The setup is pretty straightforward: Broadway card /w/ packaged software, Adaptec 3.5 software.

I've finally been able to get decent VCDs by: * Capture in highest quality MPEG mode using broadway card * Convert to 115/224/352x240 using MediaStudio VE

But the VCDs (after waiting about 20 hours for MSVE to finish converting them) still leave a bit to be desired.

The largest problem is fuzziness around high-contrast areas, like text, or in drawn animation. I've turned off the "soft filtering", and it hasn't improved things much.

has anyone found a way around this? There are some animated videos I'd like to put on VCD, but they come out terribly...

--Mike

-- Michael Patterson (mike@col.hp.com), September 14, 1999

Answers

My experience has shown that to get great VCD MPEG quality with Broadway Pro, you absolutely *must* capture to AVI first, and then compress to MPEG with Broadway. Don't bother capturing straight to MPEG. Even with Broadway this produces mediocre results. You should capture to AVI, edit the AVI in MediaStudio (and save with Broadway Pro compression), and then compress with Broadway Pro itself. I've made some killer VCDs this way; looks almost exactly like the VHS tape from which they were copied.

Generally speaking, capturing to AVI and then compressing to MPEG on Broadway works MUCH better than capturing to MPEG. (Note that the AVI format captured by Broadway is itself based on MPEG I-frames).

Thanks, Kevin

-- Kevin (delgadil@cisco.com), September 15, 1999.

I've tried capturing to AVI, but I get really bad VCDs with tons of artifacting and aliasing.

Would it be possible for you to post exactly the settings you use in each step? This would be tremendously useful information for anyone who is frustrated with pressing bad quality VCDs.

-- Michael Patterson (mike@col.hp.com), September 15, 1999.

Capturing from s-video vcr also helps improve quality.

-- (jellyrol@sfsu.edu), September 15, 1999.

Strange. It's simple. I capture to AVI at "best" setting (I think 75MB/sec), and then I compress with Broadway to VideoCD format. My results look just like the videotape with little to no aliasing. I also use the softening filter. Without it, aliasing is obvious. What is your source material? If it's on a crappy quality tape, you'll have trouble getting a quality VCD out of it...

Thanks, Kevin

-- Kevin (delgadil@cisco.com), September 16, 1999.