What hardware should I buy to make vcd's(not on a high budject

greenspun.com : LUSENET : Video CD : One Thread

I am building a computer from scratch at home. I have never done this before but i am building it to make vcd's so i wont have to keep buying expensive dvd's and also capture some vhs to vcd as well. I don't have lot of money to spend so this is what i am ordering:

Amd Thunderbird 1.333ghz 266fsb cpu & compatible motherboard Major Brand DDR 128 mb pc 2100 Memory ATI All In Wonder 128 pro 32mb agp video card

I have the rest of the stuff i need from my older system, (cdr,adaptec, tmpgenc, etc. Is this the right processor, memory, and video card to produce nice vcd's? also about how long will it take to encode avi to mpeg with tmpgenc with my processor? approx...

Thanks, Speedy

-- Speedy (tabean@altavista.com), February 13, 2002

Answers

CPU is fine. I recommend at least 256 MB of memory and 512 MB is better. TMPGenc is a memory hog and you will be hurtin' for certain at 128 MB. I have the ATI AIW Radeon, but I know a guy who I think has your card and he gets pretty nice quality out of it. Go to www.pcphotovideo.com to see his web page. I think that Dazzle's DVC II is really a better card for video capture, but the DVC II can be tricky to install and it can be a major pain to use on some AMD based systems. It's claimed that the only way the DVC II will work on an AMD system is if your motherboard has a VIA chipset. The DVC II can't do AVI captures and there's no TV tuner, which are 2 things you get with ATI. I don't know how long it will take to encode with your processor as I don't go that route. I record directly to MPEG-1 or MPEG-2. Your route will give better quality at the expense of time spent encoding with TMPGenc. I would guess off the top of my head that it will take you 6-8 hours to encode most stuff, but if you use some of the filters to improve your quality, it can literally take days to encode. TMPGenc is really good, but it's not fast. Get the biggest hard drive you can and some people think if you have a 2nd drive you can dedicate to just video capture, it may help, although I'm not convinced that's absolutely necessary.

-- Jason (Jason.Shumate@equant.com), February 13, 2002.

Moderation questions? read the FAQ