As the title says, I have been messing with getting this to work on and off for a few months...
Note that I am unsure which forum to put this in, but, as I have already bought the hardware, and my problems now are software-related, I thought it might be a good idea to place it here. I apologize in advance if I posted to the wrong forum...
What I have:
-Hardware:
AXP 2000+
512mb ram
2 HDs: WD 40gb 2mb cache/WD 120gb 8mb cache(40gb benches 50mb/s,120gb benches 55mb/s in HDTach)
SAA7130-based capture card(branded as AverMedia DVD EZMaker PCI), supporting composite and svideo
radeon 9000w / the rage theatre chip, so it supports composite in/out, svideo in/out.
Toshiba SD-R5112(branded as maddog 4x dvd-r 6-in-1 drive)(does not support +R, only -R)(DVD-RW drive)
Liteon LTR-40125S(branded as TDK 32/10/40B)(firmware in use overclocks drive to 40/12/50 I believe -- 100% stable as is)(CD-RW drive)
DVD-R media to spare...
Stereo VHS tape player connected to composite-in on SAA7130
-Operating system stuff:
Windows 2000 SP4 on a 15gb partition on 120gb drive
Gentoo linux(/ on 15gb partition,/home on 40gb partition, both paritions being on the 120gb drive)
-Free space:
40gb drive 100% empty and unpartitioned
120gb drive has 50gb of unpartitioned space avaliable at the end of the disk.
-Various software I own:
Pinnacle instant cd/dvd 7(FAR awhile back...)
neoDVDstandard4(OEM, came with SAA7130)
nero 6 oem suit 1(the one w/out mpeg2 encoding)(came with bundled with dvd burner)
nero 5.5 burning rom(only supports burning to image drive ATM, since my tdk burner is no longer recognized as a TDK b/c of the firmware patch)(not installed, since it also does not coexist well with nero 6)
Of course, the full complement of free software has been tried, as well (VirtualVCR, Virtualdub, mencoder, transcode, etc)
-Things I have tried without success:
do the complete operation in neoDVDstandard4...the quality of neoDVD's encoding is subpar, and, while workable if necessary, is not an optimal solution. the audio was very bad. maybe line-in volume was too high? Another problem with this approach is that any form of editing is almost impossible. since I am working with home movies, there are many, many parts that would best be removed before burning to DVD.
any form of capturing via Virtualdub does not seem to work with this capture card. no frames are captured at all.
I am unable to get nero6 to capture at anything higher then something around 320x240. I am not sure if this is ok or not.
Using VirtualVCR to encode to a huffyuv AVI file, and then edit+encode via Pinnacle Instant CD/DVD _almost_ worked. However, Instant CD/DVD tends to perform illegal operations during the encoding stange when the avi file is encoded with this codec.
Using neodvdstandard4 to capture to a .mpg file, and then edit+reencode via instant cd/dvd also just didn't quite work. late in the encoding stage, instant cd/dvd will perform an illegal operation. this issue with instant cd/dvd "causing" errors seems to be even after fresh reinstalls of windows without any excess or bad software installed.
A multitude of other things I have since forgotten...
For me, the "best" soultion would be a 100% linux approach, but I just can't seem to even get a decent capture yet. note that viewing in tvtime looks beautiful, so I know it _can_ be done, I'm just not quite sure which mix of software to use here. a windows approach is fine, and I might as well experiment with that first.
Any suggestions? An approach which does not involve spending any more $$$ would be preferable, but I am in no way against buying some more software to do the job.
A bit about the source: they are all standard play(2hr) VHS tapes. 1 tape -> 1 dvd would be nice, if possible. Very poky in parts(home videos), so a bit of minor editiong would also be nice. low quality, since they are both getting old, and were recorded on a now ancient video camera.(1990?) About 30 tapes in all.
So, now, my problem in a nutshell: I need a stable way to transfer VHS tapes to DVD.
Another alternative I am contemplating:
Record w/ VirtualVCR to huffyuv. Use Virtualdub to convert this to xvid. burn those xvid files to dvd, and buy an mpeg4-capable dvd player. Any thoughts here? Specifically, which mpeg4 dvd player would I buy at this point?
As you can see, I am kind of lost in this maze of software+hardware...And, I need suggestions...Thanks!
Note that I am unsure which forum to put this in, but, as I have already bought the hardware, and my problems now are software-related, I thought it might be a good idea to place it here. I apologize in advance if I posted to the wrong forum...
What I have:
-Hardware:
AXP 2000+
512mb ram
2 HDs: WD 40gb 2mb cache/WD 120gb 8mb cache(40gb benches 50mb/s,120gb benches 55mb/s in HDTach)
SAA7130-based capture card(branded as AverMedia DVD EZMaker PCI), supporting composite and svideo
radeon 9000w / the rage theatre chip, so it supports composite in/out, svideo in/out.
Toshiba SD-R5112(branded as maddog 4x dvd-r 6-in-1 drive)(does not support +R, only -R)(DVD-RW drive)
Liteon LTR-40125S(branded as TDK 32/10/40B)(firmware in use overclocks drive to 40/12/50 I believe -- 100% stable as is)(CD-RW drive)
DVD-R media to spare...
Stereo VHS tape player connected to composite-in on SAA7130
-Operating system stuff:
Windows 2000 SP4 on a 15gb partition on 120gb drive
Gentoo linux(/ on 15gb partition,/home on 40gb partition, both paritions being on the 120gb drive)
-Free space:
40gb drive 100% empty and unpartitioned
120gb drive has 50gb of unpartitioned space avaliable at the end of the disk.
-Various software I own:
Pinnacle instant cd/dvd 7(FAR awhile back...)
neoDVDstandard4(OEM, came with SAA7130)
nero 6 oem suit 1(the one w/out mpeg2 encoding)(came with bundled with dvd burner)
nero 5.5 burning rom(only supports burning to image drive ATM, since my tdk burner is no longer recognized as a TDK b/c of the firmware patch)(not installed, since it also does not coexist well with nero 6)
Of course, the full complement of free software has been tried, as well (VirtualVCR, Virtualdub, mencoder, transcode, etc)
-Things I have tried without success:
do the complete operation in neoDVDstandard4...the quality of neoDVD's encoding is subpar, and, while workable if necessary, is not an optimal solution. the audio was very bad. maybe line-in volume was too high? Another problem with this approach is that any form of editing is almost impossible. since I am working with home movies, there are many, many parts that would best be removed before burning to DVD.
any form of capturing via Virtualdub does not seem to work with this capture card. no frames are captured at all.
I am unable to get nero6 to capture at anything higher then something around 320x240. I am not sure if this is ok or not.
Using VirtualVCR to encode to a huffyuv AVI file, and then edit+encode via Pinnacle Instant CD/DVD _almost_ worked. However, Instant CD/DVD tends to perform illegal operations during the encoding stange when the avi file is encoded with this codec.
Using neodvdstandard4 to capture to a .mpg file, and then edit+reencode via instant cd/dvd also just didn't quite work. late in the encoding stage, instant cd/dvd will perform an illegal operation. this issue with instant cd/dvd "causing" errors seems to be even after fresh reinstalls of windows without any excess or bad software installed.
A multitude of other things I have since forgotten...
For me, the "best" soultion would be a 100% linux approach, but I just can't seem to even get a decent capture yet. note that viewing in tvtime looks beautiful, so I know it _can_ be done, I'm just not quite sure which mix of software to use here. a windows approach is fine, and I might as well experiment with that first.
Any suggestions? An approach which does not involve spending any more $$$ would be preferable, but I am in no way against buying some more software to do the job.
A bit about the source: they are all standard play(2hr) VHS tapes. 1 tape -> 1 dvd would be nice, if possible. Very poky in parts(home videos), so a bit of minor editiong would also be nice. low quality, since they are both getting old, and were recorded on a now ancient video camera.(1990?) About 30 tapes in all.
So, now, my problem in a nutshell: I need a stable way to transfer VHS tapes to DVD.
Another alternative I am contemplating:
Record w/ VirtualVCR to huffyuv. Use Virtualdub to convert this to xvid. burn those xvid files to dvd, and buy an mpeg4-capable dvd player. Any thoughts here? Specifically, which mpeg4 dvd player would I buy at this point?
As you can see, I am kind of lost in this maze of software+hardware...And, I need suggestions...Thanks!