Ok, many people advised me to switch from the Dazzle capture card to the Pinnacle DC-10. I have to admit, the capture difference is fantastic.

Now, for all the problems.

I have Adaptec's EZ-CD Creator, that seems to do a good job of writing the VCDs if I can get the MPGs in a format that it likes.

AVI2MPG (free) seems to a good job of translating the avi into an MPG (I don't see the problems XING has below), but Adaptec always complains that it is an invalid format.

So I got the demo version of XING (30 second limit. Argh.) It seems to have severe problem with transitions: Camera Pans, scene changes, etc.

And then there's the seemingly arbitrary 2gig capture limit... (I'd LIKE to be able to capture the full 5 gigs the drive can hold...)

Can anyone tell me what steps I need to take from here to make a decent VCD? I'm at the point where I'm seriously doubting people's claims of near-VHS quality.

-- Michael Patterson (mike@col.hp.com), July 20, 1999

Answers

Hmmm. Maybe you should have went from Dazzle to a high end capture tool. Software always causes errors but dedicated hardware works beautifully. After all my friend can capture VHS+ images with his Broadway capture card. The Video CDs he makes with it are absolutely stunning. Example: He just made a Video CD of a newly opened Lethal Weapon 4 Widescreen tape and the transfer is awesome. Few blocks in the black bars and the sound is stunning.

-- The Lone Ranger (rutger_s@hotmail.com), July 20, 1999.

Hi Michael,

I have just become a VideoCD enthusiast, and can say that after being in NLE for over 5 years I find VideoCD's the way to go. I agree it is possible to get VHS+ quality and that depends an awful lot on the source and the capture method.

I have had real problems in making the CD's. The Adaptec program will not let me make a CD at all and WinonCD keeps saying "illegal Mpeg Packet" but the Cd plays great on a TV particularly one with svideo connections, composite RCA type inputs do not give the same quality by a long shot.

I went to the Pinnacle site and downloaded the samples from the Dc10 type boards and was amazed how poor the end results were compared to a capture done with normal NLE capture cards and my card is a 5 year old outdated DC20 in combination with the Ligo LSX encoder gives a far far better end result. Out dated in NLE but OK for VideoCD's so I can just imagine what a modern NLE card produces.

My first effort was a 9200M capture finally burnt in two tracks for a 64 minute PAL formated VideoCD and its great. I have also compared the quality of a TV broadcast as a source by capturing direct to the hdd and that gave the best results over my hi8 and D8 sources. That capture was 6500M and I took all the commercials out just as though I was recording the program to a vcr. All my captures are done with svideo connections. No, the system works and the end product is worth the effort to get it right and I do not even have a DVD player yet.

Cheers from "down-under"

-- Ross McLennan (rmclennan@esc.net.au), July 20, 1999.

Hmm. I've heard one or two references to the Broadway card, but I'm a little nervous about paying so much for something mail order that I've never actually seen in action.

Can anyone else comment on this card? If I were to only use it to make video CDs (for example), would I see a noticable improvement? I'm hoping for a VHS+ quality solution so that in addition to my other projects, I can transfer my VHS tape collection to VCD. I don't want to look at my VCD collection in a few years and wish I still had the VHS copies.

-- Michael Patterson (mike@col.hp.com), July 21, 1999.