For starters, since it has to be said: it is prohibited by international law to use this guide to make illegal copies of copyright protected audio and video material.

Translator's Note: I only translate the guide, so personal statements are those of the guide's author: BaronVlad. Since I'm not a native English speaker, please excuse any mistakes I may have made.

This guide is merely a guideline and definitely not the only way to achieve the desired results. Nor is it by any means complete, nor does it contain all information existing on this topic. It is only one approach, and provides some tips people have found useful for capturing to their liking. When I started putting my time into this topic (which wasn't very long ago) I wasn't able to find a complete guide, probably because I didn't know where to look. I want to save everybody else having to "reinvent the wheel".

In this guide you will be able to learn how you can capture analog video material to your computer. The source will be a PAL system and you should end up with a DivX .avi file muxed with a cbr-mp3 audio, in your preferred filesize. For the more advanced users, who prefer vbr-mp3 or ogg-vorbis, I include a small excursion into high quality sound.

Additionally, I discuss how to burn your finished videos to Video CD or SuperVideo CD. I will just treat resolutions differing from the standard and frameserving with VirtualDub in another application. The coding as well as the burning itself you can easily get from the numerous other guides on this webpage.

The program used for capturing and postprocessing is VirtualDub. It allows you to achieve better results than with the mpeg2 capture software provided with your capture card. I also separate the tasks of capturing and storing video. This means that you first save the material (including commercials and all the other junk you'll later want to get rid of) in almost lossless compression to your hard drive, and afterwards you deal with the task of processing and converting it to its final format. I am going to describe three possibilities for capturing. The choice is solely up to you, since "best" is what works best for you. Nevertheless, I do provide some support for your decision making.

You have three important decisions to make:

Desired Final Format

What format should you choose? This depends especially on where the video is intended to be played back. If you just want to play it on your computer, I'd suggest you go with DivX. This codec enables you to save the video in very high quality in a relatively small amount of space (CD or hard drive). But if you want to play your videos on your standalone player, DivX will not help you, because the standalone cannot playback mpeg4 (DivX). Your standalone is only able to do mpeg1 (VCD) and mpeg2 (SVCD) playback. Still, some players do not even support SVCD, so you might check this before starting. (A new generation of players is just emerging that play DivX.)

Capture codec

Basically, your capture should be (almost) lossless. Therefore I'm going to describe two codecs, the Huffyuv codec and the PicVideo MJPEG Codec. Huffyuv produces the best quality, but when choosing a higher resolution you need enormous amounts of disk space. Still, the codec is free. The second choice is the PicVideo MJPEG codec. This is not the only codec of the MJPEG family available. The PicVideo version is good because it consumes rather few resources. Other MJPEG codecs are provided by Morgan and Leadtech. The problem with their versions is that you can use the quality advantages only with a high end system. The difference between PicVideo and Huffyuv are that you can adjust the encoding quality in the MJPEG codec. Using the highest setting (20), the file size can get as large as the Huffyuv file, but if you use 18 or 19 the file size decreases significantly without harming the video quality.

I have to mention though that the MJPEG codec produces a picture that is a little less sharp, which may not fit everybody's needs. In addition, the codec is not free; you have to register by paying a fee to avoid watermarks being put onto the video (we are going to handle them later on though).

When handling such large files, both the processor and your hard disk will incur a significant work load. Therefore when choosing the codec, you should also consider your hardware. You'll need a fast processor and a fast hard disk [translator: in my opinion, for (almost) lossless video, a one hour plus video requires at least 40 gig of disk space]. But since the file size also depends very much on the resolution you're choosing, you should also consider your final choice:

Capture Resolution

The basic rule is: The higher the resolution, the better the quality, but unfortunately also the higher the requirements for hardware and software. This not only affects the capture itself but also all postprocessing tasks. The processing time for higher resolution movies often multiplies compared to lower or low resolution videos. I'm going to concentrate on three possible solutions, described below. I have decided to refrain almost completely from using filters when using the "1/4 PAL solution", because it should provide an easy and fast capture method and the quality is not too great anyway. Still, the filters described in the other methods can be used for this solution.

384*288 (1/4 PAL) = Low Quality
+ low hardware and software requirements
+ requires the least hard disk space
+ Huffyuv is also usable when choosing smaller hard disks
+ deinterlacing not necessary
+ filters generally not necessary
+ takes less time to convert the captured file to the desired format
- less information is being captured
- modest video quality

384*576 with vertical resize ("1/2 PAL", not scientifically correct, but clear I hope) = Average Quality
Basically only half of the PAL width(768/2 = 384), but the complete height is captured. But also the height is divided by two during the capture process so the resulting resolution will be at 384*288.
+ smaller requirements for the hard disk (compared to Full PAL, though higher requirements for the CPU)
+ requires less hard disk space
+ Huffyuv also usable for smaller disks
+ still no deinterlacing necessary
+ almost no use of filters
+ faster processing of the files later on
- more information saved than in 1/4 PAL but not nearly as much as in full PAL
- average video quality

7xx*576 (Full PAL) = High Quality
Full PAL is actually at 768*576, but different capture cards will calculate the resolution in different ways, so that there will be different values. The chosen resolution is determined by your capture card. I am using an ATI Radeon and thus decided to use a resolution of 720*576.
+ all possible information is captured
+ best quality possible
- very high requirements for hardware and software
- huge amounts of hard disk space needed
- Huffyuv can't be used with smaller hard disks
- deinterlacing is necessary
- generally requires a lot of filtering
- requires large processing power and time

Other Formats (VCD: 352*288 or SVCD: 480*576)
If you want to create a (S)VCD the resolution MUST be 352*288 (VCD) or 480*576 (SVCD). Standalones will not support any other resolutions because these are fixed standards. To achieve these formats there are two possibilities: 1) The video can be directly recorded in the required resolution. This would result in lower quality than is possible, however. Therefore, IMHO it is better to capture at Full PAL and do the resizing later. If you choose to directly capture at 352*288, please follow the 1/4 PAL settings. If you instead choose SVCD or plan on resizing later, you should use the Full PAL sections of my guide. If there is a need for a departure from any standard I will tell you to do so at the right moment.

Remember, the choice of codec (quality vs. processing time) can only be made by you. Please consider your hardware well. It will NOT be possible to record three hours of Huffyuv with your PII 400 and 10 gig hard drive.

If you want even more specific information by the guys that have really gotten into all of this, you might want to check this out: "Dr Karl's Capture Karten aspect ratio fuer Dummies ;-) ".

You can postpone the final decision for a few more minutes, because the next step will be just about optimizing your system, getting any programs you might need later on, and adjusting the basic settings.

Next step: optimizing your system and software needed: <NEXT>

Back to the Start: <HOME>

English version last edited on: 12/02/2003 | First release: n/a | Author: BaronVlad| Translator:SteVe(killingspree)| Content by Doom9.de