First off, thanks for the profundity of information concerning VCD/SVCD. Without this board, I'd still be lost. Actually have created VCD's that play on my computer (WinDVD) and DVD player (Panasonic DVD-A310).

Second, here is my setup: Hardware: PIII 700MHz, 256MB RAM, empty NTFS 30GB 7200RPM IDE harddrive, WinTV-FM, SoundBlaster Live! Platinum 5.1, HP CD-Writer 9350i Software: Windows 2000 Server, MGWave III, avi2vcd/TMPGEnc, Nero 5.5

Now, my questions:

1) Is full frame (uncompressed), CD Quality AVI capture the best? The best capture is of course 640x480 for WinTV.

2) Which is the better color scheme for capture (YUV2,YUV9,YUV12 etc)?

3) Which is better: avi2vcd or TMPGEnc?

4) If TMPGEnc is better, what are some optimal settings to noticeably increase output video quality (irrespective of speed)?

So far I am very impressed by the quality of VCD encoded from 640x480 AVI using just avi2vcd. Although the quality is lower than that of the original VHS, it is still watchable. SVCD is just incredible, but, as we all know, most DVD players do not recognize this format and the time limitation per disc is just a little too restrictive.

Thanks much,

Robert Templeton

-- Robert Templeton (templer@vplayground.com), March 13, 2001

Answers

Please see my answer below:

1) Is full frame (uncompressed), CD Quality AVI capture the best? The best capture is of course 640x480 for WinTV. answer: YES,

2) Which is the better color scheme for capture (YUV2,YUV9,YUV12 etc)? answer: personal taste, hard to tell.

3) Which is better: avi2vcd or TMPGEnc? answer: TMPGEnc for sure

4) If TMPGEnc is better, what are some optimal settings to noticeably increase output video quality (irrespective of speed)? answer: turn on noise reduction, use CQ_VBR instead of CBR, increase bitrate (and therefore end up with XVCD instead of standard VCD)

-- ktnwin (ktnwin@excite.com), September 27, 2001.