Hey All, hopefully this post will be formatted like i typed it and not shoved into one paragraph.

First i want to thank you if you do decide to read this very long post. You will find it informative. Being one of few Dazzle advocates out there. I have posted and listed countless times on how to acheive good quality using the Dazzle (capture high then encode down to what you need). Quite recently i have become very tired of the very long time it takes to encode clips using the Tmpg encoder. Yet, at the sametime i know it is neccessary to use if i want very good results (as the older saying goes quality = time). So at first (and in a previous post) i lowered the tmpg's template to "high quality instead of highest to still have good results , cut down on encoding time(since i use filters), and still have the pic look barely (if at all) noticeable, slightly lesser quality then normal.

Well a few weeks after i bought my Dazzle (a long time ago). I always tried to capture at the bitrate i would be using for the vcd and tried to burn it that way (bitrate and test for the Xvcd, bitrate i use is 2500). This never worked properly in a homedeck dvd player, because the dazzle does not give the proper audio buffer for a higher rate clip to function correctly on a homedeck dvd player. And at the sametime editing the highrate was not really possible since at the time, Panasonic was the best encoder and it unofficially allowed the highrate. Yet when editing it afterwards it too did not produce the proper audio so you had to re-encode the clip if editing was to be done after you encoded your clip..

Step in the TMPG encoder. Since this nice program gives you the proper template for a video cd nonstandard and gives the proper tool section for re/de muxing (still giving you the nonstandard template for proper audio buffering or whatever it does), I finally tested some clips i made capturing directly at the 2500 rate to be used (instead of 2900) and burned with no encoding. This process involved the encoding of the audio only. So all i did was take my clip from the dazzle and input it as a "system audio only" (NOT AUDIO FILE!!!) in the Tmpg, encode it with the same specs (44100,224) and then remuxed my clip with this newer audio using the vcd nonstandard as the template. Now i have made a clip that plays fine in my homedeck dvd player with no encoding (techincally) at all. To encode a 5min audio clip takes the Tmpg 1-2mins (very fast to encode audio)

I hate to sound like a hypocrite as i have bashed this method countless times before, BUT the highrate looked very good, with very minimal video noise (if any at all). To break it down more, it's like this: with encoding and filters and all the full, 9hr encoding time, i get lets say on a scale of 1-5, a 5. Now with capturing at the rate i encode down to , to begin with , no encoding or filters at all the picture looked about a 4.6 to 4.7. I guess you could say the result with no encoding would look about the same (maybe a 3% less) as if i did encode, but did not use any filters.. Ironically though if you were to use this method at Dazzles vcd rate or possibly under a 2100 bitrate, you would notice more artifacts then if you were to capture high and encode down.

Now i am not saying i will no longer encode. I guess now in my case it boils down to how important is the movie i am running into my PC. If it is something i do care about, then of course it will get the full treatment. If it is something im sort of ok with but would like as a highrate (or close to my 2500 bitrate), then i will capture straight at 2500 rate using this newer method i have described above.

My test clips i tried were of various quality. The first an ex-rental tape that still looked good: the quality of the vcd was very nice and again barely no video noise at all (and the clip was a good tester as it took place in the woods and whenever you have a scene in the woods you usally get some video noise because of the amount of objects in view). The second clip i tried was one of lesser quality as it was taped off tv when the reception was not well. Still some more, kind of, but not really noticeable noise, but still very fine none the less. The third clip as i wanted to see how it is with fast motion, was a kung fu film i ran in from my dvd player. The dvd itself is a bootleg and the print they used was highly worn. This came out and -played great as well.

ALSO as a note, if you do try this method out--- When you input the file for system audio in tmpg, right before you hit the start button make sure it is still set to system audio. the Tmpg has this little habit of changing it to "audio file" right before you encode. So if it does that, just re-check system audio.

Thanks again for taking the time to read this or respond to it. Is is fun to play around with this stuff

-- Doug (mazinz@aol.com), January 23, 2001

Answers

yup, it put a few of the paragraphs together, but at least it did not shove the whole thing into one

-- Doug (mazinz@aol.com), January 23, 2001.

Doug.....I still think you would be much happier with a hardware assisted encoding card. I take VHS tapes I made of Seinfeld, capture an episode to an AVI file(30 minutes), edit out the commercials,(2 minutes) and encode to an mpeg-1 file,(30 minutes) I usually record an episode at 5:30 when I first wake-up and have it encoded before I leave for work.

-- Al (amccraw@yahoo.com), January 24, 2001.

Hey Al,

believe me i have not ruled out or have anything against another capture device (was looking into the broadway card you have). BUT the price for it (even used) is still a bit out of my range at the current (and for quite a while) moment.

-- Doug (mazinz@aol.com), January 24, 2001.

oh for those that are interested the clip i did using this new method was played in the pioneer 525 and the Apex ad600a. I oeuld have tired the pioneer 606d but that does not alloow anything higher then a normal vcd spec

-- Doug (mazinz@aol.com), January 24, 2001.