I have several 20 year old home movies on VCR Tapes(when they cost $27.00 each on sale). I am concerned about the future of these tapes. I would like to convert to Digital format and save on CD or DVD. Eventually I would like to play them on DVD, but not at the sacrifice of "blockiness" of VCD format. I just ordered an ATI All-in-Wonder 128 PRO AGP 32MB video card that can write directly to MPEG-1 or MPEG2. Question - Will this format allow me to save in a good quality and be able to convert to DVD later?

Thanks

-- Kenneth Stamm (kstamm@xmission.com), June 23, 2000

Answers

well, if you convert it to MPEG2, then you already have it in the correct format for DVD.

-- matt elder (melder@jam.rr.com), June 23, 2000.

Kenneth, I'm happy with my ATI AIW Pro AGP 32Mb card. I can now capture directly to MPEG1 or 2 at a much better quality than I had ever achieved using MPEG Encoding software, AVI to MPEG1. I think you'll be happy with it. MUCH MORE CONVENIENT.

-- Robert Snider (rsnider1@san.rr.com), June 23, 2000.

I am in the same process converting VHS to VCD at this moment. These tapes are 10 to 20 years old movies from preview sales. The ATI offers good mpeg2 and mpeg1 quality at high bitrates, but when u go to the lower vcd end..the blockiness starts to show slightly. My solution is to go with a higher ends hardware encoders: my inventory includes ATI, Dazzle, Optibase, & RT-6. The Optibase is for VHS, and the RT-6 is for Cable.

-- lnguyen (wingstarzz@hotmail.com), June 27, 2000.

I bring in my Home Movies with my fire wire card, through my raptor card. I want to export my movies as a MPEG 2 as well. What encoder does someone recommend? I want it to be able to work in Premiere. Also, there seems to be different extensions for MPEG 2, which one should I look for? for example, is .m2v a good one. Also, I have CinemaCraft, and bbMpeg for exporting to MPEG 2. Which one would you use , if any, and what settings do you use. I hope someday someone will make a MPEG2 importer for Premiere. Thanks for all James

-- James (jstalf@juno.com), June 27, 2000.

Outputing MPEG2 is possible these days and you list two programs only one of which I have experience with. bbMPEG it is said is the only program that gives true interlaced outputs, the early versions of LSX use progressive scan and the latest Premiere plugin released just recently does have a form of interlaced output. Premiere 6 will no doubt have Mpeg2 editing included but as usual adobe are taking their time to provide the service.

You have to be very careful with assuming that an MPEG-2 file is DVD compliant. A number of sites have said LSX, for example, is not suitable for DVD authoring and that will undoubtably be the result of its in ability to do full interlaced outputs. LSX has one advantage its VBR option actually does control the variable rates to the limit selected. bbMPEG does not control at all - I have encoded SVCD files with bbMPEG and although the rate was set to 2600kb/s as an average, it actually contained data rates up to 8750kb/s. Changing the VBR rate setting to 1300 made no difference to the peak at all and the philips 725 DVD or the Pioneer 525 player I tested will not play a VBR SVCD smoothly despite the fact a DVD player to conform must be able to play 9800kB/s continuously. Whilst the idea of authoring DVD in the future from files done now is great, I think it should stay as "in the future" until the encoder industry supports the PC based users to the fullest - its just another case of industry interpretation of the specifications not always being the same, so what might be complinant from one provider may not be so from another.

-- Ross McL (rmclennan@esc.net.au), June 27, 2000.