How can i make VCDs...opinions please

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I have ATI TV Wonder VE (value edition) works great, and use WinXP 500amd 184 ram 8 mgs video memory.. My problem is that the way i've been making vcds is too complicated. I have to think there is a better way. First i record the video into an AVI 480x240, i get 10 minutes which=4GB. then i encode it with AVI2VCD for 2 hrs.

This is how i learned from reading articles and from vcdhelp.com, but is it the best way of doing it? Sometimes get VHS quality, most of the time it's bad pixelated/blurry recordings.

Am i doing something wrong or is it the ATI software? vcdhelp.com has an article but they use VirtualDub (it must be recording software). Last question why can't you record directly into MPEG1? Thanks daniel

-- daniel b (BONL1@CS.COM), May 03, 2002

Answers

The AVI codec your ATI is using is inefficient. At 720x480 the type-1 DV AVI codec will give you 18 minutes at 4GB. I've learned it's best to keep capture out of the PC simply by using a DV or D8 camcorder with an E-to-E mode (all NTSC models do; not all PAL models are) and connect it to a FireWire card in the PC. This arrangement is not nearly as cumbersome and tricky to use as an analogue capture card (like the one u have) or as expensive as such beauties like the Matrox RT2500. For example, a DCR-TRV130K D8 camcorder, carefully sourced, is less than $500, and OHCI FireWire cards are between $50 and $75. But your greatest weakness may be using AVI2VCD; serious folks in this forum will not get caught with their pants down using anything other than TMPGenc for encoding.

-- Mehmet Tekdemir (turk690@yahoo.com), May 04, 2002.

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