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 Posted:
Mon Oct 31, 2005 5:30 pm Post subject:
Re: NTSC-->DV-->MPEG ? |
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On Sun, 30 Oct 2005 17:34:37 -0600, "Ken Maltby"
<kmaltby@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
| Quote: | Actually, I use an old hardware MPEG encoder (Broadcom's
Kfir-II, BCM7040) and my post wasn't specific to software
capture to MPEG. I would suggest that the OP would be better
off replacing that hardware DV encoder with a good hardware
MPEG encoder. That said; there have been some who claim
good results for their software MPEG captures of consumer
level video (normal TV, VHS, LD, ect...).
To further define a more practical approach for VHS tapes,
I use a DVD Recorder with a built-in TBC and NR circuitry.
Using a DVD RW disk, I can bring the results to my PC for
any further processing and/or proper authoring to DVD+R.
This puts the time consuming real-time capture "off-line", so
that neither I nor my computer are tied up. It only takes about
a half hour to author a DVD with neat menus & all, that way.
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Well, that's something that is simple and works. Affordable hardware
encoders however need about twice the bitrate of a good soft encoder
for good quality. If you try to squeeze more on a DVD (LP mode etc.),
they reduce first horizontal and then vertical resolution.
As the OP already has a DV encoder, why shouldn't he use it. At least
it doesn't degrade quality.
I didn't even spend an extra dime on my DV encoding because my camera
does the job in pass-through mode.
| Quote: | VHS is already bad, yes, but do we have to add more to it ?
There is no additional "bad" involved, in fact the signal
processing applied before the encoding can correct some of
the VHS "bad".
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Compared to digital TV, the shortcomings of VHS become very obvious.
As you say, your device also uses some signal processing to improve
it. However there's nothing that comes close to the effectiveness of
an interframe noise suppression (like the temporal smoother filter in
VirtualDub). Many (if not most) old VHS recordings are from analog TV,
so there's even more to do about it.
| Quote: | CCE can encode almost real time but not capture. Yet it is written
entirely in assembler, i.e. it's the fastest possible and even then
and even with a 3 Gig CPU the additional load of capturing would make
it impossible to do without dropped frames (actually, they are
offering a pro soulution that rquires 2 such CPUs).
You neglect to mention that the "pro solution" is for HDV.
Actually CCE can transcode at better than real-time.
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There is no HDTV version of CCE right now. Actually I was referring to
what they recently christened "xtreme" and always required dual CPUs.
You may get above real time with NTSC and a high end CPU, but at 3 GHz
and with PAL movies this is unlikely.
| Quote: | What is
this "additional load of capturing", all the encoder needs are a
video and an audio stream. That is provided by whatever
capture hardware/vivo/video card is connected to the source.
There is far more "load" involved when your DV is being
encoded off the timeline of your favorite NLE.
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You forget that load is not only calculations. Capturing video means
to get between 15 and 30 MBps of raw data into the system. Together
with a high CPU load for encoding, this surely matters.
The good thing with an external hardware encoder is that there is a
relatively small amount of data to get and nothing else.
There are external MPEG boxes for PC, but these are either expensive
or technically not even as good as a stand alone DVD recorder. So if I
want to do video on a PC, my choice is to capture DV.
Cheers
Codecpage
http://www.codecpage.com
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