I am facing problem in the size of the downloaded video file from the camcoder using TV Tuner card. I am using a PIXEL VIEW TV tuner and capture card (using the AUDIO IN and VIDEO IN jack)for getting the video from Camcoder to Pc but the *.AVI files which are generated in this process are very big in size (e.g. for a 5 min video the avi file will be around 900MB size) therefore when we stop the recording then the computer tries to save that file to the hard drive and gets hang. Please advise me for which is the best way to download the video from the camcoder to the PC and then make VCD out of that. I am thankfull to your site to guide me for getting the encoder program for converting the avi file to mpeg1 format but now the problem is that I am unable to save the avi file to the hard disk.

Please help me and tell me the easy way around to tranfer the Video to PC from camcoder and make VCD for it.

-- Gurpreet SIngh (gsingh@indorama.com), January 05, 2005

Answers

It sounds like your capture program is generating a raw (uncompressed) AVI file.

You should be able to change the format the card captures in. However, if you can't work with a 900MB file, you may have other issues, such as a computer that simply can't handle capture. What are the specs of the machine you're working with?

-- Bryan (gryps-innocens@gryphon.zzn.com), January 05, 2005.

Thanks very much for the answer. As for the specs of the PC, It is P4, 2.8GHz with 256 MB ram and 40 GB HDD. I am using the TV Tuner card of Pixcel View and I have talked to the other persons who are using this card card and practically they all are facing the same problem.

I just want to know that in the market we are having many persons who offer their services to vonvert VHS cassette into VCD, how they do this. I mean which procedure they use so that we can also adopt the same.

-- Gurpreet Singh (gsingh@indorama.com), January 11, 2005.

You're going to need to see what format (AVI, MPG, etc.) your capture program can record in. Somewhere in the software, there should be a way to change this. Check your software manual or help file. And, always clean the unneeded files off of your drive and de-fragment before trying a capture. This is very important!

But, the simple fact is, you have very little hard drive space, and this is going to limit you to small captures. You need space to do the compression as well. Unless you can capture directly to MPEG-2 or or MPEG-1, your going to need a lot more hard drive space. 40GB simply isn't enough. You really should have a dedicated drive for doing capture/processing, something along the lines of a 120GB or more. I currently have 400GB in my editor and 700GB in my compression machine.

The method I use to convert a VHS Tape to DVD/VCD:

1> Capture the VHS Tape with a Philips 7135 capture card to a HuffyUV .AVI. This results in a 36-50GB file, depending on the length of the tape. 2> Load the AVI into VirtualDub. Cut off any head switching noise at the bottom, cut off any edges that have problems, change levels so that the black has no noise and adjust the brightness. I also usually deinterlace the video, add my logo, cut off any junk at the front and end of the capture and tweak the video to make it look as good as a VHS tape can. 3> Write the file as a HuffyUV .AVI. Strip the .WAV audio, compress it to .MP2 format. 4> Use TMPGEnc to compress the .AVI and .MP2 to a MPEG-2 DVD/VCD compliant file. 5> Use SpruceUp! to author a DVD or VCD on DVD.

Not the easiest way, but I like the results it gives. The easiest way is to get a program that records directly to MPEG-1 and writes the VCD for you. I have no idea what kind of software does this.

-- Bryan (gryps-innocens@gryphon.zzn.com), January 12, 2005.