I am looking at hardware for encoding. Can Bway pro produce a hi bit-rate VCD like panasonic can? Is WPEGgator a better card than Bway pro for VCDs? Are there better cards for VCD (under $2000.)? Would like input from hardware encoder users. THANKS

-- teeball (tlbake@earthlink.net), November 09, 2000

Answers

I have BWay Pro 4.5 and it uses pre-set VCD settings that you cannot change. While it produces good VCDs at the standard bit rate, I am now capturing AVIs with BWay Pro 4.5 and then encoding at hi bit rates (2400) to XVCD MPEG-1 with TMPGEnc (freeware). Surprisingly, this freeware encoder delivers comparable quality at the standard bit rate to BWay Pro. Encoding with TMPGEnc at hi bit-rates produces results MUCH better than BWay Pro VCD MPEG1. It's amazing.

By the way, the BWay Pro captures I-Frame MPEG1 AVIs (e.g. each AVI frame is actuallu an MPEG I-frame). AVI quality is pretty good. My biggest complaint about BWay Pro is that it ONLY captures at 352x240 (MPEG1 standard resolution) and gives no option to capture at any other resolution. I would guess if you have a good capture card that you can get BWay Pro quality using TMPEnc and save a boatload of $$$..

Kevin

-- kevin (kevin@kevcat.com), November 09, 2000.

I have the Dazzle DVC II, and while it's gotten some bad remarks, I don't think there are too many complaining about the encoding quality. It does Mpeg 1 and 2. You can set the bit rate for both video and audio, capture video and audio to seperate files, PAL and NTSC, frame size, etc.

Someone claimed it's encoding is as good as his Optibase card! But it currently sells for $249!!!

The included editing software is crap, but they're working on it (famous last words). I use mine for encoding only and I love it.

-- Leebo (leebosay@deathsdoor.com), November 10, 2000.

Yes you can capture high bit rate VCD's witht he Broadway. You just use a different template that allows you to use your own settings. The only catch is that Adaptec won't recognize this as a valid MPG file. I got around this by using NTI's software that I bought off their site for $39

-- Al (amccraw@ix.netcom.com), November 10, 2000.

Interesting, how do I change the VCD MPEG1 encoding settings on BWay Pro? If I can increase the bit rate, then I can get good XVCD quality while taking advantage of the fast hardware-assisted MPEG encoding offered by BWay Pro.

What settings do you use?

Thanks, Kevin

-- kevin (kevin@kevcat.com), November 10, 2000.

Instead of using the mpeg1 Video CD setting use the Mpeg1 High quality setting and it will let you change the settings

-- Al (amccraw@ix.netcom.com), November 10, 2000.

If you want Panasonic quality in real time you need a $4000 card like the Optibase MovieMaker Plus.

Not to wory you can sometimes find the Optibase on ebay for about $1000. Also, there is another card called the PrimeView which uses the same C-Cube chipset as the Optibase. Same quality, but the Optibase software is better.

Good luck. If quality is important to you, say away from the toys (Dazzle, MPEGator, etc.)

ALSO, always calibrate your monitor before viewing and judging VCDs. It makes a big difference.

-- Anvil (anvil@san.rr.com), November 11, 2000.