better than most (cheaper) hardware MPEG1 encoder cards, like the Snazzi. I'd say capturing in 704x480 and then using Panasonic to make a VCD compliant MPEG is right up there with the $3000 Optibase cards.

-- Mr.Ian Roswell (cyberlien51@juno.com), April 18, 2000.

Yeah, I also tried it, but the quality wasn't that great. The only reason I tried it was that I use AIW 128 and was looking for ways to record VCD-compliant mpeg files directly, and have better quality than AIW's MMC 6.2's "default" settings. But when I saw the result, I thought MMC's version was better. Not recommended if you want quality.

-- Bora (taenggi@yahoo.com), April 19, 2000.

I tried the latest version and the quality wasn't too bad. Slightly worse than recording an *.avi with high quality compression and then converting it with the Panasonic encoder (but in a fraction of the time). I didn't try the old version but this version is supposed to produce much better video quality.

-- Azrael (afn0431@afn.org), April 19, 2000.

I tried powervcr version 1.3 and Winvcr version 2.0. I can say that winvcr produces better quality mpegs. But powervcr have a lot of quality configuration options...

-- Oz Cet (ozgurc@hotmail.com), November 03, 2000.

Hi, I tried this weekend Powervcr version II on my pentium III 800 (128 MB RAM) machine. But quality is still a problem. And company says you can capture Mpeg 1 best quality above pentium 450 but. On my system the output is awfull.

-- Oz Cet (ozgurc@hotmail.com), November 06, 2000.

I have been trying PowerVCR 3.0 deluxe version. The quality is OK. The captured VCD format file has bit rate of only 960bits/sec. When I record on CDR and play on VCD system, the quality is very bad with lot of breaks. However when I play it on my computer the quality is OK. I am breaking my head how to solve this problem.

-- NAGA (nagbush@indosat.net.id), June 29, 2002.

I've got powervcr II 3.0 deluxe and it works great for me. I capture and then use tmpgenc to re-encode the mpg for vcd then use vcdeasy to make the vcd image, works great.

Only problem I have is it automatically chops the mpg into 600MB chunks while it's recording. I have to merge the pieces before re- encoding which is a waste of time. Also, a major problem is when it starts the next piece, it sometimes corrupts the file, meaning i have to start recording all over again.

-- junky (junkymage@cox-internet.com), August 10, 2002.

Do this to change the size restriction for PowerVCRII...

Run the regedit... Goto HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Cyberlink\PowerVCR II...

Chage the value for the MaxRecSizeMB entry to the size you desire.

-- Tommy (tommy@parkerstrip.net), December 26, 2002.