Need links to video capping faqs and forums

[Nightfall 0]

I just got a new computer, but when I tried to cap using Windows Media Center, it was like 30 megs for a 30 second video clip. I'm looking for some faqs or forums that have support for this stuff. I'm also looking for ways to improve my video quality.

 

Thanks for the help.

[JJMc 0]

Capturing video just takes a lot of space. There's really no way around it... Unless you get a real time MPEG encoder, which compresses it, but not in the best quality.

[Nightfall 0]

Then can you rec me some good software to make the files smaller? I can download a whole episode of an hour long show, and in perfect quality it's only like 350-400 MBs. But if I were to cap it myself on my computer, I'm sure it would be a lot bigger, as I cap 1 meg a second.

[JJMc 0]

Well, I'm not sure about any programs that capture directly to MPEG, but you can convert them to MPEG (a compressed format) afterwards with a program called TMPGEnc. It's on download.com. Don't know if it's free, though. It takes FOREVER, though, so be warned. haha. -Jim

[Jobber of the Week 0]

Video files are, by design, pretty huge. I cap entire series, regularly capping a few hours of content each week, so I can give my example:

 

I pull the MPG source off my DVR of a 30 minute program. It's 1.24GB. I then have to run a converter tool on it to make a duplicate that fixes some ordering and audio issues, this is unique to the way I do things but I have to do it for everything I cap and you may have something similar someday. That copy is also about 1.24GB.

 

Then I clip the parts I don't want in VirtualDubMod. This includes commercials, credits, etc. Since I have to save it as AVI, I continue to use a very high quality codec. In my case, PicVideo MJPEG, which cost me $30 to register, but Huffyuv is a well-known free codec. My MJPEG file though is average 2.5GB, and Huffyuv files can be nearly 7GB, which is why I went to buy MJPEG in the first place.

 

Then I extract the audio source from this file, usually a WAV and for my 30 minute program that averages about 250MB. Then I convert this WAV to MP3, which is what will be included with my movie file.

 

Finally, I take that MJPEG/Huffyuv file and do a two-pass encode with a deinterlace filter applied, creating a file of passable quality at 170MB. This is the final file that I may share around the internet later. However, creating that file, my encoding also created a number of support files, including a 400MB file and a 1MB log file.

 

At the end of the encode, all these files other than the 170MB final DivX are deleted, but the whole process of compressing it to that point requires gigs and gigs and gigs of free space.

[JJMc 0]

but the whole process of compressing it to that point requires gigs and gigs and gigs of free space.

That's the long and short of it. So, if you're serious about capturing, buy a big fuckin' hard drive.