As I have posted on answers to some questions, I have successfully made VCD's with the Dazzle DVC and Adaptec or Cequadrat software. But, I bought the Dazzle product to make VCD's and EDIT tapes. I am happy with the quality of the MPEG files played on a computer, but not with with quality of the VCR picture when I use captured video editing. I understand that video editing would look much nicer with M-JPEG capture cards that have higher capture resolution and data rates. But, then how can I convert that to MPEG for VCD's or for playing on PC's in a .mpg format??? I do not want to perform a capture to edit my video in M-JPEG, then re-capture again to put the final product on VCD. Do any of the video editors out there do this conversion?? If so, would the conversion be so slow that it my be faster just recapture the video in MPEG. Or, is my best bet to just get a Broadway MPEG capture card that supposedly has better capture quality than the Dazzle???

An answer to any one of these questions would be appreciated.

Thanks, Bruce

-- Bruce Kuhn (bkuhn@westell.com), August 20, 1999

Answers

My experience with commercially produced VCD's is that they play much better on DVD player than on PC. I also heard this fact from others. I too have made VCD using Dazzle and it looks sharper and brighter on DVD player. I understand that converting avi of mjpeg to mpeg takes a long time, like 20 to 1.

Kiam Oey

-- Kiam Oey (kiam.t.oey@boeing.com), August 20, 1999.

First of all, no matter what a lot of people has said, off-line encoding will always produce better-looking MPEG clips as a result. Direct capture to an MPEG-1 format (which is what Dazzle does) saves time and hard drive space but produces clips that range in quality from the merely so-so to the downright wretched, especially if the source video has a lot of fast movement and scene changes. There is simply no way something like Dazzle can know in advance that there is about to be a scene change in the incoming video and therefore force an I-frame; an off-line encoder, on the otherhand has plenty of time, power, and the ability to inspect what the next frame content is, resulting in much better looking videos whether to be played on a standalone VCD player or PC. So first, get a good capture card like any of the ones offered by Pinnacle Systems, or the Marvel G200 by Matrox. These capture to MJPEG-compressed AVI. You capture to 704X480 for NTSC or 756X480 for PAL first, then you may edit and do what else you want with the resulting AVI. In my opinion, MJPEG compression presents the best compromise between video quality and required hard drive space. Conventional AVI compression schemes like Indeo, Cinepak, etc. may produce better looking videos (due to lower compression rates, for one) and the resulting AVI file more easily encoded into MPEG-1 but consumes much more drive space, always taking into consideration the 2Gb file size limit of Windows. You then take a s/w AVI to MPEG encoder like Xing or DVMPEG (Darvision) which will encode your AVI to a final file MPEG. This will take a lot of time (1 minute of AVI will take 10 to 20mins. of encoding time, depending on processor speed, etc.) and is what people behind Dazzle always frighten you with, likewise unpalatable with people who want good results but refuse to sit it out and wait. Indeed why not start the encoding job before sleeping?? The resulting MPEG-1 file can now be included in any VCD creation layout like Easy CD Creator or WinOnCD. You really can't have it all: sit it out and wait while encoding is being done for quality, or capture direct to MPEG for so-so results. Despite what Broadway and Dazzle will say, as good as they are with their direct to MPEG capture, capturing to AVI and converting to MPEG later is still best for quality. Hope I've helped.

-- Emmanuel Martinez (epmartinez@hotmail.com), August 21, 1999.

The best AVI to MPEG encoder is Heuris MPEG Pro, following that is Panasonic MPEG encoder

-- MrVCD (mrvcd@juno.com), August 22, 1999.

I wish I could get Heuris MPEG Pro but it's too expensive for hobbyists like moi. Even Xing at $250 is not cheap. DVMPEG can also do MPEG-2 encoding and is cheaper than Xing (!) Where can we have a look at this Panasonic encoder??

-- Emmanuel Martinez (epmartinez@hotmail.com), August 22, 1999.

I am quite happy with the LSXM-MPEG encoder 2.51 from Ligos Techn. ($179)

-- Michael Micklinghoff (michael@micklinghoff.de), September 15, 1999.

whether i need to use any s/w to convert m-jpeg to mpeg format?can u just let me know what s/w have to use?and one more question is what is called wavelet format.thank's a lot mr/ms to answer my question..

-- ben Chai Ming Siang (c_ms77@yahoo.com / cmsautomation@yahoo.com), November 13, 2002.

Hi there. I found that the Panasonic mpeg encoder was by far the best I have used. I recommend it to everyone.

-- Retarded Monkey (theretardedmonkey@hotmail.com), May 06, 2003.