how to capture best video quality from DVR>DVD

[dprocket]

I've got a football game stored on my DVR (kind of like a Tivo). What I'm trying to do is capture this game from the dvr to burn a DVD. It has an S-Video out and also RCAs. I've got a computer with an Athlon 2500 and a 9000 All-In-Wonder Pro video card.

I'm capuring the video just fine and can burn the dVDs ok,but I'm just dissatisfied with the quality that it is producing. I'm using Sonic MyDVD as the DVD authoring tool and for the capture itself. Anyone have any ideas? I know I'm going through several levels of compression so quality is going to get lost, but it seems like it could be better than it is. To me, it would look a little better if I just recorded to a VHS. I guess I expected more on the DVD. Any ideas of what I can do? Is this just as good as it gets? Thanks!

 

[deadseasquirrel]

It might be your capture settings (or authoring settings) in Sonic.

Check the capture settings. I use Ulead Video Studio 8. It has quality settings for capture, as well as authoring.

Also, what are you capturing as? AVI? DVD? I've never taken anything from my DVR before, but, ya know, I've got Hitchcock's NxNW on there right now and would like to make a DVD of it. Maybe I'll give it a try and check out the quality.

One thing I've done many times before (granted, with DV tapes) is capture at the absolute highest quality (and most HDD space) and make the highest quality DVD I can (8000kbps, etc). Sure, it's gonna be a big sumbitch, but just load it into DVDshrink and get it to fit on a DVDR. Keeps the quality a whole HELLUVA lot better than using lower quality settings when authoring.

I might try it tomorrow and letcha know how it comes out, though it might take a while to get back to ya about it.... 2+ hrs of capture, 4+ of rendering, ~1 reauthor, then burning. Whew.

 

[dprocket]

I would appreciate the feedback.

When I captured the video, I captured it in mpg format. I don't recall seeing an option for using AVI or another format. perhaps I should use a different program. I know that Windows Movie Maker 2 will do AVI, but I always thought that relied on a Digital signal from a firewire. Is the Ulead application free?

 

[rbV5]

I'm capuring the video just fine and can burn the dVDs ok,but I'm just dissatisfied with the quality that it is producing.

Maybe try using ATI's MMC PVR and trying small captures at different settings untill you get what you want. The best quality would be to capture uncompressed AVI and then encode, but will require alot of hardrive space.

Another approach is to capture MPEG-2. With The ATI PVR, video soap is supported in hardware so you can use some filtering while capturing without dropping frames. Using "I" frames only setting uses less compression and may end up giving you a bit better final encode. Since you are burning to DVD, you might consider encoding interlaced if you are going to be playing it back on a SD TV.

The best bet is to try different settings and DVDRW media, and try smaller captures untill you get the quality you want. Unfortunately you are working with analog capture and lossy compression in a few steps along the way which isn't the best approach. Make sure you capture at the highest quality settings on your DVR for starters.

 

[dprocket]

Thanks for the reply. I've have 160GB of HD space, and a couple extra drives, so I'm not too concerned aobut the size of files at this point, however will it affect the size on the DVD? If I capture 3 hours worth of analog programming in AVI, is it reasonable to think I can still put it all on 3-DVDs when the DVD authoring takes place? Thanks.

Sorry if this is a goofy question, I'm still a little new to this type of project.

 

[rbV5]

Thanks for the reply. I've have 160GB of HD space, and a couple extra drives, so I'm not too concerned aobut the size of files at this point, however will it affect the size on the DVD?

The size on the DVD is determined mostly by the running length of the movie, since compliant MPEG-2 bitrate is pretty much set.

Its been a while since I captured uncompressed AVI, but I remember my 80 GB RAID array was big enough for 2 hours using huffy UV codec Link Huffy gives about 50% lossless (or nearly lossless) compression over just raw uncompressed AVI.

Videohelp.com is a great resource for this kind of information. Try capturing 1 minute of video to give you a good idea how much space you'll need. Using MPEG-2 to capture opens up the support for de-interlacing and video soap filtering, as well as using considerably less HD space. AVI is easier to edit in software "generally".