Which Compression?

[arrynev]

Hi all,i'm a noob' at all this and i need some good advice. i'm capturing VHS and TV with Video CapturixSuite and i get a choice of compression's....Cinepack codec by radius...Intel indeo (R3.2 and 4.5)...Codec IntelIYUV...Divix 5.0.1 Codec...MS Mpeg-4 3688 (V1,V2 and V3) and also...TRAMES complete(non compressed)what's the best to use to save space and get the best result. i'm using XP home...Athlon 2400 cpu...80gb hdd(45gb free)1024Ram, and i save my Temps at the very start of the "C" drive. any help will do, cheers.

[3RA1N1AC]

i recommend installing a codec called HuffyUV and capturing with that. but it requires a massive amount of storage space. it requires essentially no CPU power though, and it's extremely high quality. so you'd use HuffyUV as an intermediate step, then convert the HuffyUV file to a smaller compression type. XviD or DivX 5 is the way to go, if you intend to view it on a PC or a DivX-compatible DVD player. if you want to view it on a traditional DVD player, you'd use a program like TmpgEnc to convert it to an MPEG file that's compliant to VCD, SVCD or DVD specifications. once you've finished converting, you can delete the massive HuffyUV file.

as for why i recommend capturing with a codec that takes up huge amounts of hard drive space, it's because the highly compressed ones like DivX require more CPU power to simultaneously capture & compress than a typical PC can provide. trying to capture directly to a codec like DivX will result in it failing to capture many frames 'cause the CPU can't keep up with it. also, with a conversion like HuffyUV to DivX, XviD or MPEG, you'd be able to apply image-enhancing filters to clean up some of the distortion inherent to TV & VHS... and it improves the effectiveness of the final compression format (highly compressed formats tend to get ugly if the distortion is left in).

or...

you could capture directly to VCD-compliant MPEG-1, or even SVCD-compliant MPEG-2, using a program like PowerVCR or WinDVR. the quality may not be quite as good as the other method (though it wouldn't be horrible or anything)... but it also wouldn't require the huge amount of hard drive storage nor would you need to do any further time-consuming conversions.

the choice depends on how much hard drive space you've got available and how much time you're willing to invest vs. the visual quality that you want to achieve.

you can find detailed guides to the various methods and programs, as well as in-depth discussions of the pros & cons of each, at http://www.doom9.net/index.html?/capture/start.html and http://www.videohelp.com/capture