I am using pentium II 333Hz processor, 96 MB Ram, for .avi capturing with brooktree software. When capturing, the dropped frames are very high (>50%). The quality of the captured video is bad as it is jerky and not flowing smoothly. I would like to know whether this quality depends on the processor or on the Ram of 96 MB. If it is with the processor,what would be the processor required to have good quality as I intend to upgrade my computer.

-- sam (samara@slpa.lk), June 06, 2001

Answers

For VCD i.e. you need only resolution 384x288, 25 fps, 44,1 khz Audio

Hi Sam, with this configuration your capturing doesn't drop any frame. For higher Quality i.e. SVCD, you need a resolution 480x480. These are the configuration, if you want to capturing *.avi for VideoCD. The following step will be converting *.avi to *.mpeg. But in the resolution of 384x288 you can capturing direkt in *.mpeg with specially Software. But it can be that you don't have to take the compression by capturing. Try to capture without compression, but you need a lot of free space. ca. 300 to 500 MB for a minute. If you haven't enough space capture *.avi with "INDEO 5.1"-Codec. For this Codec you don't need high performance.

Hope, I could help you Ralf

-- Ralf Prochner (ralf@ralf-prochner.de), June 06, 2001.

You are really asking an underpowered PC to do a lot if you want to do video capture with a 333 MHz Pentium II. Personally, I would recommend you get at least a 1 GHz CPU with a minimum of 256 MB of memory if you want to get serious about video recording. If you can get a processor even faster than 1 GHz, so much the better. You will not be able to move up to making SVCD with anything less than a 700 MHz CPU. I can't record MPEG-2 video at DVD resolutions (720x480) without dropping frames on a 1 GHz CPU with 512 MB of memory, so get the most powerful CPU you can.

-- Jason (Jason.Shumate@sita.int), June 06, 2001.

I know your situation (333MHz). My system was able to capture at 352x288 /12 fps without drops, and 176x144 at 25 fps. With sw realtime encoding (divX) it made 10 fps.

My first upgrade was an ATI all in wonder pro combo card, the cheaper 16MB memory model. Performance: 352x288 / 25 fps dirrectly encoded to mpg1, jerky at standard VCD rate but ok if captured at higher rate and sw recompressed to VCD. Still had some dropped frames at SVCD resolution (576x480) and a lot at full-screen resolution (752x576).

My last week upgrade was a 533MHz Celeron, 30 bucks plus the 333MHz old one. Now the SVCD and Full resolutins work, but with some limitations in the mpeg2 encoding (I frame only + high rate) = very good picture.

I did this to save my old AT / asus LX system till >1,3GHz CPU will drop enough. Try to buy a video card with mpeg cappabilities and the fastest CPU you can afford. This will save you disk space and will allow you to record up to 4GB video files.

-- calin (calinux@go.ro), June 07, 2001.

perhaps I should share my experience with you and that may help.

I have Pentium II, 350 mhz with 128 ram.

I have vary simple video capture device which I baught recently and with rebate going to be free. Driver has limited options.

I started experimenting only recently without much knowledge with some guidence from www.vcdhelp.com

I used my VHS video tapes and captured them on hard disc through this simple video capture device using Vertualdub and used the following settings: frame size 352 x 240 NTSC frame rate 29.97, compression using microsoft MPEG-4 codec, audio 44100 16 bit sterio, Video buffer 30 , set drop rate to 1 percent.

Frame rate drop was around 1 percent. I converted this *.avi file into VCD MPEG-1 using TPMGEnc. The quality of final product was reasonable to me. I used frame size 352 x 240 as that is what my CD burnig program allowed to burn in VCD format ( any other setting was rejected ) ( also I could have used PAL setting if I wanted to ). Also audio had to be in the setting I put. I think these are the standard settings for VCD burning. I have very small hard drive so I do this in pieces and join them using MPEG tool of TPMGEnc.

This Burnt well. Next step was to try it in a DVD player. Well if you read other questions in this forum, you will realize that not all DVD player are compatible with all brand of CD-R/CD-RW. In my case it did not work.

So currently I am simply burning the VCD ready files (in MPEG-1 VCD format) as data file and converting all my VHS videos in to that. May be later when I am too keen on playing and watching them on TV Screen using DVD player, I will try different brands of CD-R/CD-RW and find out which one is good for me.

I do welcome any comments on this.

-- anonymous (aloof100@hotmail.com), June 14, 2001.

Visit http://www.vcdhelp.com/

I have much experience with vcds, i m a VJ- And my experience says: You need a very quick, standalone, only for capture large HDD (Barracuda 3 will do) - Fast CPU and much RAM comes second - then capture in full frames avi or HUFFYUV avi. (Capturing in all kinds of compressions- divx and mpeg and so on,will require good cpu (much calculating)

SO FULL FRAMES AVI (352*288-standard vcd format) AND QUICK HDD

-- ervin (ervin@one.ee), August 07, 2001.